Friday, February 19, 2010

Watch Eurasian Collared-Dove Expansion

One of the great eBird tools that I enjoy using is the distribution maps by species which I have blogged about before.  These maps are also important to science to track species range; whether they are increasing or decreasing. 

What better example than that of the Eurasian Collared-Dove!  Introduced into the Bahamas in the 1970's and spreading to Florida in 1982, it appears that the population reached that critical mass and shot up and expanded exponentially.  Check out the animated progression of Eurasian Collared-Dove expansion from 2000 through 2010 using your eBird sightings:

Gif Created on Make A Gif

Here is another graph that eBird can spit out which shows that Eurasian Collared-Doves were reported about 2% of the time in 2005 and by 2009 they were being reported up to 5% of time.


I am certain studies are underway to show if this rapidly expanding species is negatively impacting other species or not.  Can a species expand and compete for food without some effect on other species?

2 comments:

  1. Wow, I have not seen a map like that before. Where does one go to find this little gem? I saw a few EuCoDo just last Friday in Tucson where I had never seen them before. Interesting question you pose there at the end.

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  2. The invasion of U.C. Doves in Tucson might be preyed upon by the many goshawks residing in Tucson during the winter. I have observed male and female Gos for 22 months as they soar and present their arial display: starting in winter 2000-01. Goshawks must have been wintering in Tucson many years before I arrived in Tucson. Nelson Briefer- goshawk specialist. Tucson and Anacortes, WA.

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