Management Strategies for Reversing Declines in Landbirds of Conservation Concern on Military Installations

In this study, demographic monitoring and species-landscape modeling have revealed important ecological relationships for demographics among 10 species of conservation concern. From these models we have fairly accurately predicted the effects of proposed forest management on populations of multiple breeding species. Furthermore, it is possible to spatially extend these models to map potential habitat for a particular species on any land holdings within the extent of the study. 

The latest report documents early results from “effectiveness monitoring” and provides an update to the earlier more comprehensive report on implementing management in the vicinity of MAPS stations on military installations. This report details research that adopts IBP's adaptive Monitoring, Modeling, and Management approach to avian conservation:

Nott, M. P. and N. Michel. 2006. Management strategies for reversing declines in landbirds of conservation concern on military installations: Updating predictive models of land management. The Institute for Bird Populations, Pt. Reyes Station, CA. A report to the Legacy Resources Management Office, Washington. D.C.. PDF (107KB)

Nott, M. P. and N. Michel. 2005. Management strategies for reversing declines in landbirds of conservation concern on military installations: Predictive modeling of landbird populations on military installations. The Institute for Bird Populations, Pt. Reyes Station, CA. A report to the Legacy Resources Management Office, Washington. D.C.. PDF (641KB)

The management actions were based on guidelines formulated from species-landscape models which were constructed at the end of the baseline monitoring period (1994-2002):

Nott, M. P., D. F. DeSante, and N. Michel. 2003. Management Strategies for Reversing Declines in Landbirds of Conservation Concern on Military Installations: A Landscape-scale Analysis of MAPS data. A report to the Legacy Resources Management Office, Washington. D.C. Executive Summary, PDF (332KB)

Two smaller reports demonstrated the existence of landscape models based on MAPS data at more local scales. The first documents the effects of landscape apttern and structure on avian demographics in Texas.

Nott, M.P. 2002. Weather and landscape effects on landbird survival and reproductive success in Texas. (Tech. report to the Texas Army National Guard Command: Adjutant General's Department and U.S. Department of Defense Legacy Resources Management Office, Contribution No. 163 of The Institute for Bird Populations.) PDF (10MB)

The second report documents the results of a landscape analysis of National Landcover Data surrounding MAPS stations located on Big Oaks NWR (formerly Jefferson Proving Ground). Importantly, this study quantifies forest patch size threshold values of maximum reproductive success for four forest-interior landbird species.

Nott, M.P. 2000. Identifying Management Actions on DoD Installations to Reverse Declines in Neotropical Birds. (Tech. report to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Contribution No. 133 of The Institute for Bird Populations, 21 p) PDF (200KB)

The species-landscape models described in these reports have benefited from the development of analytical techniques that provide more precise estimates of survival rates and adjust reproductive indices to account for missed banding effort:

Nott M.P., and D.F. DeSante. 2002. Demographic monitoring and the identification of transients in mark-recapture models. In: Predicting Species Occurrences: Issues of Scale and Accuracy (Scott, J. M., P. J. Heglund, M. Morrison, M. Raphael, J. Haufler, B. Wall, Editors). Island Press. Covello, CA. PDF (480KB)

Nott, M.P. and D.F.DeSante. 2002. A proposed methodology for adjusting productivity indices given missing effort in constant-effort mist-netting data. (Tech. report to the U.S. Department of Defense Legacy Resources Management Program, Contribution No.163 of The Institute for Bird Populations.) PDF (20KB)

A small report documents the seasonal patterns of precipitation (GPCP) associated with the 2.5 degree blocks that banding locations (DoD installations) lie within:

Nott, M. P. and N. Michel. 2006. Management strategies for reversing declines in landbirds of conservation concern on military installations: Enhanced species-landscape models of avian demographics. The Institute for Bird Populations, Pt. Reyes Station, CA. A report to the Legacy Resources Management Office, Washington. D.C.. PDF (1.47MB)

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This page was last updated 12/29/2006