State Wildlife Grant - T-3 and T-9-R

This study will evaluate distribution of a suite of 16 non-game marsh-breeding birds in North Dakota, and relate their distribution to habitat characteristics within the surveyed wetlands as well as wetland and upland habitat characteristics in the surrounding landscape. This study will generate a dataset of marsh bird locations throughout North Dakota. These data will be used to generate statistical models predicting wetland occupancy by target species based on wetland and upland habitat characteristics in the landscape surrounding each wetland. Using GIS, this project will produce maps of species distribution and relative abundance, as well as species-specific models for predicting occurrence of each species. Beginning in 2006, south and west of the Missouri River will also be surveyed.