Download Free The Effects Of Human Residential Development On Avian Communities Along The Snake River Riparian Corridor In Jackson Hole Wy Usa Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The Effects Of Human Residential Development On Avian Communities Along The Snake River Riparian Corridor In Jackson Hole Wy Usa and write the review.

The human population is rapidly urbanizing. While this will undoubtedly present challenges for humans it will also place pressure on birds in these areas. To better manage these spaces in a manner that promotes avian biodiversity, we must first come to understand how human development affects the distribution and abundance of bird species and guilds within cities and if patterns observed previously in large cities can be extended to smaller ones. Breeding birds were surveyed along a gradient of increasing urbanization in Iowa City, Iowa, during the summers of 2014 and 2015. Study areas included a forested park, recreational park, low density residential area, medium density residential area, high density/mixed-use area, and urban core. Birds were censused a total of four times at each site using variable circular plot counts. Landscape characteristics were measured using a high resolution land cover dataset and tree canopy model. Regression models were developed to investigate relationships between the bird community and land cover characteristics. Bird species richness, diversity, and evenness all decreased with increasing urbanization, while biomass and the number of individuals peaked in the urban core. The community shifted from non-native, resident, granivorous, multi-brooding building nesters in highly developed areas to native, migrant, invertivorous, single-brooding, tree and tree cavity nesters at the least developed sites. Regression models indicated varied relationships among landscape characteristics and species richness and community prevalence of functional guilds. Native, migratory, invertivorous, tree cavity-nesting, and single-brooding species showed negative relationships to variables measuring the built environment, while non-native, resident, granivorous, building nesting, and multi-brooding species showed positive relationships to these measures. Overall, the response of avian functional guilds to varying levels of urban intensity in Iowa City were remarkably similar to the results of previous studies. This suggests that much of what has been learned previously concerning avian responses to human development can be extended to planning and implementing conservation strategies in smaller cities.
While the intent of establishing protected areas was originally to preserve natural areas for human enjoyment, most have now taken on the role of both providing recreational opportunities and protecting natural communities. While many protected areas prohibit development within their boundaries, they attract development around their periphery. Such development increases conservation pressure on the associated protected area by changing land use patterns outside the protected area, and inside the protected area with potentially increased recreational use. Understanding whether these anthropogenic changes in and near protected areas have demographic, community, or distributional consequences for native species is vital to our ability to maintain species diversity and ensure population persistence. Within the context of this broader question, I examined whether the rural development around protected areas and recreational trails and trail use within protected areas have altered bird communities in the Baraboo Hills of Wisconsin. First, I investigated whether forest bird communities have changed in the Baraboo Hills between the late 1970s and the early 2000s due to changes in forest cover or housing density. I found that there was no change in forest cover or housing density between survey periods. Bird communities have become more similar between surveys, not due to changes in forest cover or housing density, but appears to have been primarily associated with successional changes of the forest. Second, I investigated the effects of trails and trail use in protected areas on forest bird communities. I found that while bird species richness was not associated with recreational trails or trail use, the densities of most species were negatively associated with both trail use and trail width. Trails and trail use can also affect nest success, possibly by altering nest attendance behavior. I found that the nest success of Acadian Flycatchers (Empidonax virescens) was negatively associated with trail use. This suggests that both the presence of humans, and the presence of the trail itself, negatively affect forest bird communities. I recommend that the construction of new trails in forested protected areas should be limited, and that trail width should be minimized for newly constructed trails.