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Modeling Habitat Availability of Red-shouldered and Red-tailed Hawks in Central Maryland

abstract: Once considered an abundant species in the eastern United States, local populations of red-shouldered hawks, Buteo lineatus, have declined due to habitat destruction. This destruction has created suitable habitat for red-tailed hawks, Buteo jamaicensis, and therefore increased competition between these two raptor species. Since suitable habitat is the main limiting factor for raptors, a computer model was created to simulate the effect of habitat loss in central Maryland and the impact of increased competition between the more aggressive red-tailed hawk. These simulations showed urban growth contributed to over a 30% increase in red-tailed hawk habitat as red-shouldered hawk habitat decreased 62.5-70.1% without competition and 71.8-76.3% with competition. However there was no significant difference seen between the rate of available habitat decline for current and predicted development growth. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Applied Biological Sciences 2011

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:asu.edu/item:9393
Date January 2011
ContributorsMurillo, Crystal (Author), Whysong, Gary (Advisor), Alford, Eddie (Committee member), Miller, William (Committee member), Arizona State University (Publisher)
Source SetsArizona State University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeMasters Thesis
Format59 pages
Rightshttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/, All Rights Reserved

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