EDI Development Environment
This dataset includes counts of birds from surveys conducted in the French Broad River Basin in western North Carolina, USA. This basin is in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Data were collected to examine the spatial and seasonal supply of biodiversity-based cultural ecosystem services (CES), in this case, nature study through birdwatching. The data includes bird species observed at 69 sites on public and private lands during the period 2014-04-01 to 2014-08-08. Bird species were categorized with respect to migration status, level of conservation concern (both based on literature), and relative abundance in the study region (based on eBird data). Environmental data for 56 sites are provided: elevation, early season precipitation, mean summer temperature, land cover diversity, tree cover, vegetation structural diversity, vegetation annual productivity, and building density at local and landscape scales.
Graves et al. (2019, doi:10.1007/s13280-018-1068-1) used these data to analyze seasonal shifts in birdwatching supply and how those shifts impacted public access to projected birdwatching hotspots. Landscape patterns of CES supply differed substantially among five CES indicators (total bird species richness, and richness of migratory, infrequent, synanthrope, and resident species). For example, total species richness hotspots seldom overlapped with hotspots of migratory or infrequent species. Public access to CES hotspots varied seasonally. This study suggests that simple, static biodiversity metrics may overlook spatial dynamics important to CES users.
EDI is a collaboration between the University of New Mexico and the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Center for Limnology:
