The objective of this study was to examine the effect of different amo
unts of available habitat on the relationship between the distribution
and abundance of species using a spatially explicit, stochastic, indi
vidual-based simulation model. We define abundance as the mean abundan
ce of a species in occupied breeding habitat sites and distribution as
the proportion of breeding habitat sites that are occupied by that sp
ecies. We hypothesized that on a patchy landscape, more available bree
ding habitat will result in both higher abundance and wider distributi
on because of an increased number of successful dispersers. Therefore,
a positive relationship between distribution and abundance is expecte
d for a group of species in a landscape if individual species have dif
ferences in habitat use and therefore different amounts of habitat are
available to them on the same landscape. In the simulation experiment
the amount of breeding habitat was varied to examine the effects on a
bundance and distribution. We found a positive correlation between (1)
abundance and the number of breeding habitat cells on the simulation
landscape (2) distribution and the number of breeding habitat cells on
the landscape and, (3) abundance and distribution. These results sugg
est that differences in amount of available habitat could account for
a positive relationship between abundance and distribution.