The Mountain Bird Network
Standardized bird surveys along elevational gradients provide invaluable data. Survey data can be used to test fundamental hypotheses right now, and are crucial in providing information on how montane birds are responding to climate change. There are real stakes here: climate change is widely predicted to lead to to the extinctions of montane populations (and even species), and in some places montane birds are indeed on an “escalator to extinction”. But we don’t have survey data for most birds in most places. We need this information, and we need it as soon as possible. I think of the quote “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.”
We are addressing this data gap by building a collaborative group of academics and birders across the globe called the Mountain Bird Network.
The idea is simple. We will publish a Data Paper (target journal = Ecology) that provides the raw data from surveys of mountain birds across elevational gradinents, with all participants included as co-authors. We are compiling data from point count surveys, line transects, and mist-net surveys.
Thus, if you:
(1) have done a systematic bird survey of a mourntainslope, or
(2) go out and complete a systematic bird survey of your local mountain,
& share your raw data, then you can join this project as a co-author, and help produce a project will be useful to the entire research community. We hope this data paper serves as a global repository of open data that enables collaboration and testing interesting and important hypotheses across different mountain ranges.
The data paper will present three data tables:
1) Study information. A spreadsheet where each row is a different mountain bird dataset. We will prepare this.
2) Location information. A spreadsheet where each row is a different survey location (e.g. a different point count location). We ask participants to share this information; we will harmonize raw location information into our global dataset.
3) Detection information. A spreadsheet where each row is a different detection. We ask participants to share this information; we will harmonize raw detection information into our global dataset.
To participate, please share your raw data with us, and we will format it & add your study to our growing dataset.
Here is information on how to do a mountain bird network survey (link to pdf)
contact Benjamin Freeman (bfreeman47@gatech.edu) to participate
Over a dozen biologists, students and birders joined forces to survey birds along Mt. Seymour near Vancouver, BC as part of the mountain bird network. Lots of data, and even better, lots of fun
Example of data collected from mt. seymour near vancouver, BC. We used point count data from the mountain bird network to model abundance of individual species, like swainson’s (lower elevation) and Hermit (higher elevation) thrushes (left; hat tip to harold eyster). we can also use this data to measure things such as the elevational gradient in species richness (right)
I think this headline from the albuquerque journal nails it - Ethan linck (pictured) and other participants are “Birding with a purpose” to study montane birds