Description:    Understanding what features of the landscape affect species distribution is critical to effectively implement conservation strategies. This study investigates how a boundary analysis framework can be used to characterize the spatial association between boundaries (i.e., spatial locations of high rates of change) in bird species’ distributions and landscape features at the regional scale. The study area covers 92,000 km 2 in southern Ontario (Canada) and extends from the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence biome to the southern Canadian Shield biome. Landcover composition was derived from Ontario Land Cover data (1991–1998; 7 types) and elevation data were derived from the Canada3D digital elevation model. Bird distributions were estimated using indicator kriging based on point counts obtained from the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas data (2001–2005; 60 species). Boundaries were delineated for both data types using a 10 × 10 km cell resolution. Spatial boundary overlap statistics were used to quantify the spatial relationship between landscape features and bird boundaries and tested using a randomization procedure. There was significant positive association and spatial overlap between delineated landscape feature boundaries and bird boundaries. The number of spatially overlapping cells between the two boundary types was 67 out of 164 (41 %) and 76 % of cells were within 11.42 km of each other. These results were statistically significant ( P  〈 0.001) and suggest a strong spatial relationship between high rates of change in landscape features and bird species’ distributions at the regional scale. A boundary analysis framework could be used to identify boundary shifts in response to climate change and anticipate changes in species distributions. Content Type Journal Article Category Research Article Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s10980-012-9804-6 Authors Aleksandra E. Polakowska, Department of Ecology Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Harbord Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G5, Canada Marie-Josée Fortin, Department of Ecology Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Harbord Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G5, Canada Andrew Couturier, Bird Studies Canada, P.O. Box 160, 115 Front Street, Port Rowan, ON N0E 1M0, Canada Journal Landscape Ecology Online ISSN 1572-9761 Print ISSN 0921-2973