I am giving a poster at the AOU meeting in Chicago. Here is a .jpg of the poster.
This poster describes results of five surveys for Audubon's Shearwaters in the Bahamas. From the low 95% confidence interval of the densities in those surveys, I project the total population on the many islands that we have not surveyed. The point is that we can be certain of about 7000 breeding pairs of shearwaters in the Caribbean, mostly in the Bahamas. Projections using the low 95% density indicate there are likely more than 33,000 breeding pairs. Finally, projections indicate that there were at least 1,000,000 breeding pairs of Audubon's Shearwaters in the Caribbean before the main island populations were extirpated and it is not unreasonable to think that there would have been 12,000,000 breeding pairs.This rare, secretive bird was a very common species and is not playing the ecological role as a top oceanic predator and disperser of nutrients to the soils of the Caribbean. Perhaps this lack of nutrients is a factor in the lack of recovery of soils that were cleared by Europeans?
This poster describes results of five surveys for Audubon's Shearwaters in the Bahamas. From the low 95% confidence interval of the densities in those surveys, I project the total population on the many islands that we have not surveyed. The point is that we can be certain of about 7000 breeding pairs of shearwaters in the Caribbean, mostly in the Bahamas. Projections using the low 95% density indicate there are likely more than 33,000 breeding pairs. Finally, projections indicate that there were at least 1,000,000 breeding pairs of Audubon's Shearwaters in the Caribbean before the main island populations were extirpated and it is not unreasonable to think that there would have been 12,000,000 breeding pairs.This rare, secretive bird was a very common species and is not playing the ecological role as a top oceanic predator and disperser of nutrients to the soils of the Caribbean. Perhaps this lack of nutrients is a factor in the lack of recovery of soils that were cleared by Europeans?
No comments:
Post a Comment