Can patterns of habitat use by western Nearctic-Neotropical migratory landbirds in winter inform conservation priorities?

ABSTRACT—I use point-count survey data collected from 171 locations across 11 vegetation conditions in western Mexico to illustrate common patterns of winter habitat use by 97 Nearctic-Neotropical migratory landbird species.  A number of bird species are relatively restricted in their habitat use, with some [e.g., Northern Waterthrush (Parkesia noveboracensis), American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla)] occurring only in relatively undisturbed habitats, and others [e.g., Say’s Phoebe (Sayornis saya), Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris)] occurring only in relatively disturbed lands associated with agriculture.  A large number of bird species [e.g., Cassin’s Vireo (Vireo cassinii), MacGillivray’s Warbler (Geothlypis tolmiei)] use every one of the vegetation types considered, from low-elevation tropical deciduous forests to high-elevation conifer forests.  Bird species showing patterns of restricted habitat use deserve conservation attention, but so might more broadly distributed species that become significantly less abundant in human-altered habitats.  Identifying the latter will require the inclusion of a wider spectrum of altered vegetation types/conditions than what I included here, or than what is typically considered in wildlife-habitat relationship programs.

Methods
data were collected using 10-minute point counts in locations outlined in manuscript.  Each line is the result of a count, with the occurrence of coded bird species indicated by a zero (absent) or a 1 (present).  Bird variables are conventional 4-letter codes for English names; codes are translated in the separate metadata file.

videos were recorded on a hi-8 camcorder