Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Montana Wildlife
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

We will assess how avian community composition changes using adult abundance of multiple avian species. Avian abundance is known to change with vegetation heterogeneity and grazing is known to affect vegetation heterogeneity, therefore, we can track vegetative patterns that occur as a result of grazing by measuring changes in avian abundance. In addition, we will link songbird abundance and breeding activity to understand the fitness consequences for avian communities with respect to grazing regimes. Breeding effort can influence the persistence of populations and existing community structure. It is therefore important to understand how grazing can affect breeding activity.