Abstract

Habitat partitioning was studied in a community of passerine birds in the Virgin River Valley of southwestern Utah. Ten habitat structure variables were measured for each of 24 species of passerine birds and several multivariate statistical techniques were used to determine the extent of habitat partitioning. Ordinations of species distributions along known environmental gradients were constructed using Principal Component Analysis and Stepwise Discriminant Analysis. Stepwise Discriminant Analysis was also used to determine which habitat variables were important in species separation. It was found that percent canopy cover was the most important variable. Two hundred seventy six pairs of species were analyzed using Multivariant Analysis of Variance. Of these, 272 were found to inhabit significantly different parts of the environment. Qualitative analysis of the remaining four pairs also showed effective niche partitioning.

Degree

PhD

College and Department

Life Sciences; Plant and Wildlife Sciences

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/