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

Characteristics of both the house and the neighborhood often matter when people decide where to live. The same holds true for birds; when deciding where to place a nest, both the characteristics of the tree, and the surrounding area are important. However, these characteristics - including neighborhood size and its environmental features - are unknown for the majority of bird species. Our ability to predict where species are currently found and where they are likely to be in the future depends on understanding why birds use the places they do. The project proposed here seeks to understand the characteristics of the environmental neighborhoods that shape where birds occur across North America, then test hypotheses as to why birds are found in their respective neighborhoods. Results from this work will be valuable to society because understanding how species respond to their surroundings can help us use wildlife management resources more effectively, and improve our predictions of how species may respond to future environmental change.