Data gathered over decades by the thousands of volunteers who participate in the North American Breeding Bird Survey have yielded a vivid portrait of trends in the abundance of birds in eastern North America. In an article in the April 2007 issue of BioScience, Ivan Valiela, of the Boston University Marine Program, and Paulina Martinetto, at Argentina's Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, describe how they analyzed data from 40 years of observations made by volunteers who each year drive set routes. Valiela and Martinetto classified the observations by species' habitat preference and migratory habit.

Although the total number of birds recorded as nesting in the eastern and central United States has steadily decreased, the losses were heavily concentrated among species that either resided or migrated within the United States and Canada. The numbers of those that migrated farther south after the nesting season mostly did not decline, and some Neotropical migrants increased in abundance. The trends varied, however, between birds preferring different habitat.

The North American Breeding Bird Survey is susceptible to a variety of possible biases. For example, new road construction since the 1960s may have some bearing on the number of birds that volunteers notice. Yet the differences in how the number of observations changed over time for birds preferring different habitats add up to a strong case for further research.

The researchers found that decreases were especially common among birds preferring open, edge, and wetland habitat, a fact they tentatively ascribe to the spread of industrial, suburban, and other human-affected land cover in North Americaloosely, urban sprawl." Forest-loving species, in contrast, often increased in abundance, an observation that finds a likely explanation in the expansion of northern forests during much of the 20th century. The increases among forest-loving birds were most pronounced, however, among spe
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Contact: Samantha Katz
skatz@aibs.org
202-628-1500
American Institute of Biological Sciences
2-Apr-2007