Southwest CASC researchers found that the link between occupancy of individual bird species and vegetation composition and structure was inconsistent within the Great Basin. Their findings were published in Ornithological Applications, “Bird associations with floristics and physiognomy differ across five biogeographic subregions of the Great Basin, USA” and indicate that bird management strategies that do not take into account regional variation in those associations may not be effective. The authors considered five biogeographic subregions of the Great Basin and 19 species of birds that inhabit the Great Basin to observe these subregional differences in interactions among bird species, climate, and vegetation distributions.

Management decisions for some bird species are more likely to meet management objectives in the Great Basin, and may be more widely applicable across the western United States, when made on a subregional level.