Our research uses movement ecology as a framework to understand how individuals and populations respond to changes in their environment in order to project how future change may alter a population’s dynamics and evolutionary trajectory.
Our Philosophy
The natural world knows no political boundaries. That means that we are all stakeholders in the conservation of our biodiversity and our lab welcomes the involvement of anyone and everyone, no matter where they come from or how they identify themselves. We are also working to overcome our own biases, as well as those that have long prevailed in the scientific and conservation communities, by learning from and engaging with the communities whose lives intersect with the species we study.
The natural world knows no political boundaries. That means that we are all stakeholders in the conservation of our biodiversity and our lab welcomes the involvement of anyone and everyone, no matter where they come from or how they identify themselves. We are also working to overcome our own biases, as well as those that have long prevailed in the scientific and conservation communities, by learning from and engaging with the communities whose lives intersect with the species we study.
Breaking News
- PhD student Rozy Bathrick and her efforts to track Alaska's shorebirds were featured on KYUK Public Radio from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in Alaska. Check it out!
- Sea level rise is often thought of as one of those incremental consequences of climate change whose consequences will mainly be felt some time in the future. In a new paper out in Estuaries and Coasts by Julián García-Walther and colleagues, they show that the future is now. Along the coast of the Baja California Peninsula, increasingly strong El Niño events have combined with recent sea level rise to influence the ability of beach-nesting birds to find safe places to put their nests. In years following winter storms driven by El Niño events, beaches lack stable platforms called berms on which birds can place their nests. Those birds that do try to nest face the risk of having their nests flooded by increasingly high tides. Understanding how sea level rise is already impacting coastal species is thus crucial to conserving this avian community that is frequently facing rapid declines.
- Spring bird migration is getting earlier, right? Not necessarily! Take a look at the first chapter from Lauren Puleo's MSc thesis, which is out today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Lauren found that Hudsonian Godwits breeding in Beluga, Alaska are now arriving 6 days later than they did in 2012. In turn, she found that these changes in arrival timing are driven by changes in departure timing from southern Chile -- something that has only rarely been documented in long-distance migratory birds. What's more, it appears that individual godwits are able to shift their migration timing over the course of their lives. Taken together, these results run counter to many studies that have investigated the ability of trans-hemispheric migrants to shift their migrations in response to climate change. Unfortunately, in the case of godwits, the shift toward later migrations is not in line with recent climatic changes in Alaska and godwits are now increasingly experiencing phenological mismatches and reduced reproductive success.
nsenner at umass.edu
Mass Audubon Bertrand Chair for Ornithology
Department of Environmental Conservation
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Holdsworth Hall 219
Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Mass Audubon Bertrand Chair for Ornithology
Department of Environmental Conservation
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Holdsworth Hall 219
Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S.A.