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Modeling Bird Migration in Changing Habitats: Space-based Ornithology using Satellites and GISUnderstanding bird migration and avian biodiversity is one of the most compelling and challenging problems of modern biology with major implications for human health and conservation biology. Migration and conservation efforts cross national boundaries and are subject to numerous international agreements and treaties presenting challenges in both geographic space and time. Space based technology, coupled with geographic information systems, yields new opportunities to shed light on the distribution and movement of organisms on the planet and their sensitivity to human disturbances and environmental changes. At NASA, we are creating ecological forecasting tools for science and application users to address the consequences of loss of wetlands, flooding, drought or other natural disasters such as hurricanes on avian biodiversity and bird migration. In our work, we use individual organism biophysical models and drive these models with satellite observations and numerical weather predictions of the spatio-temporal gradients in climate and habitat. Geographic information system technology comprises one component of our overall simulation framework, especially for characterizing the changing habitats and conditions encountered by en-route migratory birds. Simulation provides a tool for studying bird migration across multiple scales and can be linked to mechanistic processes describing the time and energy budget states of migrating birds. Such models yield an understanding of how a migratory flyway and its component habitats function as a whole and link stop-over ecology with biological conservation and management. We present examples of our simulation of shorebirds, principally, pectoral sandpipers, along the central flyways of the United States and Canada from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska.
Document ID
20080023394
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
Smith, James A.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Deppe, Jill L.
(Maryland Univ. Baltimore County Baltimore, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2008
Subject Category
Geosciences (General)
Meeting Information
Meeting: The Society for Conservation GIS
Location: Monterey, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: August 12, 2008
End Date: August 15, 2008
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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