Breeding Bird Species Research Articles

Breeding bird abundance and species diversity greatest in high-severity wildfire patches in central hardwood forests

In 2016, mixed-severity wildfires in the southern Appalachians created a gradient of forest structures not typical following prescribed burns, providing a unique opportunity to study temporally dynamic conditions and breeding bird response. We measured forest structure and breeding bird communities across a fire-severity gradient in 3 burned and 3 unburned watersheds for 5 years (Y1-Y5). We categorized plots as unburned (NB), low- (L), moderate- (M), or high-severity (H) using a composite fire-severity index. Tree mortality increased with fire-severity category (FSC) and over time; by Y5, 7 % of trees in NB, 11 % in L, 38 % in M, and 71 % in H had died. Shrub recovery was rapid and most pronounced in H, exceeding other FSCs (70 % vs 21 %–44 %) by Y5. Total bird abundance, species richness, and diversity increased over time in H (by Y3) and M (by Y4); by Y5, these metrics were highest in H and twice as high in H as in NB. Low-severity wildfires had no detectable effects on birds. Abundance of 7 species was greatest in higher-severity FSCs; 11 species did not differ among FSC, although ovenbirds (Seiurus aurocapilla) indicated a trend of lower abundance in H. No species was limited to NB, L, or M, whereas disturbance-dependent indigo bunting (Passerina cyanea), chestnut-sided warbler (Setophaga pensylvanica), and eastern towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) were primarily associated with H. Increased richness and diversity were associated with heavy tree mortality and subsequent shrub recovery in H, accompanied by an influx of disturbance-dependent species and positive or neutral responses by most other species. Results highlight the interrelated roles of fire severity and time in driving forest structure and breeding bird response. Breeding birds responded to high-severity burns similarly to silvicultural treatments with heavy canopy reduction documented in other studies, offering possible alternatives when managing for breeding bird diversity in hardwood forests.

Standardised empirical dispersal kernels emphasise the pervasiveness of long-distance dispersal in European birds.

Dispersal is a key life-history trait for most species and is essential to ensure connectivity and gene flow between populations and facilitate population viability in variable environments. Despite the increasing importance of range shifts due to global change, dispersal has proved difficult to quantify, limiting empirical understanding of this phenotypic trait and wider synthesis. Here, we introduce a statistical framework to estimate standardised dispersal kernels from biased data. Based on this, we compare empirical dispersal kernels for European breeding birds considering age (average dispersal; natal, before first breeding; and breeding dispersal, between subsequent breeding attempts) and sex (females and males) and test whether different dispersal properties are phylogenetically conserved. We standardised and analysed data from an extensive volunteer-based bird ring-recoveries database in Europe (EURING) by accounting for biases related to different censoring thresholds in reporting between countries and to migratory movements. Then, we fitted four widely used probability density functions in a Bayesian framework to compare and provide the best statistical descriptions of the different age and sex-specific dispersal kernels for each bird species. The dispersal movements of the 234 European bird species analysed were statistically best explained by heavy-tailed kernels, meaning that while most individuals disperse over short distances, long-distance dispersal is a prevalent phenomenon in almost all bird species. The phylogenetic signal in both median and long dispersal distances estimated from the best-fitted kernel was low (Pagel's λ < 0.25), while it reached high values (Pagel's λ >0.7) when comparing dispersal distance estimates for fat-tailed dispersal kernels. As expected in birds, natal dispersal was on average 5km greater than breeding dispersal, but sex-biased dispersal was not detected. Our robust analytical framework allows sound use of widely available mark-recapture data in standardised dispersal estimates. We found strong evidence that long-distance dispersal is common among European breeding bird species and across life stages. The dispersal estimates offer a first guide to selecting appropriate dispersal kernels in range expansion studies and provide new avenues to improve our understanding of the mechanisms and rules underlying dispersal events.

Ecological compensation of stochastic wetland biodiversity: National or regional policy schemes?

The aim of this study is to compare policy schemes for ecological compensation applied at national and regional levels, using exploited inland wetlands as an example. We study whether uncertainty, due to natural variability and measurement difficulties, motivates compensation that is carried out in the same region as that of the exploited site, or whether it rather motivates nationwide compensation schemes. For this purpose, we develop an empirical, chance-constrained programming model of cost-effective wetland management. The model is spatially differentiated and accounts for heterogeneity in wetland quality across wetland types and regions. Wetland quality is defined by three alternative biodiversity indices: species richness, population-weighted species richness, and red-listed species richness, estimated from voluntarily reported data on breeding bird species observations. Results show that regional schemes are more expensive, in particular if the policy maker dislikes uncertainty and wants to prioritize uncommon species. Contrary to expectations from the theoretical analysis, regional schemes would lead to a higher risk-adjusted level of biodiversity at the national level. However, regionalization also implies that targets cannot be achieved if a high safety margin is imposed. Trading ratios are robust to the choice of wetland quality index.

Are Lay People Able to Estimate Breeding Bird Diversity?

Studies about biodiversity and well-being used different approaches to assess biodiversity, e.g., scientific counts and censuses or perceived biodiversity estimated by the respondents. Here, we assessed whether laypeople could estimate the breeding bird diversity or species richness at specific places. For comparison, we carried out bird censuses with standard methods of professional ornithologists and used citizen science data from the internet platform Ornitho (Germany). Lay people from the public (1184 respondents) were surveyed between May and July 2022 at 40 different places in southwest Germany between Rottenburg/Tübingen and Stuttgart following the catchment of the river Neckar (30 people surveyed per place). People were asked to estimate the bird species richness/diversity at this current place. Here, we show that the data from the citizen science platform does not correlate with the professional census counts nor with the perceived species richness of laypeople. Laypeople have a generally good assessment of the bird species richness, correlating with the data of professionals (r = 0.325, p = 0.041). On average, the number of species assessed by laypeople lies in between the values of the professional morning and afternoon census. People were most often surveyed in the afternoon; therefore, their assessment must be done on other factors than actual birds present. This result is valuable for future studies on the connection between biodiversity and well-being.

Population densities of birds breeding in an urban environment dominated by allotment gardens and other ‘green’ areas in a Central European city

Abstract A total of 50 breeding bird species were recorded in 2017 in an urban environment (589 ha) in the city of Wrocław, SW Poland. This environment was dominated by green habitats, such as allotment gardens (41.2%), parklnds (13.4%) and forests (2.7%). For 41 species, population densities were estimated. A high population densities were recorded for Phoenicurus phoenicurus (9.2 pairs / 100 ha), Sylvia atricapilla (7.3), Turdus merula (6.6), Phoenicurus ochruros (6.3), Luscinia megarhynchis (5.3.), Sylvia curruca (4.1) and Serinus serinus (3.7). In the alltment gardens, much higher population density of Pica pica (14.5) than Corvus cornix (6.5); and higher population density of Columba palumbus (2.8) than Streptopelia decaocto (1.2) were recorded.

How urbanization and industrialization shape breeding bird species occurrence in coastal Mediterranean oasis system

How urbanization and industrialization shape breeding bird species occurrence in coastal Mediterranean oasis system

GABB: A global dataset of alpine breeding birds and their ecological traits

Alpine ecosystems represent varied climates and vegetation structures globally, with the potential to support rich and functionally diverse avian communities. High mountain habitats and species are under significant threat from climate change and other anthropogenic factors. Yet, no global database of alpine birds exists, with most mountain systems lacking basic information on species breeding in alpine habitats, their status and trends, or potential cryptic diversity (i.e., sub-species distributions). To address these critical knowledge gaps, we combined published literature, regional monitoring schemes, and expert knowledge from often inaccessible, data-deficient mountain ranges to develop a global list of alpine breeding bird species with their associated distributions and select ecological traits. This dataset compiles alpine breeding records for 1,310 birds, representing 12.0% of extant species and covering all major mountain regions across each continent, excluding Antarctica. The Global Alpine Breeding Bird dataset (GABB) is an essential resource for research on the ecological and evolutionary factors shaping alpine communities, as well as documenting the value of these high elevation, climate-sensitive habitats for conserving biodiversity.

Importance of private working lands for the conservation of neotropical birds on an urban-wilderness gradient

Global biodiversity and land conservation initiatives rely on an accurate understanding of the spatial distribution of species populations and communities. Identifying the spatial habitat use of wildlife communities across land uses and levels of human modification provides the opportunity to produce more efficient and effectual conservation plans. Our goal was to model breeding bird community occupancy across a complete spectrum of human land use modification to determine the habitat characteristics that best maximized the conservation of bird diversity. We used repeat-visit point counts on private and public lands to record the detection/non-detection of breeding bird species across the land use gradient. We modeled multiple proportional land cover and landscape structure covariates and employed a hierarchical multi-species occupancy model to analyze the habitat use of each species and to estimate guild-level species richness dynamics across the study area. We detected a total of 70 breeding bird species and our model estimated a total of 78 species within the total metacommunity. We found that insectivorous species richness was lowest in urban and suburban areas (xˆ = 7), but highest on multiple use working lands with low to moderate levels of human modification (xˆ = 22), not in the fully preserved protected areas (xˆ = 16). In contrast, the richness of the predominately human commensal omnivorous species was highest in urban and suburban areas (xˆ = 10) and across much of the more human modified landscape and lowest in the preserved lands (xˆ = 3). Moderately disturbed working lands, which primarily consisted of a mixture of rotating silvicultural tracts, agriculture, low density housing, and riparian corridors, supported the most species (xˆ = 36) and were especially important for the occupancy of breeding neotropical insectivores. These findings highlight the potential conservation benefits for incorporating private working lands with multiple land uses and land covers into future conservation planning scenarios, both for their wildlife conservation potential and as buffers around traditional protected areas.

Habitat Area, Not Fragmentation, Associated with Breeding Bird Species Richness

Habitat Area, Not Fragmentation, Associated with Breeding Bird Species Richness

Temporal transferability of species abundance models to study the changes of breeding bird species based on land cover changes

AimSpecies distribution models have become important tools for studying changes in biodiversity. Most studies use these models to evaluate the impact of global changes on biodiversity. For that purpose, scenarios are used that are based on changes in land use and/or land cover, or on climatic changes. However, the temporal transferability of such models depends heavily on modeling methods, environmental predictors and the ecological traits of species. Here, we evaluate the power of modeling tools to predict changes in bird species abundances based on observed changes in land cover. LocationWallonia, Belgium MethodsTo assess this temporal transferability, this research makes use of two biological and two environmental datasets, both sampled with a 10-year interval. This allows us to compare the predictions of models for another period than the period used to fit the models, with actual values for species abundance. We also analyzed the impact of ecological traits on the temporal transferability. Generalized additive models were fitted for 75 breeding birds. While a lot of studies use occurrence data, we used abundance data for fitting models. Abundance data contains more information and should allow us to better capture abundance changes in bird populations. ResultsFor the majority of species studied, the results show a low temporal transferability. With a few exceptions, e.g., species with softwood habitats, predicted changes do not correspond to observed changes. For certain bird species, e.g., those on arable lands, we observed an increase in predicted abundances in the future, while these species actually decreased. Few ecological traits seem to significantly impact the models’ transferability. Main conclusionsOur findings show that it is difficult to predict abundance changes of bird species based only on land cover changes. It is necessary to add other predictors into the models, e.g., predictors of habitat quality or spatial configuration.

Multiple dimensions of niche specialization explain changes in species’ range area, occupancy, and population size

In response to environmental change, species may decrease or increase in population size across their range, expand or contract their range limits, or alter how sites are occupied within their existing range. Shifts in range limits and widespread changes in population size have been documented in birds especially in response to changes in climate. Range occupancy, or how patchily or continuously a species is distributed within their range, has been studied less in the context of anthropogenic changes but may be expected to decrease with range-wide population size if abundance-occupancy relationships are generally positive. Determining which properties of species are related to range expansion or contraction or increased range occupancy or decreased range occupancy is useful in developing an understanding of which species become “winners” or “losers” under global change. Species with broader climatic niches may be more likely to successfully expand to new sites as climate changes. Range occupancy can be related to habitat preferences of species, and habitat specialization may predict how species fill in sites within their range. To examine how species niche breadth may explain changes in species distributions, we modeled how changes in range-wide population size, range extent, and range occupancy from 1976 to 2016 were predicted by species’ climate, habitat, and diet niche breadth for 77 North American breeding bird species. We found that climate generalists were more likely to be increasing in range area, while species with declining population trends were likely to be contracting in range area and in occupancy within their range. Understanding how different dimensions of specialization relate to shifts in species distributions may improve predictions of which species are expected to benefit from or be vulnerable to anthropogenic change.

Mapping breeding bird species richness at management‐relevant resolutions across the United States

Human activities alter ecosystems everywhere, causing rapid biodiversity loss and biotic homogenization. These losses necessitate coordinated conservation actions guided by biodiversity and species distribution spatial data that cover large areas yet have fine-enough resolution to be management-relevant (i.e., ≤5km). However, most biodiversity products are too coarse for management or are only available for small areas. Furthermore, many maps generated for biodiversity assessment and conservation do not explicitly quantify the inherent tradeoff between resolution and accuracy when predicting biodiversity patterns. Our goals were to generate predictive models of overall breeding bird species richness and species richness of different guilds based on nine functional or life-history-based traits across the conterminous United States at three resolutions (0.5, 2.5, and 5km) and quantify the tradeoff between resolution and accuracy and, hence, relevance for management of the resulting biodiversity maps. We summarized 18 years of North American Breeding Bird Survey data (1992-2019) and modeled species richness using random forests, including 66 predictor variables (describing climate, vegetation, geomorphology, and anthropogenic conditions), 20 of which we newly derived. Among the three spatial resolutions, the percentage variance explained ranged from 27% to 60% (median=54%; mean=57%) for overall species richness and 12% to 87% (median=61%; mean=58%) for our different guilds. Overall species richness and guild-specific species richness were best explained at 5-km resolution using ~24 predictor variables based on percentage variance explained, symmetric mean absolute percentage error, and root mean square error values. However, our 2.5-km-resolution maps were almost as accurate and provided more spatially detailed information, which is why we recommend them for most management applications. Our results represent the first consistent, occurrence-based, and nationwide maps of breeding bird richness with a thorough accuracy assessment that are also spatially detailed enough to inform local management decisions. More broadly, our findings highlight the importance of explicitly considering tradeoffs between resolution and accuracy to create management-relevant biodiversity products for large areas.

Influence of grazing and fire on breeding birds and perennial plants in Cyprus scrub and forest systems

Grazing and browsing by sheep and goats has been an important anthropogenic influence on ecosystems in the Mediterranean region for centuries. This influence has changed significantly in recent decades, with a general shift from range grazing to the penning of animals. The intermediate disturbance hypothesis (IDH) proposes that perturbation - including anthropogenic disturbance - is the norm for Mediterranean ecosystems, and that higher species diversity is found under conditions of continuous, moderate disturbance. Here we test the IDH as it relates to grazing of scrub and open forest habitats in Cyprus, while also testing for the effects of fire. We carried out surveys of breeding birds and vegetation at 48 study sites in scrub and open woodland across Cyprus. We estimated relative grazing pressure (past and present) and fire history at these sites, and tested for associations between these factors, breeding bird species richness and perennial vegetation diversity. We found moderate current grazing reduces density of lower and middle level scrub, and a higher level of diversity of perennial vegetation at moderately over intensively grazed sites. We found that moderate historical grazing pressure had a positive influence on richness of breeding bird species in lower scrub habitat such as phrygana, but that this effect was weaker the taller and denser the habitat. By contrast, current grazing pressure had a negative effect on species richness in lower scrub, but species richness in grazed habitats was higher in denser, taller scrub habitat such as garrigue and maquis. Our study suggests grazing plays an important role in maintaining habitat heterogeneity but the impact on avian species richness depends on the density and height of the vegetation.

BIRDS OF BRIER ISLAND, NOVA SCOTIA, REVISED AND UPDATED

This monograph is a revision and updating of our publication on the birds of Brier Island, Nova Scotia, published in the Proceedings of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science in 2011. Known for its concentrations of seabirds and large volume of migration in spring and autumn, the island has gained constantly increasing attention by birders since it was first investigated by members of the Nova Scotia Bird Society in 1955. The past decade, since 2011, has seen a remarkable increase in bird reports, mainly due to increased field work by birders, but also because of the use of the online bird logging system eBird. The heart of this monograph is the annotated list of birds, which has been enlarged and revised in the light of new reports by field observers and new information from the ornithological literature. We have incorporated eBird observations, along with our personal records of occurrences and bird banding data into this revision, along with the changes in the order and arrangement of North American bird families as set out by the Checklist Committee of the American Ornithological Society. Three species, Pacific Golden-Plover, Brown Booby and Zone-tailed Hawk, have been added to the island checklist, and one has been lost, Thayer’s Gull, which has been incorporated into Iceland Gull. The total list of species reported from the island is 357, including two hypothetical species. The number of known breeding bird species has increased from 74 to 83. We also update ecological knowledge of the island as a result of recent fieldwork and the restoration of the Big Meadow Bog in support of Eastern Mountain Avens conservation.

Automated bird sound classifications of long-duration recordings produce occupancy model outputs similar to manually annotated data

Abstract Occupancy modeling is used to evaluate avian distributions and habitat associations, yet it typically requires extensive survey effort because a minimum of 3 repeat samples are required for accurate parameter estimation. Autonomous recording units (ARUs) can reduce the need for surveyors on-site, yet their utility was limited by hardware costs and the time required to manually annotate recordings. Software that identifies bird vocalizations may reduce the expert time needed if classification is sufficiently accurate. We assessed the performance of BirdNET—an automated classifier capable of identifying vocalizations from &amp;gt;900 North American and European bird species—by comparing automated to manual annotations of recordings of 13 breeding bird species collected in northwestern California. We compared the parameter estimates of occupancy models evaluating habitat associations supplied with manually annotated data (9-min recording segments) to output from models supplied with BirdNET detections. We used 3 sets of BirdNET output to evaluate the duration of automatic annotation needed to approach manually annotated model parameter estimates: 9-min, 87-min, and 87-min of high-confidence detections. We incorporated 100 3-s manually validated BirdNET detections per species to estimate true and false positive rates within an occupancy model. BirdNET correctly identified 90% and 65% of the bird species a human detected when data were restricted to detections exceeding a low or high confidence score threshold, respectively. Occupancy estimates, including habitat associations, were similar regardless of method. Precision (proportion of true positives to all detections) was &amp;gt;0.70 for 9 of 13 species, and a low of 0.29. However, processing of longer recordings was needed to rival manually annotated data. We conclude that BirdNET is suitable for annotating multispecies recordings for occupancy modeling when extended recording durations are used. Together, ARUs and BirdNET may benefit monitoring and, ultimately, conservation of bird populations by greatly increasing monitoring opportunities.

Species Richness, Abundance, and Productivity of Birds Along a Powerline Right-of-way within a Forested Landscape, Northeastern United States

Utility rights-of-way (ROW) serve as nesting areas and maintain a high diversity of early successional birds. ROW incorporating wire zone–border zone and integrated vegetation management can be used as examples of early successional habitat management for bird conservation more generally in the Northeastern United States, given artificial disturbances not created solely for natural resource conservation comprise approximately 80% of early successional habitats. The objective of our study was to determine the effect of herbicide and mechanical vegetation management approaches on the abundance, species richness, and reproductive success of breeding bird species occupying an electric transmission line ROW in central Pennsylvania. The overall abundance of birds was significantly lower within the wire and border management zones, following initiation of a new vegetation management cycle at State Game Lands (SGL 33) than in the years prior to management. Sections of ROW with no border zones contained the lowest abundance and species richness of breeding birds compared to sections with borders prior to the initiation of a new management cycle. Sections of ROW with no border zones and mowing sections had the lowest bird abundance and species richness of all ROW sections at the onset of a new management cycle, and contained the lowest number of bird species displaying evidence of breeding, both prior to and at the beginning of management cycles. Sections of ROW managed using herbicides were comparable or more beneficial to bird communities in terms of abundance, species richness, indices of productivity, and nesting success than sections maintained via mechanical treatments (mowing and hand cutting), both at the end and beginning of management cycles within a forested landscape in the central Appalachian Mountains and surrounding forested regions in the northeastern United States.

Limited reciprocal surrogacy of bird and habitat diversity and inconsistencies in their representation in Romanian protected areas.

Because it is impossible to comprehensively characterize biodiversity at all levels of organization, conservation prioritization efforts need to rely on surrogates. As species distribution maps of relished groups as well as high-resolution remotely sensed data increasingly become available, both types of surrogates are commonly used. A good surrogate should represent as much of biodiversity as possible, but it often remains unclear to what extent this is the case. Here, we aimed to address this question by assessing how well bird species and habitat diversity represent one another. We conducted our study in Romania, a species-rich country with high landscape heterogeneity where bird species distribution data have only recently started to become available. First, we prioritized areas for conservation based on either 137 breeding bird species or 36 habitat classes, and then evaluated their reciprocal surrogacy performance. Second, we examined how well these features are represented in already existing protected areas. Finally, we identified target regions of high conservation value for the potential expansion of the current network of reserves (as planned under the new EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030). We found a limited reciprocal surrogacy performance, with bird species performing slightly better as a conservation surrogate for habitat diversity than vice versa. We could also show that areas with a high conservation value based on habitat diversity were represented better in already existing protected areas than areas based on bird species, which varied considerably between species. Our results highlight that taxonomic and environmental (i.e., habitat types) data may perform rather poorly as reciprocal surrogates, and multiple sources of data are required for a full evaluation of protected areas expansion.

Avifauna of the Oued Bouhellou Valley (Morocco): remarkable diversity, five new breeding cases and mapping of nesting sites

In this study, we surveyed and documented diversity and nesting of avian species and their foraging and breeding resources along the Oued Bouhellou watershed (North-Eastern Morocco). A total of 120 field visits were conducted between 2018 and 2022. We recorded 85 avian species of migrants and residents, belonging to 25 families and 8 orders. The families of Accipitridae (12 species) and Muscicapidae (10 species) were the most abundant, while the observed families of Corvidae, Sturnidae, Prunellidae, Caprimulgidae, and Ciconiidae were represented less abundantly, i.e., by one species each. Equally, nests of 17 breeding species were recorded and mapped along the watershed, breeding counts of the globally endangered Egyptian vulture and the globally vulnerable Turtle Dove pairs were done, and the first breeding cases of the Western Bonelli’s Warbler, Woodchat Shrike, Great Grey Shrike, Common Nightingale, Black Kite, and the North African Long-legged Buzzard were confirmed. The nesting sites were distributed along the watershed depending on specific requirements of each species, with nesting sites of passerines separated from those of raptors. The species richness of birds is supported by the availability of both foraging and breeding resources. In summary, in this study, we recorded the avian diversity, mapped the nesting sites of the breeding bird species, and confirmed the first breeding cases for five species, thus significantly contributing to the ornithology of Morocco and the Southern slope of the Mediterranean basin.

Population density and structure of a breeding bird community in a suburban habitat in the Cuvelai drainage system, northern Namibia

In a suburb (c. 100 ha) of Ongwediva, a total of 30 breeding bird species were recorded in 2018. Shannon’s Diversity Index was 2.01. Passer domesticus comprised almost half of all breeding pairs (36.4 pairs / 10 ha). Granivores were by far the most numerous feeding guild, comprising 77.5 % of all birds breeding. Birds nesting on/in buildings were represented by two species only, but they comprised almost half (49.9 %) of all breeding birds. In comparison with other southern African towns, the number of bird species breeding in Ongwediva was low. This was compensated by high population densities of some species.

Which Bird Species Groups Use Highway Roadside Verges and Why?

Highway roadside verges (HRV) provide supplemental habitat for birds in intensive agricultural and suburban landscapes where the natural habitats are rapidly disappearing. The purpose of this study was to document the behavior of breeding bird species using the vegetation maintenance units (green shoulders, embankments, ditches, and banks) of HRV in 3 typical rural landscapes of southern Quebec, Canada. We observed the behavior of 722 individuals of 21 bird species. The most abundant ones (especially Sturnus vulgaris [European Starling] and Agelaius phoeniceus [Red-winged Blackbird]) foraged in the green shoulders, while others (such as Melospiza melodia [Song Sparrow], Spinus tristis [American Goldfinch], and Geothlypis trichas [Common Yellowthroat]) travelled or nested in the low vegetation in ditches and on the banks. Omnivorous species forage in the green shoulders and used the banks and ditches mainly for nesting-related behaviors, just like the few insectivorous species observed. The granivorous species were almost absent from studied HRV. Ground-foraging species used the shoulders to feed but nested in ditches and banks. Species foraging in low vegetation foraged mainly on the banks and used the ditches more for travelling. Reducing the mowing frequency of these 2 maintenance units would likely result in an increase in the vegetation cover and would thus provide additional nesting and foraging habitat for the species we recorded, 67% of which show a stable or declining population in North America.