Land Cover Sampling Biases Associated with Roadside Bird Surveys

Avian Conservation and Ecology

David G. Haskell,¹  J. Berton C. Harris,¹ 

[1] University of the South

关键词: Breeding Bird Survey;    early successional;    industrial forestry;    point count;    population estimate.;   

DOI  :  10.5751/ACE-00201-020212

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Resilience Alliance Publications

【 摘 要 】

Roadside surveys such as the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) are widely used to assess the relative abundance of bird populations. The accuracy of roadside surveys depends on the extent to which surveys from roads represent the entire region under study. We quantified roadside land cover sampling bias in Tennessee, USA, by comparing land cover proportions near roads to proportions of the surrounding region. Roadside surveys gave a biased estimate of patterns across the region because some land cover types were over- or underrepresented near roads. These biases changed over time, introducing varying levels of distortion into the data. We constructed simulated population trends for five bird species of management interest based on these measured roadside sampling biases and on field data on bird abundance. These simulations indicated that roadside surveys may give overly negative assessments of the population trends of early successional birds and of synanthropic birds, but not of late-successional birds. Because roadside surveys are the primary source of avian population trend information in North America, we conclude that these surveys should be corrected for roadside land cover sampling bias. In addition, current recommendations about the need to create more early successional habitat for birds may need reassessment in the light of the undersampling of this habitat by roads.

【 授权许可】

Others