Detections of breeding birds in the Shoshone, Toiyabe, Toquima, and Monitor ranges, Nevada: 4th edition

These data document annual detections of breeding birds in canyons throughout four mountain ranges in the central Great Basin (Lander, Nye, and Eureka counties, Nevada): the Shoshone Mountains, Toiyabe Range, Toquima Range, and Monitor Range. Data were collected during the breeding season from 2001 through 2015 and from 2018 through 2022. Birds were detected during fixed-radius point counts. In most cases, each point was visited three times per breeding season. Data include coordinates of each point, species detected, date and method of detection, and distance from the observer.
Data were collected to examine relations between occupancy and abundance of birds and topography and vegetation. Data also were collected to investigate baseline variation in occupancy and abundance of birds in space and time, to assess responses of birds to environmental change, and to compare distributions of birds and butterflies in space and time. Knowledge of baseline variation informs assessment of possible effects of environmental change, whether natural or anthropogenic.
Additional data are available from the Forest Service Research Data Archive (see Cross-References below): during point counts, birds detected at > 100 meters; flyovers during point counts (birds not necessarily using resources in the point, but present in the area); records of species detected during field research but not during point counts or at point locations; various measurements of vegetation at each point. There are three previous editions of this data publication. These editions were published on 01/27/2011, 03/01/2013, and 04/28/2015. This fourth edition, published on 04/26/2019, adds two years of data (2015 and 2018). 2018 includes an additional variable related to sampling interval within a given count. There also were a few minor data updates to values of the wind variable. References to a range of wind speeds (generally a mean and a maximum) were removed and one value, generally the mean, was included instead. This fourth edition was updated on 01/08/2020 to include data from the 2019 breeding season, and on 08/09/2022 data from the 2020-2022 breeeding season were added and a few species names were corrected/updated.