WEST Research Biometrician Dr. Jason Carlisle is the lead author on a recently published study examining how beneficial sage-grouse conservation might be for songbird species of concern that also live in sagebrush ecosystems. Conservation actions to benefit sage-grouse are often focused in areas with high abundance of sage-grouse, under the assumption that other species occur there in large numbers, therefore also benefiting from those actions. The team, including the US Geological Survey and University of Wyoming, compared the abundance of sage-grouse and six songbird species of concern in Wyoming and found little agreement between species, suggesting actions to benefit sage-grouse might miss other species of concern. The publication titled “The abundance of Greater Sage-grouse as a proxy for the abundance of sagebrush-associated songbirds in Wyoming, USA” appears in the peer-reviewed journal Avian Conservation and Ecology: https://doi.org/10.5751/ACE-01702-150216
