Fun with woodpeckers

I have been busy at work. We are beta testing some new software that mimics red-cockaded woodpecker (RCW) population dynamics. Several professors have been collecting data over the last 25 years on a particular population of birds and have used those movements to drive the population model seen on my screen above. This particular model is not an end-all to our thought process, but serves as another tool to help us make decisions on where we may want to put birds.

RCW are social birds and cooperative breeders that live in groups called clusters. RCW do better as a population when these clusters are close together or highly aggregated. In good quality habitat, the centers of their clusters tend to be spaced about .75 miles apart. As the quality of habitat goes down, they space themselves farther apart to allow for more foraging area between groups. Groups will aggressively defend their territories.

In the screen shot above the light green, dark green, and blue polygons represent different qualities of habitat based on timber type and timber age. The red dots you see represent a cluster. Clusters consist of anywhere from 4 to 15 cavity trees. The red dot is the geographic center of the "cluster". Based on parameters from the data that has been collected, this model looks at how well breeding groups (a male and a female) persist over time on the landscape. This particular model is a spatially explicit model so therefore depends greatly on the spacing or distance between groups for success. Highly aggregated populations tend to do better than fragmented ones. It can also track dispersal of helpers to neighboring groups if a vacancy were to occur there.

This model can act as a great tool in identifying which possible parcels to put our energies into if we decide to pursue putting birds in an area they may not be in presently. If there are 2 properties that can support a certain amount of groups, this model can tell us which one of those may be more beneficial in relation to where they are placed within the existing landscape the current birds are on. In essence, models are just one of many tools, including our current knowledge, to help us decide what we may want to do.