Developing a high resolution dataset to inform grassland bird management

Keywords: climate change, grasslands, remote sensing, habitat selection, birds, spatiotemporal trends
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

The dramatic loss of grasslands coupled with uncertainty in the locations and extent of grasslands and the unique and understudied habitat selection behavior of grassland birds have conspired to result in a conservation crisis, in which many grassland bird populations are experiencing dramatic and widespread population declines. Over 80% of grasslands have been lost across most of North America, with high levels of loss ongoing, making grasslands one of the most imperiled habitats in the Midwest. As a result, grassland birds have shown the steepest, most consistent, and widespread declines of any guild of birds in North America. A publicly available grassland landcover dataset does not exist at the fine scale needed for researchers and decision makers to develop species level management and conservation strategies. We will discuss a unique cross-scale remote sensing framework to map warm- and cool-season grasslands at a high resolution (3m mmu), initial results of multi-scale ecological models of bird-habitat relationships to analyze spatiotemporal trends, and the potential for these data to reveal the grassland configurations and thresholds required to support robust populations of grassland birds.