The use of climate and land cover to predict avian abundance across the Midwestern United States.

We used a Bayesian hierarchical modeling framework to evaluate land cover and climate relationships with abundance of avian species with varying habitat requirements across the Midwestern U.S. based on North American Breeding Bird Survey data.  We then linked these models to landscape change and climate models to evaluate potential long-term impacts on birds and evaluate proposed conservation activities to mitigate negative impacts associated with climate change. This research predicted large scale patterns in bird abundance for conservation planning.