Social, cultural, and economic differences have been shown to influence ecological knowledge. Given the importance of ecological knowledge for appreciation and protection of nature, we sought to investigate the relationship between landowners’ sociodemographic attributes and the number of birds listed by landowners on their property across a rural-to-urban gradient. We hypothesized that: (1) age and education would be positively related to the number of birds an individual listed, while gender would be unrelated to the number of birds an individual listed; (2) rural landowners would list a larger number of bird species due to their increased level of exposure to nature and place-based knowledge; and (3) the number of years spent living on a property would positively impact the number of birds an individual listed by increasing the amount of time possible to interact with nature. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a survey of ~1700 landowners (with 59% responding) across a rural-to-urban gradient in southeastern Michigan that asked questions pertaining to age, gender, education, property size, years lived on property, and bird identification. Age, education, and years on property were positively associated with the number of birds listed by landowner. However, sociodemographic factors interacted with the rural-to-urban gradient to determine how such factors influenced landowner listing ability. For example, females listed more birds than males on suburban routes, but not on urban or rural routes. Ultimately, sociodemographic factors were indicators of a person’s ability to list bird species on their property.

社会，文化和经济差异已被证明会影响生态知识。鉴于生态知识对于欣赏和保护自然的重要性，我们试图研究地主社会人口统计属性与地主在城乡之间梯度上在其财产上列出的鸟类数量之间的关系。我们假设：（1）年龄和受教育程度与所列出的鸟类数量成正比，而性别与所列出的鸟类数量无关。（2）农村土地所有者会增加对自然和地方知识的接触，从而列出更多的鸟类；（3）在某物业上居住的年限会增加与自然互动的时间，从而对列出的鸟类数量产生积极影响。为了检验这些假设，我们对密歇根州东南部农村到城市的约1700名土地所有者（有59％的答复）进行了调查，询问了有关年龄，性别，教育程度，财产规模，财产居住年限以及鸟类识别。年龄，教育程度和财产年限与地主列出的鸟类数量呈正相关。但是，社会人口学因素与从农村到城市的梯度相互作用，以确定这些因素如何影响土地所有者的上市能力。例如，在郊区路线上，雌鸟列出的鸟类比雄鸟多，但在城市或乡村路线上则没有。最终，