D02 Assessing bird point count data from a Honduran cloud forest

WRL reference	M02 D02
Module	M02 Survey Techniques
Data Set	D02 Assessing bird point counts from a Honduran cloud forest
Research questions	1. How does species richness change with increasing altitude? 2. How does the proportion of endemic species change with increasing altitude? 3. Do you think high altitude or low altitude forest is more important for the conservation of Mesoamerican birds?
Keywords	Endemism; biodiversity hotspots; indicators; isolation; conservation; human impact; niche; rainforest; sampling; species richness; survey techniques
Potential Curriculum links	AP Biology	2.D.1, 4.A.6, 4.C.4
	AP Env.Sci	III Population A
	IB Biology	C.1, C.5
	IB Ess	2.3.2
	AQA	3.4.6, 3.4.7, 3.7.4, MS, AT, PS
	edexcel	A – 4.2, 4.3, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, B – 10.1, 10.3 Maths A
	OCR	A – 4.2.1, 6.3.1, 6.3.2 – M, PAG, HSW
	SQA	FH2J 3 (b) (c) (i) (ii) (iii) (iv), HOAL 1(b) (c) (d) (e)
	CCEA	4.4.3
	WJEC	C1-5, C2 -1, App B, Pract.req.
Summary	The forests of Mesoamerica are a biodiversity ‘hotspot’ and this study describes how the populations of birds are assessed. The field site is in the cloud forests of Honduras and involve data collected using a ‘point count’ method. The study looks at species richness, proportion of endemic species and how altitude affects the populations of birds in Mesoamerica. The exercise involves constructing scatter plots with trend lines. Difficulty: 6/10 (overall)