Nature and science
Two owls answering in the same forest
Documented history and research · Sources compared
Playback surveys tested whether two potentially competing owls occupied separate landscapes.
Listening for two species
Kim Laidig and David Dobkin surveyed areas known to support barred owls using recorded calls. They also looked for great horned owls, a potential competitor and predator. The 1995 study compared relative abundance, distribution and habitat associations rather than assuming the two species occupied completely separate territories. Laidig and Dobkin, institutional study summary (1995).
Overlapping maps did not mean identical use
Estimated relative abundances were nearly equal, and the inferred ranges overlapped extensively. Barred owls were associated with cedar swamp and pitch-pine lowlands. Mature hardwood swamp, usually considered favorable nesting habitat, occurred only in small patches. The authors suggested that using places at different times might reduce actual overlap between the owls. Laidig and Dobkin, institutional study summary (1995).
A hypothesis about fragmented habitat
The researchers proposed forest fragmentation as an explanation for the extensive overlap and a continuing concern for barred owls. That was their interpretation of the distribution pattern, not a direct measurement of every competitive encounter. The study preserved a more complicated picture than a map assigning one owl to forest and the other to fields. Laidig and Dobkin, institutional study summary (1995).
Sources and research limits
- Laidig and Dobkin, institutional study summary (1995) — Complete author summary read; journal bibliographic record independently checked at USF.
The attempted SORA download redirected to a repository landing page, not the article. Full field tables were not inspected; abundance remains a relative estimate.