The overall goal of this project is to obtain information to allow planners, citizens, landscape architects, and wildlife researchers to assess the impact of a development on avian communities and to develop strategies to manage urban areas for birds. Census transects have been established in desert remnants, new residential neighborhoods, old residential neighborhoods, and golf courses. In addition, many volunteers have established transects and are censusing residential areas from Sun City to Apache Junction. We are currently analyzing the data to address a number of different ecological variables that could affect the distribution of birds. We have also placed the results of the surveys on the web so that people can access it and view LTER census results.
Urban areas have a huge impact on avian species richness, composition, and abundance.
The amount and types of vegetative and built structure play a large role in determining the types of birds that occur in a given urban area. Few long-term studies have been conducted to identify ecological variables that influence avian community organization in urban environments. Through a long-term study on birds in the Phoenix metropolitan area, we hope to obtain information to help planners, citizens, landscape architects, and wildlife researchers to develop strategies to manage urban areas for birds. To do this, we have established a methodology to census birds in the Phoenix metropolitan area over a number of years. You can census birds in your neighborhood and the results will be posted on this web site.