Wetland losses in the Northern Prairie and Parkland Region are largely attributed to agriculture. Since land use is known to influence bird habitat selection, bird community composition is likely sensitive to the extent of neighboring agricultural activity. We determined local and landscape habitat variables predictive of wetland-dependent avian assemblage occurrence in southern Alberta. We: 1) identified distinct bird assemblages with a cluster analysis, 2) identified species indicative of these assemblages using an indicator species analysis, and 3) predicted bird assemblage occurrence in wetlands using a classification and regression tree. Wetland-dependent birds formed distinct avian assemblages that were primarily differentiated by region and local-level habitat characteristics like wetland size, depth, or vegetation cover. Generally, however, wetland-dependent bird assemblages were surprisingly insensitive to surrounding landscape composition. The extent of agricultural activity in the surrounding landscape was weakly predictive of avian assemblages in wetlands in the Grassland Natural Region, with edge-nesting birds being excluded from wetlands with >42% agricultural land cover in the surrounding landscape.

北部草原和帕克兰地区的湿地损失主要归因于农业。由于已知土地使用会影响鸟类栖息地的选择，因此鸟类群落组成可能对邻近农业活动的程度敏感。我们确定了本地和景观栖息地变量，这些变量预测了艾伯塔省南部依赖湿地的鸟类聚集的发生。我们：1）通过聚类分析确定了不同的鸟类组合，2）使用指示剂物种分析确定了指示这些组合的物种，以及3）使用分类和回归树预测了湿地中鸟类的组合。依赖湿地的鸟类形成了独特的禽类组合，主要由区域和局部水平的栖息地特征（如湿地大小，深度或植被覆盖度）来区分。但是，通常 依赖湿地的鸟类聚集体对周围的景观组成极不敏感。周围自然景观中农业活动的程度很难预测草原自然地区湿地中的鸟类聚集，边缘地区的鸟类被排除在湿地之外，周围景观中农业土地覆盖率> 42％。