Welcome to the American Ornithological Society 2018 Annual Conference. We are pleased to have you join us at the lovely Hilton El Conquistador Resort in Tucson, AZ.
Along the Santa Clara River in California, populations of the federally and state listed least Bell's vireo (Vireo bellii pusillus) are recovering from near extirpation. This recovery owes largely to habitat protection and restoration, as well as to controlling cowbird nest parasitism. We developed a decision support tool to aid in ongoing planning and coordination between conservation partners in the region. A major challenge we encountered is a common problem in many conservation planning projects, namely uncertainty. We used a global sensitivity analysis approach that generates a set of models to sample across the full range of parameter and model structure uncertainty. We then replicated the set of models under a range of simulated management scenarios representing a variety of cowbird and habitat management strategies and intensities. This approach allows for a full accounting of parameter uncertainty while illustrating the effects of different management scenarios. An interactive visualization tool allows the user to explore model results by setting management goals and seeing which management scenarios have a higher probability of meeting those goals under uncertainty. The interface also allows the user to adjust uncertainty bounds on individual parameters and explore the impact on predicted model outcomes. This approach can be adapted to other projects to systematically identify and account for uncertainty, provide an intuitive visualization tool to investigate different management scenarios, and allow projects to move forward despite uncertainty.
