Landbird Community Monitoring at Fort Sumter National Monument, 2010 by Michael

Landbird Community Monitoring at Fort Sumter National Monument, 2010

by Michael W. Byrne

Birds are an important component of park ecosystems, and their high body temperature, rapid metabolism, and high ecological position in most food webs make them a good indicator of the effects of local and regional changes in ecosystems. Long-term trends in the community composition, relative abundance, distribution, and occurrences of breeding-bird populations provide a measure for assessing the ecological integrity and sustainability in southeastern systems. Further, long-term patterns of these attributes in relation to changes in the structural diversity of vegetation resulting from fire and other management practices will improve our understanding of the effects of various management actions. This report summarizes data collected with the Draft SECN Landbird Community Monitoring Protocol (Byrne et al., in preparation) at Fort Pulaski National Monument in 2010.