BBS Bibliography

The North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) occupies a critical role as the primary source of large-scale, long-term population data for over 400 of North America's breeding birds. Since its inception in 1966, the main emphasis of this multinational program has been to provide information on the distribution and trends of all bird species regularly encountered on these surveys. In addition to identifying at risk bird species and informing biologically sound avian conservation and management decisions, many peer reviewed articles appear in journals annually in which scientists use the publicly available dataset to evaluate diverse and contemporary topics such as climate change, disease tracking, and invasive species research. As this database grows so too does the potential for future research, which underscores the importance and value of this and similar long-term datasets.

This bibliography summarizes the published literature related to the BBS. It includes articles based solely on BBS data as well as those incorporating various data sources but where BBS data play an integral role in the published study. Articles where BBS data are referenced in a secondary or supporting role, such as in many breeding bird atlases, are omitted from this bibliography. The contents of this bibliography include materials primarily derived from professional journals and from regional and state periodicals devoted to birds, but does not include material published in local bird club newsletters and the like. Several of the cited articles are theses and dissertations where BBS data or methodology is the central emphasis of the research. Government publications and similar "gray literature" have been included where known, but some may have been missed. We ask and encourage authors of published articles using BBS data to inform us of their publication as soon as it becomes available so that we may include it in future BBS bibliography updates.