Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Ralph, C. John; Rich, Terrell D., editors 2005. Bird Conservation Implementation and Integration in the Americas: Proceedings of the Third International Partners in Flight Conference. 2002 March 20-24
Publisher
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
Publication Date
2005
Volume
Volume 1 Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-191
Disciplines
Biology | Life Sciences
Abstract
Monitoring can and should be much more than the effort to track population trends; it can be a proactive effort to understand the effects of human activities on bird populations. It should be an integral part of the adaptive management process. With this in mind, the Northern Region Landbird Monitoring Program has a dual focus: (1) to monitor long-term bird population trends, and (2) to study bird-habitat relationships and management effects. By conducting permanent, longterm monitoring transects every other year, we are free to use the intervening years to study the effects of specific management activities. The coordination and funding is in place to achieve an impressive degree of replication in such studies. These alternate-year monitoring efforts have great potential to get managementoriented results into the hands of managers in the short term, so planning can be improved before long-term trends might reveal a problem. We have conducted several such projects, including the effects of partialcut logging in coniferous forests, and the effects of grazing on willow-riparian bird communities. We discuss here another such project that we initiated in 2001, on bird responses to dry-forest restoration in the northern Rockies. Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) stands have been greatly altered from historical conditions due to logging and fire suppression. Active treatment of ponderosa pine forests to reverse historical trends is a recent management direction involving wellfinanced, regionally coordinated restoration efforts. The widespread distribution and abundance of planned treatments provided a unique opportunity for a controlled research design (with high replication), including pre- and post-treatment surveys. We present some preliminary results and discuss their relevance to adaptive management.
Keywords
forest, habitat relationships, management, monitoring, restoration
Rights
This article is in the public domain.
Recommended Citation
Young, Jock S.; Hoffland, John R.; Hutto, Richard L. 2005. Monitoring for Adaptive Management in Coniferous Forests of the Northern Rockies. In: Ralph, C. John; Rich, Terrell D., editors 2005. Bird Conservation Implementation and Integration in the Americas: Proceedings of the Third International Partners in Flight Conference. 2002 March 20-24; Asilomar, California, Volume 1 Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-191. Albany, CA: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station: p. 405-411