Bird occurrence and abundance varies across environmental and disturbance gradients, which are in turn affected by global change. Using avian surveys from burned and unburned forests in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, I seek to improve our understanding or how bird communities responds to wildfire- and management-induced changes in habitat structure and landscape pattern.
During 2014-16 my collaborators and I conducted avian point count surveys across 8 Sierra Nevada fire areas of different times since disturbance. These efforts were combined with those from a regional monitoring program containing survey locations coincident with an additional 19 fires. Using these data and a multi-species occupancy modeling approach, I am assessing the influence of wildfire spatial patterns and successional trajectories on bird species occupancy and community composition. One academic pubication is currently in review with a pre-print available. Three technical reports have been completed as part of this project ( here, here, and especially here).