Surface cover type 
Riparian treeland 
Riparian shrubland 
Strata 
CCC 
ep telepPp | fp 
No. of 
potential 
breeding 
Species 
1352 
imams felefefe fet | [ps [ 
Upland treeland with 
shrub midstory 
P.pine 5 124 
a : 
Upland treeland with 
no midstory 4 ND 
Upland shrubland 
Upland grassland 
Consolidated substrate 
(rock) 
an ec gi 
86 
Fig. 4. The number of strata available as breeding habitat and the number of vertebrate species potentially breeding in those habitats. 
Closed circles indicate the strata that are present and open circles indicate additional strata that may be present in different types 
of surface cover. ND = no data. 
communities and act to collapse somewhat complex habi- 
tats into the simpler form of grassland habitats. The 
quality of wildlife habitat in these areas (in terms of the 
diversity of the total wildlife community that can be sup- 
ported on an area) is appreciably diminished by such 
actions. 
If the general matrix discussed above is somewhat modi- 
fied into a species-habitat matrix (Fig. 5), it becomes a 
useful tool in describing how wildlife species utilize the 
available strata of habitats. The division of the y-axis 
allows secondary consumers to be separated from primary 
consumers so that omnivores can be shown as competing 
with different species when in their two different con- 
sumer roles. We term the guild blocks, when modified to 
form the species habitat matrix (Fig. 5), “super cells” and 
base our guilding technology on this concept of super cells. 
Species that feed on vegetation on the terrestrial surface 
and breed in an underground burrow (terrestrial subsur- 
face), for example, would occupy super cell A, identified 
in Fig. 5. If those species are omnivorous and feed on both 
vegetation and insects on the terrestrial surface they would 
occupy super cells A and B in Fig. 5. Super cell A actually 
consists of 12 rows (Appendix I) and six columns (Appen- 
dix I) or 72 individual cells; super cell B consists of 8 rows 
(Appendix I) and six columns (Appendix II) or 48 indi- 
vidual cells. A variety of species that use different food 
sources and breeding niches within these loci might thus 
be clumped within super cells A and B, The primary con- 
sumer activities of an omnivorous species may occur in 
super cells different from those of its secondary consumer 
activities. 
The computer graphics presented in Figs. 6-8 are de- 
rived from the four statistical values (x, y, SD,, SD,) 
which are developed for each species occurring in a habi- 
tat. The graphics in Figs. 6-8 indicate ellipses of various 
sizes and shapes, representing the position or area each 
species occupies in the species-habitat matrix for a particu- 
lar type of vegetation. The x-axis of the ellipse, within a 
particular type of vegetation, describes a single standard 
deviation of the one or several columns representing the 
appropriate breeding-niches for a species (Appendix II); 
the y-axis of the ellipse describes a single standard devia- 
tion of the one or several rows (Appendix I) representing 
the appropriate energy sources for that species. Although 
the program producing the computer graphics identifies 
the individual species described by a particular ellipse, 
that identification has been removed in Figs. 6-8 to 
simplify the presentation. 
The increasing complexity of wildlife communities, as 
midstory and overstory strata become available, and 
