Detections of breeding birds in the Wassuk Range, Sweetwater Mountains, and east slope of the Sierra Nevada, Nevada and California: 2nd edition

These data document annual detections of breeding birds in canyons throughout three mountain ranges in the western Great Basin (Mineral, Douglas, and Lyon Counties, Nevada; and Alpine and Mono Counties, California): the Wassuk Range, Sweetwater Mountains, and east slope of the Sierra Nevada. Data were collected during the breeding season from 2012-2022, inclusive. Birds were detected during fixed-radius point counts. In most cases, each point was visited three times per 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 is a previous edition of this data publication (Fleishman 2015, https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2015-0031). This second edition, published on 05/07/2019, adds three years of data along with further metadata updates. We recommend the use of this newer edition. This second edition was updated on 01/08/2020 to include data from the 2019 breeding season and again on 08/09/2022 data from the 2020-2022 breeeding season were added in addition to a few species names being corrected/updated.