Life
on the Edge: Impacts of Habitat Fragmentation on Grassland Songbirds
February 20, 2012
Welcome! This section of the website will be updated every month or two
with project progress.
With the first field season complete, preliminary data trends from the
first field season have been summarized in a report. Although mostly nonsignificant, the first field season produced some
interesting trends which are excited about pursuing in the 2012 field
season. Here are some highlights:
The Vesper Sparrows turned out to be more elusive than expected: we
found 41 nests of nine avian species, 14 of which were Vesper Sparrow
nests.
The nest predation rates from these nests indicate a potential
agricultural edge effect on nest predation, but this needs to be
confirmed with more data from a second season.
Snakes may be the most important nest predator in the shrubsteppe
system: three of five predation events captured on camera were
perpetrated by yellow-bellied racers (snakes), and there is a
significant correlation between number of snakes detected and the
proportion of nests predated at the plot level.
Point count data grassland birds may prefer interior habitat to edge
habitat, and may also prefer vineyard edges to orchard edges.
We are currently in the planning stages for field season number two. In
order to increase our sample size, we have decided to choose new study
sites for the coming summer, some of which will be in Washington state.
A set of ideal study sites has been selected, and we will be contacting
landowners soon to ask site access permission. We look forward to
meeting new faces and making new connections.
Stay tuned for more news!