The Atlas of Breeding Sites for Waterbirds in the Northern Gulf of Mexico is an effort to map the breeding locations of coastal breeding waterbirds in the northern Gulf of Mexico from 2010-2022. The Atlas was developed to provide stakeholders in the region with a means to readily access the location and status (both recent and current) of sites used for breeding activities by a wide range of waterbirds (i.e., nearshore seabirds and wading birds). Species include nesting waterbirds common to the region, such as seabirds, herons and egrets. Data in the Atlas include natural sites, anthropogenic sites, and altered colony sites to provide as complete a representation of the breeding populations in the region as feasible, and also to demonstrate and document the broad range of habitat used within the region.
The Atlas (spatial inventory) and Registry (data) compile the locations and estimates of nesting populations from Texas to Florida. These Atlas and Registry were created to fill a void for an updated and integrated regional repository. It is primarily intended to provide a tool that can be used in conservation planning for waterbird populations that utilize the coast in this region. We developed this product for local, state, and federal resource managers to aid in the development of regional conservation and management plans, to enhance our understanding of species phenology and distribution, and to evaluate important bird use areas. The Atlas may aid research scientists in the selection of study sites, the development of long-term monitoring plans, or assessing nest site fidelity. Ultimately, these data are needed by federal and state land managers who collectively are responsible for the management of the majority of the known seabird resources in the southeastern US.
These R scripts are used to assess and control the quality of breeding datasets, clean those datasets, and combine them into a coherent structure.