Boreal Songbird Occupancy Data from Understory Protection Harvest Study, 2015-2025

Acoustic monitoring data from 162 sites in northeastern Alberta, Canada, collected from 2015 to 2025. The dataset supports a Bayesian multi-species dynamic occupancy model for six focal songbird species, analyzing the effects of different forest harvest treatments. It was created by Isabelle Lebeuf-Taylor and is archived on the Borealis Harvested Dataverse.

Use Cases

• Modeling treatment-specific occupancy, colonization, and persistence for six songbird species based on the described Bayesian framework.
• Projecting landscape-level occupied habitat for Brown Creeper under alternative harvest scenarios.
• Analyzing the effect of time since harvest, distance to treatment edge, and retained understory height on bird populations.
• Assessing the long-term conservation value of partial harvest methods for old-forest-associated species.

Strengths

• Data spans an 11-year monitoring period from 2015 to 2025.
• Spatial design includes 162 sites organized into 54 clusters with three distinct treatment types.
• Species detections were validated using an acoustic classifier and manual review.
• Analysis accounts for imperfect detection and multiple covariates like time of day and day of year.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Proprietary vegetation and harvest spatial layers are not included in the repository.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Borealis Harvested Dataverse

Collection Method

Data gathered via autonomous recording units deployed across forest sites, with species detections identified using the HawkEars acoustic classifier.

Time Range

2015 to 2025

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-06 04:10:35; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northeastern Alberta, Canada, specifically the Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc. Forest Management Agreement area.