TY - JOUR
T1 - Predicting Nesting Habitat of Northern Goshawks in Mixed Aspen-Lodgepole Pine Forests in a High-Elevation Shrub-Steppe Dominated Landscape
AU - Miller, Robert A.
AU - Carlisle, Jay D.
AU - Bechard, Marc J.
AU - Santini, Dena
PY - 2013/5/1
Y1 - 2013/5/1
N2 - We developed a habitat suitability model for predicting nest locations of breeding Northern Goshawks ( Accipiter gentilis ) in the high-elevation mixed forest and shrub-steppe habitat of south-central Idaho, USA. We used elevation, slope, aspect, ruggedness, distance-to-water, canopy cover, and individual bands of Landsat imagery as predictors for known nest locations with logistic regression. We found goshawks prefer to nest in gently-sloping, east-facing, non-rugged areas of dense aspen and lodgepole pine forests with low reflectance in green (0.53 - 0.61 μm) wavelengths during the breeding season. We used the model results to classify our 43,169 hectare study area into nesting suitability categories: well suited (8.8%), marginally suited (5.1%), and poorly suited (86.1%). We evaluated our model’s performance by comparing the modeled results to a set of GPS locations of known nests (n = 15) that were not used to develop the model. Observed nest locations matched model results 93.3% of the time for well suited habitat and fell within poorly suited areas only 6.7% of the time. Our method improves on goshawk nesting models developed previously by others and may be applicable for surveying goshawks in adjacent mountain ranges across the northern Great Basin.
AB - We developed a habitat suitability model for predicting nest locations of breeding Northern Goshawks ( Accipiter gentilis ) in the high-elevation mixed forest and shrub-steppe habitat of south-central Idaho, USA. We used elevation, slope, aspect, ruggedness, distance-to-water, canopy cover, and individual bands of Landsat imagery as predictors for known nest locations with logistic regression. We found goshawks prefer to nest in gently-sloping, east-facing, non-rugged areas of dense aspen and lodgepole pine forests with low reflectance in green (0.53 - 0.61 μm) wavelengths during the breeding season. We used the model results to classify our 43,169 hectare study area into nesting suitability categories: well suited (8.8%), marginally suited (5.1%), and poorly suited (86.1%). We evaluated our model’s performance by comparing the modeled results to a set of GPS locations of known nests (n = 15) that were not used to develop the model. Observed nest locations matched model results 93.3% of the time for well suited habitat and fell within poorly suited areas only 6.7% of the time. Our method improves on goshawk nesting models developed previously by others and may be applicable for surveying goshawks in adjacent mountain ranges across the northern Great Basin.
KW - Accipiter gentilis
KW - Breeding Ecology
KW - Habitat
KW - Idaho
KW - Nest Model
KW - Northern Goshawk
UR - https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/ibo_facpubs/16
U2 - 10.4236/oje.2013.32013
DO - 10.4236/oje.2013.32013
M3 - Article
JO - Intermountain Bird Observatory Publications and Presentations
JF - Intermountain Bird Observatory Publications and Presentations
ER -