Mapping multiscale breeding bird species distributions across the United States and evaluating their conservation applications

Abstract

Species distribution models are vital to management decisions that require understanding habitat use patterns, particularly for species of conservation concern. However, the production of distribution maps for individual species is often hampered by data scarcity, and existing species maps are rarely spatially validated due to limited occurrence data. Furthermore, community‐level maps based on stacked species distribution models lack important community assemblage information (e.g., competitive exclusion) relevant to conservation. Thus, multispecies, guild, or community models are often used in conservation practice instead. To address these limitations, we aimed to generate fine‐scale, spatially continuous, nationwide maps for species represented in the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) between 1992 and 2019. We developed ensemble models for each species at three spatial resolutions—0.5, 2.5, and 5 km—across the conterminous United States. We also compared species richness patterns from stacked single‐species models with those of 19 functional guilds developed using the same data to assess the similarity between predictions. We successfully modeled 192 bird species at 5‐km resolution, 160 species at 2.5‐km resolution, and 80 species at 0.5‐km resolution. However, the species we could model represent only 28%–56% of species found in the conterminous US BBSs across resolutions owing to data limitations. We found that stacked maps and guild maps generally had high correlations across resolutions (median = 84%), but spatial agreement varied regionally by resolution and was most pronounced between the East and West at the 5‐km resolution. The spatial differences between our stacked maps and guild maps illustrate the importance of spatial validation in conservation planning. Overall, our species maps are useful for single‐species conservation and can support fine‐scale decision‐making across the United States and support community‐level conservation when used in tandem with guild maps. However, there remain data scarcity issues for many species of conservation concern when using the BBS for single‐species models.

Potential distribution patterns and species richness of avifauna in rapidly urbanizing East China

“…The lack of this knowledge often hinders the effective planning and execution of conservation efforts at the appropriate spatial levels (Stevens & Conway, 2020b ). Furthermore, it constrains advancements in macroecology, as the spatial structure of range size and species diversity patterns may vary at more detailed scales (Carroll et al., 2023 ; Stevens & Conway, 2020a ).…”

“…This lack of attention, combined with fast population growth and frequently high biodiversity in various regions, poses significant challenges (Chan et al., 2019 ; Jackson et al., 2019 ). Compared with less mobile species, the currently realized distributions of birds resemble closely their potential distributions (Carroll et al., 2023 ; Hu et al., 2017 ). Despite the province's size, studies on species distribution patterns and related conservation strategies in Jiangsu Province are lacking (Li & Zhang, 2021 ).…”

“…The accuracy of SDMs is greatly influenced by the quality and quantity of input data and the choice of SDM algorithm and model (Moonlight et al., 2020 ; Scherrer et al., 2021 ). However, studying a specific major biological group within a particular range using large‐scale species distribution data is relatively limited (Carroll et al., 2023 ; Hu et al., 2017 ).…”