What is SPARRO?
Spatial Prioritization for Avian Recovery and Rangeland Opportunity (SPARRO) is an online tool designed to support strong, effective land stewardship and bird conservation across the Central Great Plains. By bringing together high-quality ecological data, advanced bird modeling, and practical, on-the-ground insight, SPARRO helps land managers and decision-makers identify and prioritize the lands that matter most for enhancing and restoring North America’s grasslands. The tool delivers clear, results-driven data products for 17 priority grassland bird species across the full annual cycle, while addressing the two major threats to grasslands: agricultural conversion and unchecked woody plant encroachment. SPARRO focuses on conservation solutions that simultaneously balance the needs of grassland birds, resilient grasslands, and rural economies.
SPARRO is built on the principle that local knowledge and contextual relevance (e.g., land-use, management history, socio-economic drivers, etc.) is essential for durable conservation solutions. These data are not intended to supersede local data, knowledge, or authority for decision making about how to allocate resources for efficient and effective grassland conservation. Instead, the tool strengthens them by providing reliable, easy-to-use information that helps decision-makers, land managers, and communities invest resources wisely, protect their land, and secure long-term value. By highlighting the most promising opportunities for conservation and restoration, alongside practical economic and land-use considerations, SPARRO supports strong, coordinated action at scale. The result is smarter investments, healthier landscapes, and resilient grassland bird populations for future generations.
Note this application is optimized for Google Chrome and not currently designed for mobile platforms.
About the Tool
The tool consists of two modules (tabs), each designed to support a variety of needs and objectives as they relate to grassland bird conservation.
Bird Population Module →
Explore how species status and trend vary across space and time. View estimated density (birds per km²) and average annual population growth rate (as a percentage) by species, season, and year. Population growth rate data are summarized in ~10-year time blocks to represent more meaningful change over time.
Grassland Prioritization Module →
Explore how priority lands for conservation and restoration investments vary by species and risk metric (agricultural conversion or woody plant encroachment) to meet the 2026 Partners in Flight population targets. These “Grassland Opportunity Maps” are available in both binary (all area required to meet a population target) and continuous (describing how consistently each area is selected to meet population targets ranging from 5% to 100% of the PIF population target) formats.
How to Use
Navigate
Select a tab at the top to enter the Bird Population module or the Grassland Prioritization module.
Select
In the Bird Population module, select a species, season and metric. In the Grassland Prioritization module, choose a species, risk factor and display type. Add geographic context by selecting a boundary or area of interest.
Explore
Pan and zoom to areas of interest. Use the year slider or arrow buttons to step through population density over time, or toggle between time periods (early: 2003–2012 vs. late: 2012–2021) for population growth rate.
Analyze (coming soon)
Draw a polygon or select a predefined geographic boundary to summarize statistics for your selected metric.
How is it Made?
The data products and tool represent the culmination of a 3-year collaborative effort by the Central Grassland Bird Working Group (CGBWG). The multi-national transdisciplinary CGBWG was formed as part of the broader Central Grasslands Roadmap Initiative and the JV8 Central Grasslands Conservation Initiatives. The core working group is a collaboration between federal, state, NGO, Indigenous and academic partners across 16 organizations, with over 200 individuals across more than 50 organizations forming a broader community of practice. The core working group brought together a variety of perspectives and expertise, including population ecology, weather science, economics, conservation delivery, range ecology, communications, and social science. This tool was made possible by the support of National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Knobloch Family Foundation, the Morpho Initiative at the National Center of Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, and Road to Recovery.
This is an initial beta release. The tool was shaped by stakeholder focus groups and will continue to evolve and be iteratively updated. Additional focus groups will gather feedback to guide improvements to functionality and the user interface as development continues. Future updates will include data summarization and visualization by county, state, and JV jurisdictional boundaries. Additionally, scenario-based prioritizations highlighting bird population responses to habitat loss and restoration will be coming online.
References & Data
For integrated model details see: Zhao Q, Latif QS, Nuse BL, Pavlacky DC, Kilner CL, Ryder TB, and CE Latimer. 2024. Integrating count from rigorous surveys and participatory science to better understand spatiotemporal variation in population processes. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 8: 1380–1393.
Suggested Citation: Latimer C, Zhao Q, Robinson B, Twidwell D, Olimb S, Carlson J, Cady S, Holland K, Rodewald A, Ross B, Hanna M, Bennet D, Rangwala I, Ruvalcaba I, Bonnot T, Grassel S, Chu M, Giacomo J, Barnes K, Beall J, Ruegg K, Somershoe S, Reese J, Howland S, and TB Ryder. 2026. SPARRO: Spatial Prioritization for Avian Recovery and Rangeland Opportunity — a transdisciplinary tool for grassland conservation planning.
Get Involved
If you would like to participate in the co-production process moving forward, you can contact [email protected] or [email protected]. If you would like to sign-up for our email distribution list, please fill out the following form here.
Partners
