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
- August 2026 -- The American Ornithological Society's annual conference was in Amherst this year and huge congratulations are in order for lab members Rozy Bathrick and Maina Handmaker, who both took home best student presentation awards!! Maina was awarded the Mark E. Hauber Award for best presentation on bird behavior, while Rozy was awarded the Robert B. Berry Award for best presentation on bird conservation. Congrats also to Feipeng Huang, Laura Torezan, Kayla Davis, Paul Dougherty, Teresa Pegan, and Mark Titus for their terrific presentations and posters!
- June 2026 -- This summer our research has showcased how tracking devices can reveal unexpected diversity in the movements of birds. Lab PhD student, Rozy Bathrick, used hundreds of tracking devices deployed across the range of Lesser Yellowlegs to demonstrate how yellowlegs breeding in different regions use the Prairie Pothole Region of the US and Canada differently during southward migration. As a result, protecting wetlands in only one part of the Prairie Pothole Region would not help all Lesser Yellowlegs, but late summer wetlands are especially valuable wherever they are found. Check Rozy's article out in Ornithological Applications. Then, collaborator Sarah Clements showed how tracking devices that are programmed differently can dramatically vary in their ability to identify when birds stopover during migration. In her paper in Ibis, Sarah found that many long-distance migratory shorebirds are actually making very brief stopovers, on the order of only a couple of hours. However, the classic duty cycles used by many researchers to program their tracking devices fail to capture these stopover events, potentially missing important information for migratory bird conservation.
- April 2026 -- We have two new articles on Hudsonian Godwits out this week! Both focus on the ability of godwits to respond to changes in their environment during the breeding season. In the first article, former lab undergraduate, Eden Smith, investigated how the muskeg bogs in which godwits breed in Alaska have changed and whether or not these changes have negatively impacted godwits. To our surprise, we found that while the bog has changed, godwit nest sites have changed less than the surrounding bog and the changes to nest sites that have occurred have not had any negative effects on godwits. In the second article, lab PhD student Feipeng Huang explored the ability of godwit chicks to vary their foraging and growth rates as temperature and food availability changes. He found that godwit chicks unfortunately exhibit very little environmental responsiveness. This is particularly costly for female chicks, which must grow faster and larger than males. As a result, female chicks must do much of their growth after the local peak in invertebrate availability.
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.