BCI: BCI

In NCRN/NCRNbirds: Data analysis and visualization for NPS I&M bird monitoring.

BCI

Description

Calculates the Bird Conmmunity Index (BCI) of O'Connell et al 1998, 2000.

Usage

BCI(
  object,
  years = NA,
  points = NA,
  type = "Cent_Appal",
  checklist = F,
  output = "dataframe",
  ...
)

Arguments

object	An NCRNbirds object or a list of such objects.
years	A vector of numbers. Will only return data from the indicated years. It is highly recommeded to only calculate the BCI over a single year's data.
points	A character vector. The names of one or more points where the data was collected.
type	A mandatory length 1 character vector that indicates the type of BCI to calculate. Can be "Cent_Appal" , the default, or "NETN_Forest_BCI"
checklist	Locgical. Indicates if a list column with a checklist of birds for each point should be included in the output. Defaults to FALSE.
output	Either "dataframe" (the default) or "list". Note that this must be in quotes. Determines the type of output from the function.
...	Additional arguments passed to getChecklist and from there to getBirds

Details

This calculates the Bird Community Index (BCI - O'Connell et al 1998, 2000) for a park or parks, and can be restricted by point as well. Typically a single years' data is used for the BCI, so it is recommended (but not strictly requried) that a single year be indicated in the years argument. The function calls getChecklist to get a species list of birds for each point. That function, in turn, calls getBirds. Any valid argument for getBirds can be inluded as part of .... By default birds from all distance bands and time intervals will be included in the calculation.

Value

Returns a data.frame with the BCI, the BCI category (Low Integrity, High Integrity etc.), the number and percent of species present in each guild and guild type.

References

O'Connell, TJ, LE Jackson and RP Brooks. 1998. The Bird Community Index: A Tool for Assessing Biotic Integrity in the Mid-Atlantic Highlands. Final Report prepared for U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III.

O'Connell TJ, LE Jackson and RP Brooks. 2000. Bird guilds as indicators of ecological condition in the central Appalachians. Ecological Applications 10:1706-1721.

NCRN/NCRNbirds documentation built on Aug. 28, 2023, 12:12 p.m.