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THE EFFECTS OF HABITAT RESOLUTION ON MODELS OF AVIAN DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTIONS: A COMPARISON OF TWO LAND-COVER CLASSIFICATIONS
Citation:
Lawler, J. J., R. J. O'Connor, C. T. Hunsaker, K. B. Jones, T. R. Loveland, AND R D. White. THE EFFECTS OF HABITAT RESOLUTION ON MODELS OF AVIAN DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTIONS: A COMPARISON OF TWO LAND-COVER CLASSIFICATIONS. LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY. Springer Science and Business Media B.V;Formerly Kluwer Academic Publishers B.V., , Germany, 19(5):515-530, (2004).
Description:
The quantification of pattern is a key element of landscape analyses. One aspect of this quantification of particular importance to landscape ecologists regards the classification of continuous variables to produce categorical variables such as land-cover type or elevation stratum. Here we show that the performance of predictive models of bird species richness across the conterminous United States varied with the level of classification of the land-cover data used in the modeling process. In particular, there was marked regionalization with respect to the level of land-cover discrimination optimal in different parts of the country. Relatively coarse classification was optimal in the southeast (excepting the Appalachians), finer resolution was needed in the northern Midwest and in the northeast, and a combination of finely and coarsely discriminated variables was optimal in several mountainous regions. In addition, large parts of the drier western states involved solely climate variables as predictors. By comparing the predictions made by two models?one with coarsely classified land-cover data and one with finely-classified land-cover data?we determined in which regions of the U.S. the prediction of bird species richness was most sensitive to differences in land-cover classification. These areas included several mountainous regions as well as large forested areas of the northeastern U.S. We advocate the routine recognition of this aspect of ecological investigations.