Local Variation in Habitat of Great Basin Bird Species Highlighted in New SW CASC Research

A new study by SW CASC researchers that was published in Ornithological Applications,“Bird associations with floristics and physiognomy differ across five biogeographic subregions of the Great Basin, USA,” found that the link between occupancy of individual bird species and vegetation composition and structure was inconsistent within the Great Basin. As a result, bird management strategies that do not take into account regional variation in those associations may not be effective. The authors considered five biogeographic subregions of the Great Basin and 19 species of birds that occur throughout the ecoregion. The extent to which bird occupancy could be predicted on the basis of plant composition and structure varied among species and subregions. The researchers suggested that subregional differences in interactions among bird species, climate, and vegetation distributions may influence the plant species and vegetation structure with which a given bird species is associated in a particular subregion.

These findings may be particularly useful in the context of management plans for public lands in the western United States, which often assume no geographic variation in bird species’ habitat. Management decisions for some bird species are most likely to meet their objectives when made on a subregional level, rather than for the entire Great Basin.