V. MAPS 5-YEAR PLAN & OBJECTIVES FOR THE NEXT 3 YEARS

With the completion of ten years (1992-2001) of standardized data collection, MAPS will have matured to the point where it can begin to achieve its major research and management goals, as well as provide meaningful summaries of monitoring results. Here I present our overall five-year plan and a plan for achieving a specific set of monitoring, research, and management objectives over the next three years (2001-2003).

The major monitoring objective for these three years is the production of a ten-year summary of regional patterns and trends in productivity indices and estimates of adult population size, adult survival rate, recruitment rate into the adult population, and population growth rate for about 100 target species, and a comparison of these data to population trend data from the BBS and other sources. This will represent the first ever comprehensive summary and regional analysis of the vital rates of 100 or so of the more common landbird species over an entire continent.

These monitoring results will provide the basis for achieving the two major research objectives that are to be addressed during the next three years: (1) to identify spatial patterns in the relationship between a major climate variable (standardized El Nino Southern Oscillation [ENSO] Index) and productivity indices from the MAPS Program; and (2) to identify spatial patterns in the relationships between vital rates (productivity, recruitment, and survival) and species-specific demographic and ecological correlates and life history traits, including population growth rate, body mass, migration strategy, nest location, foraging strategy, and habitat preference. Achieving these two research objectives also paves the way for reaching the major research goal for the final two years of this five-year plan: to describe temporal patterns in the vital rates of target landbird species and to relate them to demographic and ecological correlates. All of these research objectives address critical areas of current scientific investigation that have profoundly important practical applications. Understanding the manner in which global climate variables affect bird demographics, and the manner in which bird demographics affect and are constrained by life history strategies, are fundamental for projecting the effects of human-induced climate change upon avian diversity across north America.

Fulfilling these research objectives will, in turn, provide the basis for achieving the major management objective of these three years: identification of the proximate demographic cause(s) of population change for some 40 or more target species. We will accomplish this objective by modeling spatial variation in vital rates as a function of spatial variation in population trends and ecological characteristics. Identification of the demographic cause(s) of population decline is crucial for assuring that the most appropriate species-specific management actions are being implemented to reverse the declines, and that management efforts are not being directed towards inappropriate stages in the life cycles of the species.

The application to MAPS data of two recently developed analytical techniques is necessary for achieving the research and management results proposed above. These are: (1) extension of a method for adjusting indices of adult population size and productivity to account for missed effort during operation of MAPS stations (Peach et al. 1998); and (2) the use of temporal symmetry models that permit direct estimation of recruitment and population growth rates from mark-recapture data (Pradel 1996, Nichols and Hines in press). Application of these new methods to MAPS data provides the final two objectives to be addressed during the first three years of this five-year plan.

Completing the three-year objectives discussed above will set the stage for fulfilling the major management goal for the final two years of this plan: formulation of landscape-level management actions and conservation strategies for 40 or more target species to reverse population declines and maintain stable or increasing populations. We will achieve this goal by establishing relationships between productivity indices and recruitment estimates obtained from 12 years (1992-2003) of MAPS data and station-specific and landscape-level habitat characteristics.

The objectives proposed here have been achieved for very few species anywhere, and for virtually no landbird species in North America, save a few that are critically endangered because of outright habitat destruction. Still, we believe that we can meet these objectives, given the increasingly powerful mark-recapture models that have recently been developed and more than ten years of data from the network of over 500 MAPS stations all utilizing a standardized protocol. We are confident that we can fulfill these objectives, because we have already completed successful pilot studies on all of them at one or more spatial scales.

Completion of the objectives outlined in this five-year plan will allow the information derived from 12 years of MAPS data to be applied to the development and implementation of landscape-level management plans in a scientifically rigorous manner. The management goal for MAPS subsequent to these five years will be to evaluate, through an adaptive management framework, the effectiveness of the management actions and conservation strategies that are actually implemented. Under this approach, we will utilize hypothesis-driven sampling strategies for siting new stations, such that existing stations will serve as controls and will be paired with new experimental stations in areas where management strategies designed specifically to increase productivity are being implemented. If the goal is to manage for increased productivity, then the adaptive management process demands that productivity, and not simply population size, be monitored. Before reaching that stage of the program, however, we need first to identify those species whose population declines can be reversed by increasing their productivity, and then to formulate appropriate management strategies for them. That is the goal of our five-year plan.

IV: Recent Results   VI: Literature Cited