Community Modeling


USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (link)


Collaborators

Amielle DeWan
Defenders of Wildlife

Bob Dorazio
USGS Florida Integrated Science Center

Jim Hines
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Marc K
éry
Swiss Ornithological Institute

Viviana Ruiz-Gutiérrez
Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology

John Sauer
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center


How to cite this page:
Coming soon...

Examples



A benefit of the community model approach is that it can account for variability in detection of species. The figure below shows the estimated bird species richness at site locations, sampled in the Catoctin Mountains (Maryland, USA) during the 2005 breeding season. The model demonstrated that the effects of understory foliage and tree basal area on richness were underestimated when considering only observed species at given locations.





The hierarchical community model can be used to make predictions about species assemblages based on landscape characteristics. The figure below shows the expected richness of forest-interior bird species based on pertinent characteristics of forest fragments (in this case, the area and the perimeter to area ratio of the forest fragment) in upstate New York.