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Where Birds Chill: An Assessment Of The Habitat Preferences Of Birds Overwintering In Hudson Valley Forests, Elizabeth Claire Axley Jan 2019

Where Birds Chill: An Assessment Of The Habitat Preferences Of Birds Overwintering In Hudson Valley Forests, Elizabeth Claire Axley

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Many avian species overwinter in eastern North America; however, studies on bird populations are rarely undertaken during this critical survival time, and little is known as to their habitat preferences and foraging behavior. In this observational study, we performed a survey of birds overwintering in the Hudson Valley’s temperate, primarily-deciduous forests, assessing avian populations’ habitat preferences through the vegetative structural variables surrounding overwintering birds as they forage. Our results suggest that high canopy cover is critically important to predicting overwintering bird occupancy on a microhabitat scale. Moreover, overwintering birds preferentially occupy forest plots not dominated by sugar maples, in spite …


Environmental Predictors For The Distribution Of The Caspian Green Lizard, Lacerta Strigata Eichwald, 1831, Along Elevational Gradients Of The Elburz Mountains In Northern Iran, Anooshe Kafash, Sohrab Ashrafi, Annemarie Ohler, Benedikt Rudolf Schmidt Jan 2019

Environmental Predictors For The Distribution Of The Caspian Green Lizard, Lacerta Strigata Eichwald, 1831, Along Elevational Gradients Of The Elburz Mountains In Northern Iran, Anooshe Kafash, Sohrab Ashrafi, Annemarie Ohler, Benedikt Rudolf Schmidt

Turkish Journal of Zoology

Within its range, the Caspian green lizard, Lacerta strigata, occurs in the Elburz Mountains (northern Iran) at elevations from below sea level to approximately 2700 m a.s.l. To determine the environmental factors affecting the distribution of this lizard, we used an ensemble approach to model the distribution of the Caspian green lizard (Lacerta strigata) in Iran using four algorithms (generalized boosted model, maximum entropy, generalized linear model, random forest). Results revealed that low-elevation habitats between the Elburz Mountains and the Caspian Sea are the most suitable habitats for the species. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), annual precipitation (both with …