Geographic variation in habitat structure for the wood warblers in Maine and Minnesota

Abstract

The habitats occupied by species of wood warblers (Emberizidae) were compared at two study areas, Itasca State Park, Minnesota and Mount Blue State Park, Maine. Univariate comparisons of each variable of habitat structure show geographic differences for each species of warbler. Habitats available were also different because small trees were always more dense in Maine than in Minnesota. The Black-throated Green Warbler had the most dissimilar habitat with 9 of 11 variables different at the two sites.

Cluster analysis identified four generalized habitat groups containing (1) species occupying territories with high percent shrub cover, (2) forest species from Maine, (3) forest species from Minnesota and (4) open country species. Reciprocal averaging ordination was used to identify habitat gradients at each site. The first axis of the Maine and Minnesota ordinations was a gradient from open country with dense ground cover to forest vegetation. The second axes differed, however. In Minnesota, the gradient separated medium deciduous trees from large conifers, whereas in Maine, vegetation graded from medium and large deciduous trees to coniferous habitats. Spearman rank correlation indicated that the warblers were similarly arranged along both habitat axes at each site despite differences in axis loadings of habitat variables.

A combined reciprocal averaging ordination separated forest and shrub-forest edge species in Maine from the same two species groups in Minnesota along a smaller to larger tree axis. The results clearly demonstrate that habitat structure is not consistent throughout the range of many widely distributed species. It is suggested that the similar arrangement of species along the habitat axes probably results from an individualistic distribution of opportunistic bird species. Variation is probably induced at a site level by intraspecific competition for territories, small-scale vegetation dynamics, and resource fluctuation that occurs both within and between seasons.