9307 ‎(2)‎

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9307
• Author: Germaine, S. S.
• Title: Relationships of Birds, Lizards, and Nocturnal Rodents to Their Habitat in the Greater Tucson Area, Arizona.
• USFW Year: 1995.
• USFW - Doc Type: Phoenix, AZ.
• Copyright Material: NO

RELATIONSHII'S OF BIRDS, LIZARDS, AND NOCTURNAL RODENTS TO THEIR HABITAT IN TUCSON, ARIZONA
cover type use by birds, lizards, and nocturnal
rodents throughout the urban residential
landscape. My specific objectives were to:
Describe the distributions and associations of
existing land cover types currently present in
the greater Tucson area;
• Associate breeding and wintering bird species .
abundances with habitat variables that
describe structure (physiognomy), vegetation
(floristics), and distances from potential
wildlife population sources and dispersal
routes;
• Develop models to predict breeding bird
species richness (number of species) across the
residential gradient;
• Associate lizard species abundances with
habitat variables that describe physiognomy,
floristics, and distances from potential wildlife
population sources and dispersal routes;
• Develop models to predict lizard species
richness and total abundance across the
residential gradient;
• Identify the regulatory mechanisms of bird
and lizard communities by examining the
correlation structure among species richness,
abundance, evenness (measure of equality of
abundances among species), and habitat
variables; and
STUDY AREA
This study was conducted in the greater
Tucson metropolitan area, in southeastern
Arizona (Fig. 1). Tucson lies within the Sonoran
Desert, and contains both lower and upper
Sonoran vegetative types, as well as vegetation
types associated with riparian corridors (mixed
riparian desert scrub series; Brown et al. 1979).
While relicts of these communities can be found,
much of the urban landscape itas been disturbed,
landscaped with exotics, or otherwise modified
(W. Shaw. Univ. of Ariz., pers. commun.).
The study area comprised 1,158 km2, most of
the Tucson Basin. The study area was delineated
by an arc with a 19.2-km radius centered on the
center of Tucson (here defined as the point mid-
way between the geographic and population
centers of the city). This area was bounded to the
north and east by the 975 m elevation line in the
foothills of the Catalina and Rincon mountains,
respectively, to the south by the San Xavier
Indian Reservation, and to the west by the
Tucson Mountains, including portions of Saguaro
National Park (west), and Tucson Mountain Park.
Nocturnal rodents were sampled in a restricted
portion of this area. Rodent sampling was
conducted in an area bounded by Ina Road to the
south, Camino de Oeste to the west, Shannon
Road to the east, and Camino del Norte to the
north (Figure 2).
The Tucson metropolitan population was
estimated at > 600,000, with an annual growth
rate of 23% over the past decade. The
Compare distributions of nocturnal rodent
species between residential areas differing in
housing density (as similar as possible in all
other regards).
metropolitan area is expected to have 900,000
people by the year 2000 (U.S. Dept. of Commerce
1991). Tucson is expanding to the north into the
Avra and Oro valleys and toward the Coronado
National Forest boundary in the Catalina
Mountain foothills, and eastward toward the
Saguaro National Park boundary in the Rincon
Mountain foothills.
Elevation in the Tucson vicinity ranged from
below 640 m along the Santa Cruz River to over
2,770 m at Mt. Lemmon. The Tucson basin
receives an average of 28.83 cm of precipitation
annually (Mielke 1993), divided between a summer
monsoon and a winter rainy season. The mean
daily maximum temperature of 38.5 C occurs in
July, while the mean daily minimum temperature
of 3.4 C occurs in January.
STEPHEN S GERMAINE 1995 ARIZONA GAME ~ FISH DEPARTMENT, TECH. REP. 20