MODELLING THE DISTRIBUTION OF BIRD SPECIES IN SWAZILAND IN RELATION TO ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES

Parker, V. 1996. Modelling the distribution of bird species in Swaziland in relation to environmental variables. Ostrich 67: 105–110.

Logistic regression was used to model the observed distributions of 335 species in Swaziland in relation to variables representing the geology, topography, climate and vegetation types of the study area. Reporting rates were used to represent the relative densities of the species. For each species, the variables which were significantly associated with the distributions were identified. The combination of geological, topographic and climatic variables was found to account more fully for the variation in relative densities than the vegetation types. The models accurately predicted the observed distributions of most bird species.