Emily Silverman & Kimberly Hall

Territory size and establishment in breeding

forest songbirds:

Implications for forest management and

conservation

Project objectives

• Develop accurate quantitative methods to measure the size and boundaries of breeding territories

• Investigate factors affecting the relationship between micro-habitat features, territoriality, and breeding densities

Isoclines of breeding neotropical migrant diversity Source: Price 1995Source: Price et al. 1995

Species richness of breeding neotropical migrant songbirds

Lightly-browsed Heavily-browsed

Thinned hardwoods in the Hiawatha National Forest

40% firs 1.5 m hgt

Warbler use

Yrs 0 1 2 3 4

Understory vegetation

1300 m

Observationsof singing males 1999

Methods

• Simulation model of bird movement & sampling strategies

• Territory mapping of 3 species with different patterns of micro-habitat use

• Vegetation mapping and measurement

• Observation of timing and location of spring arrivals