Birds have evolved to fill a diverse set of niches, and because of their manifold adaptations to different habitats, and the relative ease with which they are detected, they are a great taxon to understand the effects of land use, climate, and other factors on the ability of wild species to maintain viable populations.
Global climate change is increasing the incidence of extreme weather events. Jessica Gorzo, PhD candidate, is studying how these extreme events are affecting the abundance, geographical distribution, and breeding habits of forest songbirds.
James Burnham builds on his research at Poyang Lake following a 4-month stint in the field. During the winter of 2010/2011, he saw birds he has been studying for years in unexpected places and behaviors never before documented.
The Karner blue butterfly, a federally endangered species, has suffered major population declines mainly due to habitat loss since European settlement. Eric Wood investigated if restoration of oak savannas, critical habitat for this species, also provides an opportunity to protect important avian communities that use sparse canopy oak savannas during the breeding season.
Professor Sarahy Contreras has been studying hummingbirds in western Mexico for nearly 20 years. Her current project tackles the question of how different frequencies and intensities of post-fires affect hummingbird populations in the Sierra de Manantlan Biosphere Reserve.
Understanding how spatial patterns of vegetation explain the distribution of organisms is a central theme within Landscape Ecology. Avi Bar Massada developed a novel method to quantify these patterns, which may be more effective than existing methods. He illustrates its effectiveness with bird data from Wisconsin’s Fort McCoy.
If you build it, they will come is a cliche, to say the least. In the context of parks, recreation trails, and conservation of biodiversity, Marty Pfeiffer offers a new twist on the old cliche: If they come, can you still conserve biodiversity?
Climate change leads to increases in extreme weather. Tom Albright and co-authors investigate the effect of heatwaves and drought on bird abundance and diversity in the conterminous United States.
Trends in land use, and in turn wildlife habitat loss, are closely interlinked with economics. Predicting forest bird diversity under different simulated land use scenarios, including both ecological and economic parameters, improves our understanding of the effects and drivers of habitat loss.
Poyang Lake, one of China’s most diverse wildlife areas, increasingly faces shifting use patterns and new threats to the wildlife and human communities who call it home. Ph.D. candidate James Burnham seeks to understand how changing lake hydro-dynamics and human impacts affect the local wildlife, particularly the critically endangered Siberian Crane.
A 2005 news item in The Sauk Prairie Eagle prompted Adrian Lesak to dive right into the emerging field of laser remote sensing for forestry and biodiversity applications while forming an international research collaboration.
