1 / 16

Bird Community Index

Bird Community Index. Bird community index. Relationship to keystone or umbrella species. Bird community index. Bird Community Index: Based on extensive Mid-Atlantic environmental monitoring work (EPA, Penn State) Assumes ecological condition correlates with land cover

keanu
Download Presentation

Bird Community Index

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Bird Community Index

  2. Bird community index Relationship to keystone or umbrella species

  3. Bird community index • Bird Community Index: • Based on extensive Mid-Atlantic environmental monitoring work (EPA, Penn State) • Assumes ecological condition correlates with land cover • High proportion of birds with specialized requirements indicates healthy natural forest habitat • BCI Score: • Based on amount of forested land cover within 200 acre window • Accounts for edge effects from disturbed land cover • Indicates overall ecological condition as poor, average, or good/excellent

  4. Bird community index • Birds are a good indicator of a regions overall ecological landscape condition • Sensitive to physical, chemical, biological threats • Birds are easily identified • Particularly sensitive to the availability of food, shelter, breeding • The BCI measures overall ecological condition by relating the types of birds inhabiting an area with the surrounding land cover

  5. BCI • Inputs: land cover for a buffered study area

  6. BCI Steps (simplified): • Buffer study area to account for overlap • Subset land cover for buffered study area • Create a forest cover map • Create a human cover map • Create a grid of human cover tracts greater than or equal to 5 acres • Expand human land cover tracts • Query forested pixels in buffer area • Create grid combining forest buffer and all other human land cover pixels

  7. BCI – step 1 and 2 • Buffer study area by 500 meter, use the buffer to mask the extent and create a grid of land cover

  8. BCI – step 3 Create a “Forest” cover grid • Reclassify land cover grid so all forest cover classes = 1 with open water and wetlands = nodata and everything else = 0, call this grid “forest”

  9. BCI – step 4 Create a “human cover” grid • Reclassify land cover so that all human created classes get a value = 1 with open water and wetlands = nodata and everything else = 0, call this grid “human cover”

  10. BCI – step 5 Create a “human cover 5 acres” grid • Next, find all human cover areas greater than or equal to 5 acres (around 23 cells for 30m grid cells), call this grid “human cover 5 acres” • This can be done with the majority filter command

  11. BCI – step 6 • Expand the human cover 5 acres grid out approximately 3 cells with the expand command. Call this grid “expanded” NOTE: no spaces in grid name

  12. BCI – step 7 a and b • Then reclassify the grid so 0 and nodata values are 2, and keep 1 = 1, call this grid “step7b” • Query to find the forested pixels in the expanded area

  13. BCI – step 8 a and b • Create grid combining forest buffer and all other human cover • First reclass “human cover” grid so 1 is now 0 and nodata is now 1, and 0 is 1, call this grid “step8a” Next, find all the forested pixels in the expanded area • multiply the above grid (step8a by the step7b grid ) to get the result and call it “step8b”)

  14. BCI – interpretation of the final result “step8b” • 0 indicates all non buffered human land cover tracts under 5 acres, • 1 indicates all forested buffers surrounding human cover tracts over 5 acres, and • 2 indicates all remaining forested areas

  15. Bird community index • Areas with a low index contain more non forest land uses due to ag, mining, timbering, urban/residential development • These areas are fine for generalist species such as European Starlings, American Crows, Blue Jays • Areas with a high index are primarily forested and provide habitat for many neotropical migratory birds • Examples include Cerulean Warbler, Scarlet Tanager, and Louisiana Waterthrush

  16. References Boyce, M.S., and A. Haney. 1997. Ecosystem Management: Applications for Sustainable Forest and Wildlife Resources. Yale University Press, New Haven & London. 361 pages Forman, R.T. T., and M. Godron. 1986. Landscape Ecology. Wiley, New York. Grumbine, R. E. 1994. What is Ecosystem Management. Conservation Biology8:27-38. Hobbs, R. 1997. Future Landscapes and the Future of Landscape Ecology. Landscape and Urban Planning 37:1-9. Jones, B.K, K.H. Ritters, J. D. Wickham, R.D. Tankersley, R.V. ONeill, D.J. Chaloud, E. R. Smith, and A.C. Neale. 1997 An Ecological Assessment of United States Mid-Atlantic Region: A Landscape Atlas.

More Related