Date of Completion

2022

Document Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Environmental Sciences

Thesis Type

Honors College

First Advisor

Allan Strong

Keywords

area-sensitivity, fragmentation, edge effect, perimeter-area ratio, species richness

Abstract

Forests are of great value to many bird species, especially neotropical migrants. However, in urbanized ecosystems, much of this habitat is fragmented. Previous studies have shown that forest fragmentation can affect breeding bird richness and abundance, but these studies are limited in scope. In this study, I assessed the effect of forest fragmentation on breeding bird communities in Burlington, Vermont, USA. I surveyed 14 fragmented forest patches between 4.2 and 40.1 hectares in size to determine how the richness of breeding bird species varies with patch size and perimeter-area ratio. I found a trend of increasing breeding bird species richness as forest patch size increases, but no evidence of an effect of perimeter-area ratio on species richness. These data will be valuable for land management, restoration, and conservation initiatives in the area.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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