research project details
Project Title: Design and Survey Protocols for the 2nd Pennsylvania
Breeding Bird Atlas
Investigator(s): Robert P. Brooks
Sponsor: Pa Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
Environmental Problem Addressed:
Document the composition, distribution and abundance of Pennsylvania’s avifauna in order to help insure its future conservation.
Research Project Objectives:
The objective of this research project is to design sampling protocols to allow rigorous statistical comparisons of distribution and abundance for all breeding birds in Pennsylvania using data collected by volunteers and staff as part of the 2nd Breeding Bird Survey.
Background:
The 1st Breeding Bird Atlas Project was a statewide survey conducted from 1983 to 1989 by more than 2000 volunteer birdwatchers and resulted in the publication Atlas of Breeding Birds in Pennsylvania (D.W. Brauning, ed., Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1992). From its inception, the 1st Atlas was intended to provide a baseline for subsequent efforts that would reliably track changes in composition, distribution and abundance through time.
In the 1st Breeding Bird Atlas Project, all of Pennsylvania's 4,928 atlas "blocks" (5 x 5 kilometers) were surveyed, with an average of 65 species per block recorded. A total of 188 breeding species were documented statewide.
Information contained in the 1st Breeding Bird Atlas has been used to create detailed range maps for breeding birds, contributed greatly to the enjoyment of recreational birding, helped set conservation priorities, served as source data for original research in theoretical landscape ecology, and played a key role in assessments of ecological health at large scales.
Summary:
Pennsylvania's 2nd Breeding Bird Atlas Project is scheduled to begin January 1, 2004. This project addresses the initial design phase of the project and the researchers aim to produce specially designed survey protocols for use in developing the 2nd Breeding Bird Atlas.
During the 1st Breeding Bird Atlas Project numerous species were under-represented due to unequal sampling across habitat types and sampling of nocturnal birds.
This project will examine the degree to which habitat models for breeding birds developed under Pennsylvania’s Gap Analysis Project can target survey efforts for under-represented species in the field.
The goal is to address important biases in the interpretation of data generated by the 1st Atlas. Elimination of those biases through informed sampling methodology could ensure that estimates of distribution and abundance are directly comparable among all species within known bounds of statistical confidence.