Journal article
Continuum or discrete patch landscape models for savanna birds? Towards a pluralistic approach
Bronwyn Price, Clive A McAlpine, Alex S Kutt, Stuart R Phinn, David V Pullar, John A Ludwig
ECOGRAPHY | WILEY | Published : 2009
Abstract
Conceptualising landscapes as a mosaic of discrete habitat patches is fundamental to landscape ecology, metapopulation theory and conservation biology. An emerging question in ecology is: when is the discrete patch model more appropriate than alternative and conceptually appealing models such as the continuum model? There is limited empirical testing of the utility of alternative landscape models compared to the discrete patch model for a range of species. In this paper, we constructed three alternative sets of models for testing the effect of landscape structure on diversity and abundance of a suite of woodland birds in a savanna landscape of northern Australia: the null model (only site-sc..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council (ARC)
Funding Acknowledgements
This study was funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project DP0667029: "Beyond discrete landscape metrics: spatial analysis tools and surface textural measures for quantifying gradients in landscape structure". We are grateful for the help of numerous landholders in granting us access to their properties for the survey: the Bodes (Woura Park and Timaru) and Haydons (Penrice). Michiala Bowen (The Univ. of Queensland) assisted greatly with vegetation surveys. Eric Vanderduys and Justin Perry (CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems) provided valuable assistance with the bird counts, which was funded by CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems and the Australian Government Natural Heritage Trust. We thank the subject editor, Thorsten Wiegand, and three anonymous reviewers who provided comments that greatly improved the manuscript.