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THE IMPORTANCE OF GREEN SPACES & NATIVE PLANTS TO URBAN AVIFAUNA: A Lesson on how urban residential yards can support birds during their annual cycle

Author(s): Nina Brundle

VCU

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Summary:
In this lesson students will learn about the impacts of urbanization, and the conservation challenges it poses to wildlife, in particular avifauna. Introductory ecology topics such as the theory of island biogeography and habitat fragmentation will…

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In this lesson students will learn about the impacts of urbanization, and the conservation challenges it poses to wildlife, in particular avifauna. Introductory ecology topics such as the theory of island biogeography and habitat fragmentation will be discussed, and the student will learn about the beneficial role of native plants in urban residential landscaping. A focal paper will be used to better explore these topics, and data from this observational study will be utilized to introduce generalized linear models in the R programming environment. The student should have some prior basic knowledge of introductory ecology concepts, introductory statistics and have R studio installed on their computer with a basic understanding of this programming language. Upon completion of this lesson, students will learn how urban residential yards contribute to the overall green space in urbanized areas and be used as a conservation strategy to mitigate habitat loss. In R, the student will learn how to conduct statistical analyses and determine if the species area relationship and distance effects of the theory of island biogeography predict bird richness in this study system.

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Version 1.0 - published on 08 May 2023 doi:10.25334/AAVJ-EA56 - cite this

Description

In this lesson the student will learn how to fit the data to a generalized linear model with a Poisson distribution and why this method is useful to assess count data.  Useful data manipulation and visualization skills will be obtained as they prepare the data for analyses and present their results by replicating a figure from the focal paper.

This lesson will include a focal paper and some raw data associated with the paper’s observational study.  A lesson document will provide background information on the main topics as well as introduce the generalized linear model statistical method along with an R markdown lesson document to accompany the lesson. A video presentation and instructor versions of both the lesson and R markdown will provide additional support and suggestions to help employ the lesson.  

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