3.2. Bird communities
We encountered 29 scrub-shrub species in wildlife openings
and 22 in silvicultural openings; however, these apparent
differences in bird species richness were not evident in species
estimates from rarefaction, as indicated by overlap of the 95%
confidence intervals (Fig. 2). Nonetheless, the results of the NMDS
indicated that there was substantial separation between wildlife
and silvicultural openings in terms of the overall bird species
composition (Fig. 3). Examination of the Shepard’s diagrams and
the relatively low stress values for these ordinations indicate a
reasonable fit of the model to the data.
Canonical correlation analysis differentiated between shrublands
dominated by broadleaved shrubs, which were characterized
by species such as Mourning and Nashville Warblers and Whitethroated
Sparrows, and those dominated by conifers, which were
characterized by species such as Prairie Warblers and Eastern
Towhees, and a final group dominated by ferns and forbs, invasive
species and grasses, which were characterized by species such as
Blue-wingedWarblers, IndigoBuntings andFieldandSongSparrows