Bird Conservation

Results, Discussion, and Literature Cited
You will complete three milestones during the course. The work you produce for the milestones will serve as first drafts of the critical elements of your final project. For Milestone Three, you will focus on the first draft of your Results, Discussion, and Literature Cited sections.
Prompt
You are working for an international bird conservation organization that is considering purchase of one of four parcels of land in the Central American country of Belize. You will use field data concerning bird species occurrence and abundance, as well as descriptions of plant communities found at each site to make a recommendation to the organization as to which of these land parcels to acquire. Field data will be provided for each of the four parcels at two different scales:

1. Local, meaning the specific parcels being considered for purchase. Each specific parcel being considered is defined by a particular land parcel boundary.
2. Regional, meaning the broader area surrounding each specific parcel being considered for acquisition (15-mile-diameter circles centered at Belmopan (17.146 °N, 88.729 °W), Cockscomb Basin (16.797 °N, 88.379 °W), Gallon Jug (17.561 °N, 89.044 °W), and Punta Gorda (16.165 °N, 88.883 °W)
   Since all students in this class may not be able to physically engage in actual field research for a variety of reasons, in this project you will be given field data and GIS-analyzed remote sensing information that is similar to what might actually be collected during weeks of real field work and subsequent analysis. Methods used to obtain this data will be briefly described in this document; your final paper should describe these methods and present results as though you had actually been responsible for collecting and analyzing the data. Your final project should follow the format of a standard scientific paper (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Literature Cited)
   Because of the priorities of the organization you are working for, your analysis will emphasize birds, but it should also include reference to major vegetation communities that may reasonably be expected to influence bird distribution and abundance. The primary information you will be given to work with includes
3. Species diversity indices based on single-day bird surveys conducted by teams of observers within 15-mile-diameter circles that include the four sites being considered for conservation purchase
4. Graphical analyses summarizing the major vegetation communities present within each of the 15-mile-diameter circles
5. Graphical analyses summarizing the major vegetation communities present within each of the actual parcels being considered for acquisition
   Bird survey data collected using the rapid assessment MacKinnon approach (see O’Dea et al. 2004) from each of the specific parcels being considered for acquisition. In other words, your data sets will reflect information collected at two different scales—one regional (the 15-mile diameter circles) and one local (the specific parcels).
   This rubric provides the criteria that will be used to assess your Milestone Three submission. Use this criteria to review your work and make any necessary improvements (e.g., to meet the Exemplary criteria) before submitting your work for grading.
   In this milestone, due in Module Six, you will submit drafts of three critical elements of your final project:
6. Incorporate results provided in diversity_indices.pdf, veg_analyses.pdf, and the graph produced in Milestone Two into a brief (three-page maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font) Results section.
7. Prepare a brief (two-page maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font) Discussion section that reviews the findings mentioned in Results and explains your recommendation as to which property would be best to acquire for conservation purposes.
8. Prepare a Literature Cited (References) section that includes all references that you have mentioned in your Introduction, Methods, and Discussion sections following the current APA style requirements.