October 18, 2010Heide AndersenOpen Space and Trails Planner IIITown of Breckenridge150 Ski Hill RoadBreckenridge, CO 80424

Response to Rick Thompson’s review of Dr. Carello’s 2010 report: Effects of summer gondolaoperation in Cucumber Gulch, Breckenridge, Colorado.

Item 1 – Sample size

Mr. Thompson had a query as to why sample size for paired points was reduced from the proposed 12 to 5. The initial study protocol was modified from 12 paired sampling points to five paired sampling points because the length of the gondola spanning Cucumber Gulch turned outto be only 1000 meters. Reliable 50-meter radius point count sampling requires a 200-meter distance between each sampling point in order to prevent sampling overlap. Because the areawas sampled over a 14 day period, there was adequate sample size for appropriate statisticalanalysis.

Item 2 – Data presentation and Summary Data

Mr. Thompson requested data to presented in summary tables by site. I have included thosetables below. The numbers in each table represent the mean at each site over seven days of sampling.

Before

represents prior to the onset of gondola operation and

After

represents after thestart of gondola operation. Data in figure 1 of the original report was presented as the mean of for each day of sampling for each treatment (control points and gondola points).Abundance

Site # Control MeanBeforeControl MeanAfterGondola MeanBeforeGondola MeanAfter

1 5.4 5.6 12.3 11.32 8.4 6.6 14.4 10.13 10.7 10.3 11.3 9.44 12.6 13.7 17.4 12.45 11.1 14.0 16.9 15.9

Average 9.7 10.0 14.5 11.8

Species Richness

Site # Control MeanBeforeControl MeanAfterGondola MeanBeforeGondola MeanAfter

1 5.0 4.4 7.6 7.62 6.0 5.4 8.4 7.33 8.3 7.6 7.0 7.14 7.0 8.3 8.0 5.95 6.1 7.6 6.9 5.9

Average 6.5 6.7 7.6 6.7

Species Diversity

Site # Control MeanBeforeControl MeanAfterGondola MeanBeforeGondola MeanAfter

1 4.8 4.1 6.0 5.92 5.1 4.8 6.7 6.43 7.3 6.1 5.8 6.34 5.4 6.0 5.7 3.85 5.4 5.3 4.4 3.1

Average 5.6 5.3 5.7 5.1

EvennessSite # Control MeanBeforeControl MeanAfter Gondola MeanBeforeGondola MeanAfter 1 0.96 0.93 0.78 0.772 0.87 0.90 0.79 0.863 0.88 0.82 0.82 0.874 0.79 0.72 0.74 0.665 0.72 0.69 0.62 0.54

Average 0.85 0.81 0.75 0.74

These numbers were mistakenly reversed in figure 1 in the original report, but not in thestatistical analysis. This mistake does not change the overall statistical result or trend.

Item 3 – Interpretation of statistical results

Mr. Thompson discusses results that are not supported by statistics in reference to figure 2, butnot in reference to figure 1. He states that in figure 2 there was an increase in Lincoln’sSparrows and Cordilleran Flycatchers after the onset of gondola operation. If this is a trend hefeels is important to point out, than it should also be acknowledge that there was a decrease inspecies richness and species evenness in figure 1. Perhaps these trends are real or are not real.Because the differences were statistically insignificant, it is not valid to make conclusions fromthis data set.