Grants and Contracts Details
Description
TITLE: Habitat Use and Movement Ecology of Three At-risk Forest Birds
ABSTRACT:
Forest management is an important tool in the conservation of eastern forest bird populations.
While grounded in strong science, the ‘dynamic forest”’ approach to bird conservation remains a
hypothesis and there are many key unknowns as to how forest landscapes managed with a
multitude of silvicultural methods benefit avian communities and populations. Clearly,
conservation of migratory forest birds that breed in eastern North America presents a number of
challenges – both from the breeding and nonbreeding perspectives. Until recently, these time
periods have had to be studied separately – with breeding-centric studies, nonbreeding centric
studies, and migration studies. However, the recent development of miniature tracking
technologies (e.g., geolocators, nanotags, etc.) allows for a more comprehensive examination of
eastern forest bird lifecycles. In addition to identifying migratory routes and non-breeding sites
for a particular species, miniature tracking devices that can be used with small migratory
songbirds allow us to examine the extent to which carry-over effects may be present within
populations of interest. Below, we propose a study to quantify both breeding season- and non-
breeding season habitat use and movement ecology for three forest bird species of conservation
interest in Pennsylvania. Over the past several years, there have been enormous advancements in
avian tracking technologies through the development of new, miniature tags (e.g., archival GPS
tags, nanotags, etc.) to growth in the MOTUS tracking network. Simultaneously, there has been
increased management efforts on several of Pennsylvania State Game Lands and other public
lands wherein several avian SGCN occur. Recent work with Golden-winged Warblers, Cerulean
Warblers, and Eastern Whip-poor-wills provide proof-of-concept for the proposed work using a
variety of tracking device types. We propose to study the space use and movement ecology of
three at-risk forest birds in Pennsylvania: Scarlet Tanager, Eastern Whip-poor-will, and Cerulean
Warbler within forest landscapes that include stands characterized by a continuum of structural
heterogeneity. Specifically, we propose to complete a comprehensive study that will assess
movement ecology and space use of the three target species during their entire annual cycles
(breeding season, spring/fall migration, and wintering season).
Status | Active |
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Effective start/end date | 4/1/23 → 6/30/26 |
Funding
- Pennsylvania Game Commission: $270,000.00
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