Predicted distribution of Eastern Wood-pewees in southwest Nova Scotia
B.Sc. Honours' Biology, Dalhousie University '14 Supervised by Dr. Cynthia Staicer, Ornithology lab
Eastern Wood-Pewees (Contopus virens) are a vulnerable listed species in Nova Scotia. As with all flycatchers in decline across their North American range, the causes are unknown though pesticide use and habitat loss are potential contributing factors.
I used Maximum-Entropy predictive habitat modeling to examine areas of available quality habitat for Eastern Wood-Pewees in Nova Scotia based on presence-absence observation counts. I compared the strength and importance of co-variates in the model as well as total model strength using an Area Under the Curve (AUC) score.
This work contributed to the PhD project of Dr. Alana Westwood focusing on six landbird species at-risk in South-west Nova Scotia.
Publications & presentations: Darlington, Siobhan. 2014. Species distribution models for Eastern Wood‐Pewee (Contopusvirens) in Kejimkujik National Park and Nova Scotia. Biology BSc Honours thesis. Dalhousie University.
Darlington, Siobhan, Staicer, Cindy. 2014. Species distribution models for Eastern Wood‐Pewee (Contopusvirens) in Kejimkujik National Park and Nova Scotia. Poster presentation March 2014 Dalhousie University Cameron Conference.
Ferrari, Clara, Alana Westwood, Jen Randall, Siobhan Darlington‐Moore, Meagan Kindree, and Cindy Staicer. 2014. Species distribution models for six species of landbirds at risk in Southwestern Nova Scotia. Poster presentation at the November 2014 MTRI Conservation Science Workshop, Lunenburg. Available from http://www.merseytobeatic.ca/conference‐2014.php