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Acadia's News,
November 2006
New
ACWERNites:
Joerg
Tews: Hi there!
I'm the new addition to the Acadia
gang. As part of my NSERC postdoc I will do
modelling work on the effects of environmental change (e.g., climate
change) on
food web stability. My past PhD and postdoc research was on (spatial)
simulation modelling of population, community and ecosystem dynamics
and the
feedback mechanisms among those levels. My family and I we've moved to
the
Valley this summer: what a great place to live!!!
Katie Marshall:
Hello, I spent the summer
in Southwest Nova Scotia
donating blood to
Tabanid flies (or more accurately, collecting them). I’m back
in classes this
fall in the experimental Biology Block Program, and am also working on
identifying and analyzing my collection. With any luck, I’ll
have finished my
Honours thesis by the middle of the winter semester.
The Vets:
Anna
Calvert: I've
spent most of the last year fighting
with my computer - not exactly what I'd planned. The first part of the
year was
spent writing up my first chapter of results on inter-annual
variability in
stopover behaviour, and that paper is still in review. Since then, the
vast
majority of my time has been spent trying to write the code for a
hierarchical Bayesian model which, theoretically, should make the
analysis of
stopover data easier (?!) in the long run. On the side, I've also
finished a
manuscript on demographic modelling for endangered piping plovers which
should
be published in ACE-ECO fairly soon. In the brief moments of time in
which I've
been able to escape my computer, I've been out exploring isolated
eastern shore
back-lakes by canoe...
Carolyn Matkovich: I've just
finished 3 months of collecting radar data on bird migration in
southwestern Nova
Scotia. I now have
gigs of data to post-process and analyze and will hopefully soon figure
out
what the birds were doing during the fall of 2006!
Darroch
Whitaker: Over
the past year I have been continuing
my work on the Main River
study area, where I
have been investigating issues relating to the demographics and
movements of
boreal songbirds. During the summer of 2006 I oversaw the final season
of a 4
year passive mist netting study, conducted a large-scale search for
dispersing
colour-marked birds, and assisted Greg Mitchell with is masters
research on
juvenile songbird movement. In October I presented findings from this
work at
the North American Ornithological Conference in Veracruz, Mexico.
Greg
Mitchell: I
have just completed my second field
season studying the movement of juvenile yellow-rumped and blackpoll
warblers (Dendroica coronata, D. striata). Thankfully, many of the
patterns and the
magnitude/direction of the measurements taken were similar between
years. I have also
recently presented my initial
results at the 2006 NAOC meeting in Veracruz, Mexico. I am currently modelling
my data for the
movement chapter of my thesis. I
hope to
publish these results shortly.
Kate
Dalley:
I’ve been pretty busy over the last few
months. This spring I headed to Belize
to help with avian migration monitoring and anti-predator behavioural
research
with Trina and Joe. Most recently my journeys took me to Mexico
where I
presented my research at the IV NAOC. I spent this summer analysing and
writing
and hope to be defended…soon!
Krista
Chin: I
graduated in may and had a very successful thesis defense. I am currently looking for
permanent
work. From now
until December I will be
working on an Oak study in Southwestern
Nova Scotia.
Mike
Peckford: Over
the past year I successfully defended
the long awaited thesis. Since then (April) I have been working in the
Acadia
ACWERN lab. During the summer I helped Carolyn Matkovich get ready for
her
field season. This fall migration season I have been doing a smattering
of
things from helping setup the ABO, Bon Portage station, spending a
month
helping Carolyn collect her MSc data, traveling to Mexico to the IV
NAOC
conference, and writing up papers from my own MSc work. The first paper
has
been submitted and I am currently working on the second.
Tina
Leonard: Since
the last ACWERN meeting, I’ve been
busy finishing up my analyses and am currently in the writing-up
stages. Kate
and I spent a month in April in Belize
banding birds for Phil and working for a post-doc from Queens.
I had a brief stint in the field to help Greg at the end of the summer,
and
upon return had a few weeks to prepare a poster for the North American
Ornithological Conference in Veracruz.
Then I spent an extra week in Mexico
touring around, birding, snorkeling, and eating delicious Mexican
cuisine. I
hope to defend just after Christmas.
Phil
Taylor: The
past year has seen Phil doing the norm,
i.e. working on papers, and graduating masters students. He has also been spending
some time on Bon
Portage
Island
testing out new radio telemetry technology and
helping with radar work on the Southwestern shore of Nova Scotia.
Acadia's
News,
November 2005
Who’s
New:
Carolyn
Matkovich:
Hello Everyone! I'm the latest to join this cast of
characters. Although originally from Ontario,
I worked in Florida
for the past few years as a GIS person. I had about
enough
with
computers and so decided to get back to my ecology roots.
Somehow
though,
I've ended up getting even more technical and will be continuing Mike's
work
using radar to track bird migration. Hopefully by next spring
I'll have
about 5 or 6 of these radars and some idea of what to do with
them!
The
Vets:
Anna
Calvert:
Since the last ACWERN newsletter (at which time I was just an ACWERN
rookie!),
I’ve really enjoyed my first year in Nova Scotia,
and definitely
benefited from a few weeks out
on BP learning the fine art of extracting tiny birds from mist nets
– a
bit
different from my experience with seabirds and geese! Most of the time,
though,
I’ve not been in the field, but instead in front of my
computer working
on
modeling the stopover decisions of songbirds at Bon Portage Island.
Using day-to-day
bandings and recaptures and multi-strata MARK models, I’ve
been
investigating
both annual and daily variations in stopover site use and departure
timing. My
results are still preliminary (although I’m presenting them
at the
Halifax SCO
meeting!), but suggest that weather is influencing fall stopover
decisions of
warblers at both local and regional scales, although the fat load that
birds
are carrying also plays an important role. More details to follow once
analyses
are completed!
Darroch
Whitaker:
Over the past year I have continued to wrap up ongoing papers from my
doctoral
work in Virginia,
while at the same
time
taking on new research here at Acadia University.
I have
two papers and a book chapter on ruffed grouse habitat ecology in
various
stages of publication, and another paper on wild turkey nesting
phenology in
press. From late May through the end of August I conducted
field
research
on songbird movement and demographics at our Main River field camp,
located in western Newfoundland.
During this time I helped M.Sc. students Katie Dalley, Greg
Mitchell, and
Tina Leonard with their research, oversaw another season of
mark-recapture work
by our passive mist netting crew, and conducted a systematic survey to
measure
dispersal of colour-marked birds away from our netting sites.
I
am
currently analyzing these data in an effort to estimate apparent
survival,
actual survival, and emigration rates for songbirds marked on our
netting
sites. Finally, this fall I have made presentations at
meetings
of the
Western Newfoundland Connectivity Working Group and the Society of
Canadian
Ornithologists, and am scheduled to give a talk at the ninth biennial
North
American Wild turkey Symposium in Michigan
this December.
Greg
Mitchell: I
have just completed my first field season studying juvenile movement of
two
warbler (Dendroica coronata, D. striata)
species during the post-fledging period.
The
field season went incredibly well, and I believe I
have collected
some very interesting data on movement and habitat associations. I am now in the process of
data exploration,
and hope to start modeling some of my data by December.
During this time I hope to determine if I
will be going back to Main River to
repeat some of
this study, or to add to the existing database by doing a more
experimental
based study.
Jenny
Berlo: At
the beginning of this year I have been on the phone with many trappers
in
southwest Nova
Scotia
to collect information on marten distribution. Fortunately this method
provided
me with data fast and I was able to start analyzing in spring. Now I am
writing
things up and am looking forward to go home soon.
Kate
Dalley: Hi,
I have completed my field work this summer so it seems I am on the long
home
stretch. Over the last 2 summers I managed to find 170 nests of 12
species. We
had an awesome crew, weather, and time this year. Since we have been
back, I
have been busy entering and manipulating my data and TAing the new
ecology
block course. I attended a lab retreat in Parrsboro which was really
productive, as well as the SCO meeting in Halifax.
It was nice to see some familiar faces as well as put faces with the
familiar
names.
Krista Chin: I spent this summer writing up. In July, I attended the
Society of
Conservation Biology conference in Brasilia, Brazil,
where I
presented findings from one of my chapters.
I
am presently in the final stages of writing and
hopefully will defend
this semester.
Mike
Peckford: In
the last 6 months I’ve been writing up the big story (the
thesis). As a
result
I haven’t been in the field for over a year now,
‘desk sores’ and a
healthy
‘computer tan’ are setting in. Currently, between
conferences, I am
finishing
up chapter 2 of 2. I hope to defend early in the new year. Future plans
are to
stay on board with the Taylor
lab and work on some anticipated projects (i.e. expanded radar
monitoring of
the Atlantic region).
Tina
Leonard: I
have finished collecting data (and thus, sadly, my field work) on
movements of
breeding male blackpoll warblers and northern waterthrush with the
passing of
this summer’s breeding season. I am currently in the process
of
analyzing my
data to write two papers (space/habitat use and movement behaviours) on
major
findings. These papers will form the bulk of each of two chapters in my
thesis.
I’m also TA’ing Advanced Ecology along with Kate
Dalley.
Phil
Taylor: The
past year has seen Phil doing the norm, working on papers and
graduating
Masters students. He also ventured on a trip to Europe and Tobago,
oh ya, and he got married in there at some point.
Acadia's
News, October 2004
<>The
Rookies (“rookies” as in new to ACWERN –
not in terms of experience):
<>
Anna Calvert: Last ACWERN meeting was
the first I attended, and I liked it so
much that I decided to come out and join you! So in September I moved
from Quebec City
(where I did my MSc on
greater snow goose
demographics) to Nova Scotia
to start my PhD with Phil, looking at the importance of weather to
migrating
passerines. Our overall objective is to get an idea of which birds will
be
particularly affected by expected future climate changes, but for now
we're
working on the short-term relationships between weather and migration.
Looking
forward to this year's meeting, and working in this
great research group! <>
Britt
Cline:
Greetings! I have recently joined
the
landscape ecology team at Acadia, and am eager to meet members of
ACWERN at the
upcoming meeting in Fredericton.
During the past few months, I have spent most of my time developing
research
ideas; my nose is frequently found in the scientific literature.
However, I
have also kept busy with a trip to the ABO on Bon Portage Island,
introductory grad
classes and TA duties, and the formidable task of learning the many
names,
faces, and stories of researchers in Phil's lab. (What fun!)
Additionally, I
tend to hang on every descriptive word that I can extract from fellow,
seasoned
graduate students about field life in the Main
River
region of western
Newfoundland.
Originally from Maine,
I have spent
the past
year or so working on various avian demography and conservation
research
projects in Hawaii
and across the New England
region. At Acadia, I will be working
on
landscape-scale questions of avian movement across heterogeneous
landscapes of
the Greater Gros Morne Ecosystem in Newfoundland.
(Laura Minich- I believe we were in the same ornithology class at
Bowdoin.
2001?) <>
Darroch Whitaker: I arrived from Virginia Tech to begin work as
a postdoc
in Phil
Taylors lab in April. Most of my first 4 months were spent in the woods
helping
with field studies at the Main
River
field site in
western Newfoundland.
In particularly I worked
closely with M.Sc. students Katie Dalley, Tina Leonard, and Greg Mitchell. Since that
time I have been
adapting
to my new life on the Acadia
campus.
In
addition to helping students with various aspects of their research, I
have
been working on a number of manuscripts related to my doctoral
research. I have
also given a number of presentations, including a departmental seminar
at
Acadia, and talks at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society of
Zoologists,
the Northeast Wild Turkey Technical Committee workshop (Ottawa), and a
ruffed
grouse management workshop (National Conservation Training Center,
Shepherdstown, West Virginia).
<>
Greg Mitchell: Hello. I
too have recently
joined the landscape ecology lab here at Acadia. I am also the new ACWERN
student
representative from Acadia. I am coming from the University
of Guelph. While at Guelph,
I was involved in a study investigating the affect of a four-lane
highway on
the movement of Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnakes and Eastern Hognose snakes. I
spent
this past summer working for Tina in the Main
River
watershed of
western Newfoundland
and getting
used to my soon-to-be study site.
Currently,
I am researching several potential thesis
topics, and trying
to focus down on some research questions involving potential
differences in
avian movement between natural and harvested landscapes. I invite any suggestions
or comments
regarding potential studies in this area.
<>
Yang
Shijian: I just
came to this lab from China
and everything is still very new to me.
In
my first weeks here, I was fascinated with the charming
fall scenery
of the area (Wolfville). Now
that I am
becoming familiar with the new atmosphere, I have to study and learn
the R statistics
software. Additionally,
I have to
analyze some data on an endangered species, the Yunnan
snub-nosed monkey. A
final report for this project is due in
next February. So,
this will likely keep
me busy this winter. <>
The
Vets:
<>
Ian Jonsen: Ian has spent the last
few months developing a framework for
filtering
satellite
and radio
telemetry data with
state-space models, this approach will provide ecologists with a robust
method
for improving location estimates and estimating behavioural parameters.
A new
manuscript will be submitted to Ecology soon.
<>
Jenny Berlo: This summer I was
tracking two American marten (Martes americana),
relocating slipped collars, and distributing hair-snags to gain more
information about the specific South-western population in Ohio, Nova
Scotia.
Recently,
I have been going through the
literature to gain general habitat information on martens in an effort
to
figure out what it is that limits their habitat.
<>
Kate Dalley: I have successfully
completed my first field season and it feels
good to have data! I attended the AOU-SCO meeting after leaving the
field in
August which was a great experience. This semester I am keeping busy
TAing
intro biology (much more interesting this semester with the ecology
module),
sitting on the animal care committee and dealing with the data that was
collected over the summer (80 nests, 1000+ birds banded). Hopefully
things will
be in some state that will allow me to present at least the basics at
the
upcoming ACWERN meeting. Until then…
<>
Krista Chin: Since the last ACWERN
newsletter, I participated in 2 conferences,
CSZ
in May and OEES (Odonate Ecology and Evolution Symposium) in September. Most of my summer was
spent analyzing my
data. I am still analyzing and hoping to be done within the next few
months. <>
Tina
Leonard: This
past summer constituted my
first
season of data collection in the Main
River
watershed in
western Newfoundland.
With exceptional help from
Greg and Darroch, I successfully radiotracked 46 individual adult males
of
white-throated sparrow, northern waterthrush, and blackpoll warbler
across
naturally heterogeneous and anthropogenically-fragmented landscapes.
Birds were
followed during both the breeding and post-fledging periods. I
haven’t
delved
too far into the data as of yet (sure I’m not the only one is
this
boat), but
will certainly need to for the upcoming ACWERN conference, where
I’ll
be
presenting some initial findings.
<>
Kristen
Powell: I spent
the summer finishing data
analysis
and writing up my thesis. I
also
presented at the AOU meeting in Quebec. I
am currently working on revising the drafts
of my chapters and analyzing some of the data collected this year (so
that I
can present two years of data on bird movement at this year’s
ACWERN
meeting). I am
hoping to finish up in
Wolfville in
December or January. <>
Mike
Peckford: Since
the last ACWERN meeting
I've been
working on analyzing my
migration radar and nocturnal flight call data. The past summer was
spent in
the office with a minor excursion to NL.
I
also spent the better part of August at the ABO.
As
for the status of the all-important
thesis, problems have slowed the process more than I had anticipated. Recently the radar data
has been 'cleaned'
and formation of the first chapter
chapter is in its infancy. I
hope, and
often pray that the pin-hole size light at the end of the tunnel is
very large
by next year.
Phil
Taylor: Phil
has been busy attending
meetings and
conferences, making the hike to the Main River
study site,
co-instructing the graduate level research methods course, and
supervising his
students.
Acadia's News,
March 2004
Hi All, here’s the latest on the Acadia team:
Phil Taylor:
Phil
has spent the past few months attending conferences and interviewing
potential graduate students. He is teaching the graduate
Research
Methods course (with Ian) and is preparing for the Belize field course
in May.
Ian Jonsen:
Ian has been
working on developing new models for state-space analysis of animal
movement data, helping with Grad Students' projects, and applying for
jobs. His paper describing state-space modeling of movement data just
came out in Ecology in December (Jonsen et al. 2003 Ecology.
84:3055-3063) and a second manuscript has just been submitted to the
Journal of American Biological and Environmental Statistics.
Michelle McPherson
(M.Sc. !):
I defended my thesis in November, and am still in Wolfville writing
manuscripts from my thesis. I hope to be here this summer as
well, and perhaps even beyond...
Trina Fitzgerald:
Trina has spent her winter, in Fredericton, finishing up the final
touches on her thesis. She is looking forward to defending in
the
very near future! After that point, the Atlantic Bird Observatory will,
once again, receive her undivided attention.
Tina Leonard:
This
semester is a very busy one, what with trying to get ready for the
coming-too-soon field season and all. Katie Dalley and I have been
reviewing applications and conducting interviews so that we can fill 6
positions for field assistant birders in Newfoundland this summer......
kind of a stressful process. We've also been ordering all the field
gear, submitting animal care protocols, applying for banding permits,
etc. Up to my eyeballs in paper work, really. And I'm taking 2 grad
courses, which quite quickly eats up a lot of my time. Apart from that,
I'm just looking forward to getting out into the field and actually
collecting some data so that my project can move from the drawing board
to the real world.
Katie Dalley:
Katie is
preparing for the upcoming field season. She and Tina are
currently in the process of hiring for the Main River project, which is
proving fun- great applicants so far. She has been touching up her
proposal and presented it in Maine in February with some helpful
feedback. With her project, classes and TAing she is keeping
busy, but took advantage of the strike to get some work done and catch
up on marking Intro lab papers.
Kristin Powell:
I have
been busy analyzing data (progress is very slow) and finishing my final
course (conservation genetics). I presented some initial
results
on bird movement at the Northeastern Biological Graduate Student
Conference at University of Maine in February and will be presenting a
poster at the CSZ meeting in May. I plan on spending the
summer
writing, and hopefully finishing, my thesis.
Jenny Berlo:
Not much has
changed in my project since the last ACWERN newsletter. I gathered
enough information to be able to say what features in an area affect
the suitability for marten habitat. So now I hope to be able to start
some modelling soon with the Nova Scotia forestry data.
Mike Peckford:
I ended my
second field season (and the ABO fall migration monitoring) on Oct 31.
Things went well this season and it appears that I have good radar data
of birds flying over BP last fall. Microphone work also went better
this year. Since then I have been getting my data in a workable format,
taking my final class, and TAing intro biology. I finally took my oral
comprehensive exam a few weeks ago, making that one less hoop I have
left to jump through.
Currently Phil and I are looking into buying a new radar in order to
continue/expand the radar study at the ABO.
So, besides looking forward to helping Trina set up the spring
monitoring at the ABO that’s about it for me.
Product Plug: We now have ABO T-shirts for sale if anyone out there
that has been to the island in the past, and is interested. Check out
the website for images in the near
future:
http://landscape.acadiau.ca/abo/index.HTMl
Krista Chin:
With
no classes or TAing responsibilities this semester, I’ve been
able to
focus on analyzing my 2003 data. I presented a poster at the
NBGSC conference in Maine and will also present a poster at the CZS
conference in May.
Acadia's News, 5 Nov. 2003
Hi everyone, here is an update of what has been going on in the lab
since
the last newsletter in March 2003.
***R O O K I E S***
Katie Dalley
After spending the summer working on Kristin’s passerine
movement
project
in Main River, I returned to Nova Scotia this fall to settle into my
first
year as a Masters student. Initially I headed to Bon portage Island
color
banding Fox Sparrows and Boreal Chickadees, with intentions of taking a
look
at inter-island movement on the Southern Shore of Nova Scotia. Plans
changed
however, as after more than a month I had no more than a dozen of each
species
banded. So, I hung around for a little bit helping out with the
extracting
and banding but soon headed back to Wolfville to reside in the academic
world.
Since my return I have been reviewing paper after paper and feeling out
new
ideas to finally fall into the world of Phil’s Gros Morne
Project. With
a
field sight in mind, I’ve been narrowing my options and
working toward
fine
tuning a potential project (don’t be fooled into thinking
that I have
reached
that goal). I will be one of the members of the growing Main River team
this
upcoming summer. This semester I am taking the research methods course,
sitting
in on my co-supervisor, Dave Shutler’s, parasitology class
(bright eyed
and
bushy tailed) and sharing paper reviews with his lab on Friday
afternoons.
Jenny Berlo
The last couple of months I spent quite some time reading and trying to
get
an idea of what my research for the next few years will be. My research
will
be in cooperation with the marten recovery team for the Department of
Natural
Resources, Nova Scotia. They want me to make a habitat model that would
show
all the habitats suitable for the American marten (Martes americana),
in
Nova Scotia. The idea is that I will be doing this with existing data
from
researches already carried out on this subject in other places and
thereby
try to analyse the accuracy of this kind of habitat models to be able
to
build this into my own model.
Tina Leonard
This past summer, I intended to conduct a pilot study in Main River
using
radio telemetry to determine gap-crossing behaviour of male and
juvenile
songbirds during the post-fledging period. However, a broken leg
prevented
me from doing so. Because I had gained no experience with handling or
extracting
birds, I spent the first two months of this semester at the ABO (Bon
Portage)
learning how to extract and place radio transmitters on songbirds.
Outfitting
birds with transmitters using figure-8 harnesses is going to be much
more
difficult than I had originally anticipated!
***V E T S***
Michelle McPherson
Michelle has finished writing up her thesis and is now waiting to
defend.
She will not be able to attend this years ACWERN meeting because she
will
be at the Entomological Society of Canada conference where she will be
presenting
a talk (on dragonfly between- patch movements) and a poster (on larval
incidence
and abundance in different landscapes).
Ian Jonsen
Ian has been working on methods for applying state-space models to
satellite
and radio telemetry movement data. He presented some of this work at
the
Ecological Society of America annual meeting in Savannah, GA in August.
The
first publication from this work will appear in the December 2003 issue
of
Ecology. Current work is focusing on modeling Leatherback turtle
movements
in the mid-Atlantic (in collaboration with Ransom Myers, Dalhousie). He
and
Phil also recently received a 3-year NSERC Collaborative Research and
Development
grant to explore the multi-scale interactions among songbird
demography,
movement behaviour and forest harvesting patterns in the Greater Gros
Morne
Ecosystem, NF. The industry partner in this is Corner Brook Pulp
&
Paper,
Ltd.
Trina Fitzgerald
The summer was spent organizing the fall season at the ABO and writing
up
the second chapter of my thesis. I spent most of the fall
migration
season on Seal Island. Right now, along with annual ABO
reports,
I
am finishing up the final touches of the thesis and hope to be finished
in
the next couple months.
Mike Peckford
After finishing the spring migration season at the ABO I spent most of
the
summer helping out Kristin and Krista on the GGME projects.
Since
the
middle of August I have been banding on Bon Portage and collecting
data.
The RADAR I had this fall worked well and right now it looks like I'll
have
good fall data. I left the island on October 31 and have
since
been
frantically getting ready for the conference.
Kristin Powell
I finished my last field season in Main River this summer and am now
beginning
the long process of analyzing the data. I am
looking at how
landscape
structure affects bird movement and density. Everything went
fairly
well and more birds were captured than I expected. I will
finish
my
last course next semester and will begin writing my thesis.
Krista Chin
I had a very fun and successful field season in western
Newfoundland.
We collected lots of larval and adult dragonfly data as well as loads
of
physical data from the bogs. We even were successful in
getting
the
solar powered weather station to work! First team to do so
since
it
was purchased 4 years ago. I am still entering data from the
summer
and sorting through my pool samples looking for small larvae under the
microscope.
This semester, I am TAing 2 Intro Bio labs as well as taking the course
“Flora
of Nova Scotia”.
***C O A C H***
Phil Taylor
Phil has been busy going to conferences all summer and
most of the
fall.
He was however able to make it on Bon Portage and to the Main (NL) for
a
few days to help his grad students out with logistical problems.
Acadia's News, 17 March 2003
The Acadia ACWERN student rep has changed from Michelle McPherson to
Krista Chin (I was volun-told).
Phil Taylor:
Phil is really busy this semester. He was unable to meet the
newsletter deadline. I shall therefore report what I have
observed:
1- He is enjoying making
sarcastic remarks
towards athletes in his lab.
2- He has not produced any
children.
3- He was absent for a few
brief periods
since Oct. 2002, most probably at conferences/meetings.
4- He will be teaching the
Belize field course
this April-May.
Derek Potter
Since graduating I have, among other things:
1) completed a few
home renovation
projects (ain’t biology a lucrative field?)
2) examined a few
PhD. possibilities
3) worked at
preparing manuscripts
for publication with Phil
4) searched for and
applied to a few
interesting biology jobs
5) become a dad.
(Kaitlyn Linnaea Potter,
born 03/03/03, 8 lbs 4 oz.)
I highly recommend that last item. Not only does your fitness increase
but it radically alters your perspective. I could be cleaning toilets
right now and life would still be grand!
Alison Keen
Alison has just successfully defended her thesis. Here is her
abstract:
Bursera simaruba and Attalea
cohune
counts and morphology at Maya sites in Belize.
There is a long record of extensive use of natural resources by
humans. Understanding past patterns of such use may be
important
for planning
and management of current ecological problems. As an example, the
ancient
Maya inhabited Mesoamerica from 1000 BC to 1525 AD. To
support
several million people in Mesoamerica, the Maya had to develop
efficient agricultural and agroforestry techniques. Through
intense plant cultivation and selection, the Maya domesticated many
plant species, and influenced the evolution of others. These
manipulations may be evident in present Maya forests, when comparing
sites of differing ancient Maya densities. This summer I
studied
the counts and morphology of Burserasimaruba
and Attaleacohune
at Belizean sites with different historical population densities of
ancient Maya. Trees were sampled along transects at four
sites:
Caracol (a high density site), El Pilar
(a high density site), Las Cuevas (a low density site), and Grano de
Oro
(a low density site). Along transects, site characteristics
were
recorded, B . simaruba and A.
cohune
were counted, and presence or absence of leaves, flowers, and fruit was
noted. Site characteristics examined were elevation, terrain,
and
canopy. Counts, presence of leaves, flowers, and fruit were
compared
between sites and with site characteristics using generalized linear
models.
While results show that A. cohune
and B
. simaruba density differ significantly between
sites, there is
not enough evidence to attribute these differences to Maya
density. There were several significant relationships with
site
characteristics. Overall, the results do not show differences
associated with Maya density, but the power to detect such effects is
low.
Mike Peckford
Until the end of October I was running the Bon Portage station of the
Atlantic Bird Observatory. Since then I’ve been
analysing my
video tapes of the Radar images that I recorded from September through
till October. After examining some of the radar images I have
discovered some flaws
in the radar and as a result, the unit is currently being repaired for
the upcoming season.
Since my first season has ended in October I have also be investigating
the usage of weather radar (NEXRAD) to monitor large movements of
passerines in the state of Maine. I am working on developing
a
protocol for analysing these NEXRAD images, and comparing them to
banding data.
Michelle McPherson
I am writing, and not much else (really). [and
judging from
this, not writing much]
Trina Fitzgerald
Trina is also busy writing up her thesis.
Ian Jonsen
Ian Jonsen has been working on developing meta-analytic state-space
models for the analysis of animal movement data. This work is in
collaboration with Ransom Myers (Dalhousie) and Joanna Flemming
(Univeristy of Geneva). An overview of the general methods was recently
accepted by Ecology; a
preprint is available at:
http://fish.dal.ca/~myers/papers/Papers-recent/Josn:Myers:Flemming:2003.pdf
Kristin Powell
I spent most of last term analyzing my data from the last field season
and doing an extensive literature search of bird movement
studies. I have also spent some time at Corner Brook Pulp and
Paper getting familiar with their GIS programs. Since January
I
have been working on developing new field methods for the upcoming
field season and taking some classes.
Krista Chin
I spent most of the semester analyzing my data on MARK and thinking
about the 2003 field season. Kristin, Mike, and I also
participated in the Northeast Biological Graduate Student Conference
hosted by UPEI. We are also taking the stats-modelling class
that
Phil is teaching. You can expect awesome figures at the next
meeting.
ACWERN
ACADIA News, October 2002
Hi everybody. Here is an update on the summer activities and
new
faces of the
Acadia node.
1) N E W
P E
O P L E:
There has been quite a turnover in our lab this summer. We
have
three new
M.Sc. students - Mike Peckford (who attended last year's meeting),
Krista Chin,
and Kristin Powell. We also have Ian Jonsen (a former ACWERN
member), who has
returned as a post-doctoral fellow.
Krista and Kristin will be working on projects at our study site east
of Gros
Morne National Park. Krista will be continuing our work on
the
landscape
ecology of dragonflies, and Kristin will work on the movement of forest
songbirds. Both were thoroughly acquainted with the Main
River
lifestyle this
past summer and will be returning next spring to begin their
research. Krista
will also serve as the new Acadia ACWERN student representative,
beginning with
the upcoming meeting.
Mike Peckford is currently on Bon Portage Island, running the banding
station
and collecting night migration data using radar.
Ian Jonsen, Ph. D. recently defended his thesis at the University of
Alberta
and is back in Nova Scotia to do his post-doctorate research
with Phil and
Ransom Meyers at Dalhousie.
2) O L D
P E
O P L E:
Derek Potter, M.Sc. successfully defended his thesis (Modelling fisher
habitat
associations in Nova Scotia) on September 11! He is now on
holiday.
Alison Keen was in Belize last summer working on her honours
project. She is
applying resilience theory to the Maya civilization, and exploring
methods to
measure human impacts on a landscape over long periods of time.
Trina Fitzgerald is currently working at the Seal Island banding
station and is
in the process of writing her thesis.
Meg Krawchuk has begun a Ph.D. at the University of Alberta.
Michelle McPherson - I am back to writing my thesis full time after
helping out
with the new Acadia tropical ecology field course in Belize last spring
and
supervising the field research in Gros Morne last summer.
Phil Taylor has been hopping to meetings here and there, and
writing papers,
etc. Unfortunately Phil won't be attending the
ACWERN
meeting this fall since
he has a conflicting Resilience Alliance meeting
Looking forward to seeing everyone in beautiful Gros Morne!!
(Betcha you'll
want to work there! ;)
cheers, Michelle
ACWERN
ACADIA
- February 2002 newsletter.
This
is a short newsletter
since everyone
here is just doing their "usual" things, but we do have a few new
people
(or people in new roles!) in the lab.
1.
Alison Keen is a new
Honours student, and she will be doing her research in Belize this
spring. Her topic is still in development, but she plans to do some
work on resilience.
2.
ABO news: Mike Peckford,
who attended the fall meeting, will be starting his M.Sc. in September.
He has taken over many of the ABO’s administrative duties
from Trina,
and will also act as the "bander in charge" on one of the island
stations for the next few years. Currently, Mike is starting to
organize this year’s volunteer effort. If anybody would like
more
information about activities on Bon Portage or Seal Island,
contact:
Mike Peckford
Field Co-ordinator
Atlantic Bird Observatory
ACWERN
Acadia University
Biology Dept.
B0P 1X0
michael.peckford@acadiau.ca |
3.
Conferences: There aren’t
many people attending conferences in the near future. However, Trina
Fitzgerald will be presenting a paper at the Northeast Wildlife
Graduate Students Conference at UNB later this month...
And,
most of the students in
our lab will
also be participating in a joint Movement Workshop (that’s
animal
movement!) between Acadia and Dalhousie (with Dr. Ransom
Meyers).
that's
it for now.
Cheers, Michelle
ACWERN
ACADIA - October 2001 newsletter
Hi
everybody, I thought it
would be a good idea to update you before we meet in Sackville in a
week. Here is what we have been involved with.
G
R A D U A T E
S T U D E N T S:
Trina
Fitzgerald
(Orientation of migratory and vagrant landbirds). Trina has finished
the last season for her M.Sc., and now has a sizeable sample of
orientation behaviour for both migrant and vagrant landbird species.
Interestingly, although Trina expected that her main vagrant species
would be Yellow-breasted Chats and Indigo Buntings, these species were
in short supply. Instead one of the most abundant
vagrants was the Prairie Warbler. She hopes to analyze her data this
winter and have her thesis completed by spring/ summer of 2002. In
April,
Trina attended an Advanced Landbird Identification Workshop taught by
Peter Pyle at the Point Reyes Bird Observatory in Bolinas, California.
The
course focused on aging and sexing techniques of passerines using molt
limit
criteria. In October, Trina participated in a similar workshop (The
National
Bird Banding Workshop – CWS) held at the Atlantic Bird
Observatory
facilities
on Bon Portage Island, NS, before the biannual meeting of the CMMN
which
was hosted by the ABO.
Michelle
McPherson
(Effects of landscape change on spatial and temporal distribution of
peatland Odonates in western Newfoundland). I finished my final field
season in Newfoundland last summer, collecting a second year of exuviae
data and re-attempting the adult dragonfly mark recapture with the help
of a great field crew and a grant from Mountain Equipment Coop to
support volunteers. Unfortunately the cold weather in NF in July
didn’t
leave us with enough sunny days to complete that task. I have also
presented at a few conferences: IALE 2000 in April, and a Main River
Coalition meeting in July. In addition, Meg
and I presented a Connectivity workshop in September for the
Connectivity Working Group in Newfoundland after writing a literature
review of landscape ecology and impacts of commercial forest harvesting
on various wildlife species (see below for details).
Derek
Potter (Predicting
habitat requirements: testing a GIS habitat model for fishers) is still
writing and will also be finished in the near future. Since the last
meeting, he has presented his work at a meeting of the Nova Scotia
Trapper’s Association in King’s County.
R
E S E A R C H A S S
I S T A N T :
Meg
Krawchuk. Meg has
been working
jointly with Parks Canada (Gros Morne), Western Newfoundland Model
Forest
and Acadia looking at distribution patterns of common boreal songbirds
at
multiple spatial scales in the Greater Gros Morne Ecosystem. She
presented
her M.Sc. work at US-IALE 2001 in Arizona (April), co-authored and
co-presented
(with Michelle McPherson) a review of landscape ecology and adaptive
management for a joint working group consisting of multiple stake
holders in the Greater Gros Morne Ecosystem. Meg also presented a
workshop session on spatial analysis
in applied entomology at the Entomological Society of Canada's annual
meeting
in October (Niagara Falls). A manuscript from her M.Sc. is in review.
Now,
she is mulling over what to do next ... PhD? She is thinking of
travelling
the world with her dog Rustie (who has been voted an honourary
baby).
P
H I L T A Y L O R:
Phil
has returned to Wolfville,
and is still enjoying his sabbatical. However, he can be persuaded to
return to
the lab now and then for a good cause. Phil is still travelling to
conferences - most recently the Resilience Alliance meeting in Chiang
Mai, Thailand (August), and Bon Portage Island for the CMMN meeting
–
but mostly remains at home writing research grants (NSERC) and
analyzing data.
ACWERN
ACADIA - April 2001 Newsletter
Here’s
what we’ve all been up
to in the last few months…
H
O N O U R S S T U D
E N T S
Two
Honours students finished
their theses and defended successfully (March 21 and 23)!
James Churchill
did his field work
in Belize, and wrote his thesis on the Natural history and movement
behaviours of Bufo valliceps. He presented his work at
AUUBC. His plans are to work in the Annapolis Valley this
summer.
Renée
Cormier was
part of the Newfoundland crew for two summers – 1999 and
2000.
Her thesis
was about the Effects of landscape matrix on the distribution and
dispersal of insects inhabiting the purple pitcher plant (Sarracenia
purpurea),
and she received an honourable mention for her poster at
AUUBC.
Renée will be doing some field work in Alberta this summer.
G
R A D U A T E S T U
D E N T S
Meg
Krawchuk defended
her work successfully at the end of October 2000. (Movement and
distribution of three species of inquiline insects in boreal boglands:
process and pattern at multiple spatial scales).
Matt
Holder defended
successfully on March 28 2001 (influence of habitat structure on
peatland odonates
at several spatial scales). But this event was preceeded by
an
even more exciting one…Matt and his wife, Andrea Kingsley
are now the
proud parents of a baby boy! Matt is currently working on
various
contracts.
Derek
Potter (predicting
habitat requirements: testing a GIS habitat model for fishers) is deep
in the analyzing and writing phase.
Trina
Fitzgerald
(orientation of migratory and vagrant landbirds) is also analyzing,
etc. Trina is attending a banding workshop in California in
April, and will be heading out to Bon Portage Island and Seal Island
soon after. Trina continues to coordinate the Atlantic Bird
Observatory, and presented a 5-year report to CWS this
spring.
She has also been actively working with CWS.
Mateo
Yorke (house fly
dispersal) is currently teaching computer courses in Halifax.
Michelle
McPherson
(effects of landscape change on abundance of peatland Odonates in
western Newfoundland) is analyzing last summer’s data, and
will be
returning to Newfoundland for another field season in June and
July. Michelle attended the Annual Meeting of the
Entomological
Society of Canada/America in December (Montreal). Along with
Meg,
she will be presenting a paper at the US-IALE meeting
(Arizona) at the end of April.
R
E S E A R C H
A S S I S T A N T
Meg
Krawchuk is
currently working as a research assistant in the lab, analyzing Gros
Morne bird data, and writing many reports (one of which will be
included in a Parks Canada proposal making recommendations for future
work in the Gros Morne Greater Ecosystem).
Meg
will likely be in Rocky
Harbour, NF for part of this summer. Meg will be presenting
at
US-IALE in April.
P
H I L T A Y L
O R
Phil
is on sabbatical leave,
and has been
travelling extensively. His work and proposal development
have
taken
him to Belize and Cote d’Ivoire thus far. He has
conducted bird
surveys of Mt. Peko National Park (RCI), and is developing proposals to
investigate large-scale patterns of biodiversity in Belize, RCI, CA,
and Newfoundland (with CWS), and to test large-scale automated tracking
systems for bird
movement (with L. Fahrig, A. DesRochers and M.A. Villard).
O
T H E R A C T I V I
T Y
Acadia
graduate students would
like to extend another thank-you to Falk Huettmann for preparing and
delivering a Distance sampling workshop, March 10-11. We
appreciated it very much; it certainly generated some
discussion
among us.
Three
Acadia students – Trina
Fitzgerald,
Mateo Yorke and Meg Krawchuk – attended the Communications
course,
organized by CWS in January.
The
Acadia node has a new and
improved (at least updated) web site coming soon!
|
Acadia University Node