519 – Climate Applications
Spatio-Temporal Trend Analysis of Historic Bird Arrival Data
Ali Arab
Georgetown University
There is increasing interest in spatio-temporal analysis of environmental and ecological response to changes in the climate due to the recent concerns about climate change. In this work we propose a spatio-temporal modeling framework that is suitable for analyses of environmental and ecological data while accounting for spatial and temporal structure, as well as climate effects. As an example, we consider data on bird migration in the United States and analyze the spring arrival dates of Purple Martins between historic data (1905-1940) from the North American Bird Phenology Program and recent data (2001-2010) from the Purple Martin Conservation Association. The proposed approach allows researchers to compare mean arrival dates while accounting for spatial and temporal variability. Our results for Purple Martins showed statistically signi�cant late arrivals in parts of the United States (South, East, Midwest). However, no statistically signi�cant change in mean arrival dates were detected in the Northern U.S. (including Great Lakes area). The proposed approach provides a useful tool for statistical analysis of spatio-temporal data related to climate change studies.
