Description
INTRODUCTION
Knowledge of spatial and temporal changes in biodiversity contributes to management of both protected and invasive species and helps ensure sustainable use of natural resources. Annually since 2015, Nelson City Council (‘NCC’) has used standardised 5-minute point-counts to monitor the relative abundance of birds at select sites within its conservation and landscape reserves. Information from this ongoing study is being used by biodiversity researchers to assess ecosystem health, thereby guiding conservation efforts and allocation of resources, as well as informing development of effective environmental policies. The principal objectives of NCC’s avian monitoring programme are to:
- Identify what bird species occur in Nelson reserves.
- Provide baseline data of the relative abundance and local geographic distributions of Nelson’s birds, against which the effects of environmental change (such as that caused by invasive predators, habitat loss or global warming) can be assessed.
METHODS
Six transects of point-count stations were established in 2015 at sites representing a broad range of distinct vegetation types (e.g., grasslands mixed with exotic trees, podocarp, beech, and indigenous broadleaved forest) and differing in proximity to Nelson’s urban/peri-urban areas. Wetlands and coastal areas were not included. To increase sample size and the diversity of surveyed habitats, three more transects were added during 2022; however, due to its remote location, one of these new transects was not surveyed again in 2023. Transect sites were selected to exemplify key habitats within Nelson reserves surrounding the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary, the South Island’s largest fully fenced, predator-free sanctuary for vulnerable native flora and fauna, and therefore a source of populations for eventual re-establishment of extirpated native species in the Nelson area. Individual transects are comprised of 6-to-13 point-count stations (adjacent stations located approximately 200m apart), the number of stations in each transect depending on the extent of the focal habitat.
Point counts were made by a single observer during generally fine weather conditions with little wind, following standardised methods developed by the New Zealand Department of Conservation. Typically, four replicate point counts were conducted per counting station per year, on separate days sometime between late October to early December; however, due to poor weather, for three transects during three different years, only three counts were conducted. Throughout the entire nine-year monitoring period, each counting station was surveyed in total between 33 to 36 times, yielding data from 62-to-95 different counting stations annually and 235-to-369 individual point counts, depending on the number of transects visited, giving a grand total of 2,417 point counts during the nine-year monitoring period.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 13,942 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Nelson City Council Avian monitoring data, 2015 - 2023.
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Nelson City Council. To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: a5f74b25-e5c4-46a7-8676-90dc712ea943. Nelson City Council publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF New Zealand.
Keywords
Samplingevent; Derivedfromoccurrence
Contacts
- Metadata Provider
- Metadata Provider
- Environmental Programmes Advisor
Geographic Coverage
Reserves of Nelson City Council.
Bounding Coordinates | South West [-41.364, 173.267], North East [-41.271, 173.421] |
---|
Taxonomic Coverage
All observed birds were identified to species.
Order | Gruiformes, Columbiformes, Charadriiformes, Cuculiformes, Anseriformes, Psittaciformes, Galliformes, Passeriformes, Pelecaniformes, Coraciiformes, Falconiformes, Accipitriformes |
---|---|
Family | Fringillidae, Halcyonidae, Acanthizidae, Passeridae, Laridae, Prunellidae, Accipitridae, Hirundinidae, Columbidae, Meliphagidae, Odontophoridae, Alaudidae, Cuculidae, Mohouidae, Emberizidae, Phasianidae, Rhipiduridae, Falconidae, Turdidae, Rallidae, Zosteropidae, Petroicidae, Psittaculidae, Ardeidae, Anatidae, Sturnidae, Acanthisittidae |
Temporal Coverage
Start Date / End Date | 2015-11-13 / 2023-11-07 |
---|
Project Data
No Description available
Title | Nelson City Council avian point-count data, 2015 - 2023 |
---|
The personnel involved in the project:
- Content Provider
Sampling Methods
Six transects of point-count stations were established in 2015 at sites representing a broad range of distinct vegetation types (e.g., grasslands mixed with exotic trees, podocarp, beech, and indigenous broadleaved forest) and differing in proximity to Nelson’s urban/peri-urban areas. Wetlands and coastal areas were not included. To increase sample size and the diversity of surveyed habitats, three more transects were added during 2022; however, due to its remote location, one of these new transects was not surveyed again in 2023. Transect sites were selected to exemplify key habitats within Nelson reserves surrounding the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary, the South Island’s largest fully fenced, predator-free sanctuary for vulnerable native flora and fauna, and therefore a source of populations for eventual re-establishment of extirpated native species in the Nelson area. Individual transects are comprised of 6-to-13 point-count stations (adjacent stations located approximately 200m apart), the number of stations in each transect depending on the extent of the focal habitat.
Study Extent | Conservation and landscape reserves of Nelson City Council. |
---|
Method step description:
- Point counts were made by a single observer during generally fine weather conditions with little wind, following standardised methods developed by the New Zealand Department of Conservation. Typically, four replicate point counts were conducted per counting station per year, on separate days sometime between late October to early December; however, due to poor weather, for three transects during three different years, only three counts were conducted. Throughout the entire nine-year monitoring period, each counting station was surveyed in total between 33 to 36 times, yielding data from 62-to-95 different counting stations annually and 235-to-369 individual point counts, depending on the number of transects visited, giving a grand total of 2,417 point counts during the nine-year monitoring period.
Additional Metadata
Acknowledgements | Wildland Consultants (2015). Nelson Nature Project: Environmental monitoring five-minute bird counts - inland hill country, Nelson Halo, Dun Mountain, November 2015. Wildland Consultants Ltd Contract Report No. 3833a. Prepared for Nelson City Council. 13 pp. Wildland Consultants (2016). Nelson Nature Project: Environmental monitoring five-minute bird counts - inland hill country, Nelson Halo, Dun Mountain, November 2016. Wildland Consultants Ltd Contract Report No. 3833e. Prepared for Nelson City Council. 12 pp. Wildland Consultants (2017). Nelson Nature Project: Environmental monitoring five-minute bird counts - inland hill country, Nelson Halo, Dun Mountain, November 2017. Wildland Consultants Ltd Contract Report No. 3833f. Prepared for Nelson City Council. 13 pp. Wildland Consultants (2018). Nelson Nature Project: Environmental monitoring five-minute bird counts - inland hill country, Nelson Halo, Dun Mountain, November 2018. Wildland Consultants Ltd Contract Report No. 3833g. Prepared for Nelson City Council. 14 pp. Wildland Consultants (2019). Nelson Nature Project: Environmental monitoring five-minute bird counts - inland hill country, Nelson Halo, Dun Mountain, November 2019. Wildland Consultants Ltd Contract Report No. 3833i. Prepared for Nelson City Council. 21 pp. Wildland Consultants (2020). Nelson Nature Project: Environmental monitoring five-minute bird counts - inland hill country, Nelson Halo, Dun Mountain, November 2020. Wildland Consultants Ltd Contract Report No. 3833j. Prepared for Nelson City Council. 12 pp. Wildland Consultants (2021). Nelson Nature Project: Environmental monitoring five-minute bird counts - inland hill country, Nelson Halo, Dun Mountain, November 2021. Wildland Consultants Ltd Contract Report No. 3833k. Prepared for Nelson City Council. 12 pp. Wildland Consultants (2022). Nelson Nature Project: Environmental monitoring five-minute bird counts - inland hill country, Nelson Halo, Dun Mountain, November 2022. Wildland Consultants Ltd Contract Report No. 3833l. Prepared for Nelson City Council. 12 pp. Wildland Consultants (2023). Nelson Nature Project: Environmental monitoring five-minute bird counts – inland hill country, Nelson Halo, Dun Mountain, November 2023. Wildland Consultants Ltd Contract Report No. 3833m. Prepared for Nelson City Council. 17 pp. |
---|---|
Alternative Identifiers | a5f74b25-e5c4-46a7-8676-90dc712ea943 |
https://ipt.gbif.org.nz/resource?r=ncc_bird_counts_until_2023 |