Code from: Metrics for conservation success: using the bird‐friendliness index to evaluate grassland and aridland bird community resilience across the Northern Great Plains ecosystem

Aim: Evaluating conservation effectiveness is essential to protect at‐risk species and to maximize the limited resources available to land managers. Over 60% of North American grassland and aridlands have been lost since the 1800s. Birds in these habitats are among the most imperilled in North America, yet most remaining habitats are unprotected. Despite the need to measure impact, conservation efforts on private and working lands are rarely evaluated, due in part to limited availability of suitable methods.

Location: Northern Great Plains of North America.

Methods: We developed a novel metric to evaluate grassland and aridland bird community response to habitat management, the Bird‐Friendliness Index (BFI), consisting of density estimates of grassland and aridland birds weighted by conservation need and a functional diversity metric to incorporate resiliency. We used the BFI to identify ecologically significant areas for grassland and aridland birds and compared them with other p...