Areas with High Infrastructure Have Lower Bird Species Richness
We tested the effect of human infrastructure on biodiversity by examining bird species richness using Audubon Christmas Bird Count Data comparing high versus low infrastructure sites from 2011 to 2018.
Group Members: Peng Huang, Hannah Oscar, Tony Shu (Egan, Seminar 3, 2020)
We were interested in the effect of human infrastructure on biodiversity. Our group hypothesized that human infrastructure reduces an ecosystem’s biodiversity. If that is the case then we expect areas with high infrastructure to have lower biodiversity. For our study, we chose to test this hypothesis by examining bird species richness using the Audubon Christmas Bird Count Data for the New York Metropolitan Area and compared high infrastructure and low infrastructure sites. We observed higher species richness in low infrastructure sites within the Metropolitan Area. Therefore the data supported our hypothesis.
