Application of habitat association models across regions: Useful explanatory power retained in wetland bird case study

摘要: Species often exhibit regionally specific habitat associations, so habitat association models developed in one region might not be accurate or even appropriate for other regions. Three programs to survey wetland‐breeding birds covering (respectively) Great Lakes coastal wetlands, inland Great Lakes wetlands, and the Prairie Pothole Region offer an opportunity to test whether regionally specific models of habitat use by wetland‐obligate breeding birds are transferrable across regions. We first developed independent, regional population density models for four species of wetland‐obligate birds: Pied‐billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps), Virginia Rail (Rallus limicola), Sora (Porzana carolina), and American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus). We then used adjusted pseudo‐R2 values to compare the amount of variation explained by each model when applied to data collected in each of the three regions. Although …