Grassland Breeding Bird Response to Landscape, Climate, and Spring Burning in the Tallgrass Prairies of Kansas

Abstract

Given the drastic loss of prairie habitat and consequent decline in grassland bird populations, identifying the factors that influence habitat selection by grassland birds has become a critical tool for effective conservation management. This study investigated habitat occupancy by grassland birds in the Kansas Flint Hills tallgrass prairie during the 2000-2010 breeding season. Boosted regression tree models were used to relate species presence to explanatory variables representing landscape, climate, and prescribed spring burning for fifteen grassland bird species. The impact of spring burning on the diversity and structure of grassland bird communities was also examined, using a selection of diversity indices and paired distance matrices correlating similarity and geographic distance. The effect of burning on community structure was further illuminated through nonmetric multidimensional scaling ordination. All occupancy, diversity, and similarity analysis was based on data obtained from the U.S. Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), and evaluated at BBS stop level.