Forty-five Years and Counting: Reflections from the Palomarin Field Station on the Contribution of Long-Term Monitoring and Recommendations for the Future

The first 50 years of the North American Breeding Bird Survey

“…While we did not find evidence in this study for local productivity being an important driver of population change, we encourage future studies to explore proximate demographic causes in more detail. Long-term monitoring data from banding sites that include data on breeding status and productivity provide an important supplement to the data obtained through large-scale monitoring programs (Saracco et al 2008, Porzig et al 2011.…”

“…Long-term monitoring of abundance and vital rates such as productivity can be used to identify species and/or populations of conservation concern, as well as potentially which portion of the annual cycle is most limiting (DeSante et al 2001, Saracco et al 2008. Examining trends from monitoring provides a wealth of baseline data, an opportunity to recognize changes in abundance or phenology, and a way to monitor the effects of persistent environmental change such as habitat conversion, fire suppression, and global climate change (Porzig et al 2011). The Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is one of the most important large-scale monitoring efforts.…”

Acoustic monitoring of nocturnally migrating birds accurately assesses the timing and magnitude of migration through the Great Lakes

“…Variation in local weather conditions may have contributed to the variation in flight-call data between our recording sites in this study. An optimal approach may involve multiple techniques for migration monitoring to produce the most comprehensive understanding of bird movement on large and small landscape scales (Milliken 2005, Peckford and Taylor 2008, Porzig et al 2011.…”

Using Long-Term Constant-Effort Banding Data to Monitor Population Trends of Migratory Birds: A 33-Year Assessment of Adjacent Coastal Stations

“…Banding stations could provide a useful means of tracking avian population trends with significantly fewer personnel than current large-scale monitoring programs require. However, it is increasingly clear that each monitoring technique has its own suite of limitations and that it is best to validate results by several independent techniques (Porzig et al 2011). BBS routes are spatially explicit, so the locations of declining populations can be determined, whereas the origin of birds captured at banding stations are currently unknown (but see Wassenaar andHobson 2001, Langin et al 2007).…”

“…Constant-effort mist-netting stations are used throughout North America to assess changes in population indices of songbirds along migratory routes (Porzig et al 2011), yet few studies have critically assessed estimates of long-term population trends derived from migration-monitoring stations (Ballard et al 2003, Lloyd-Evans and Atwood 2004, Rimmer et al 2004. The validity of estimates of long-term population trends derived from migration-monitoring stations has been criticized for several reasons.…”