Ten years tracking the migrations of small landbirds: Lessons learned in the golden age of bio-logging

In 2007, the first miniature light-level geolocators were deployed on small landbirds, revolutionizing the study of migration. In this paper, we review studies that have used geolocators to track small landbirds with the goal of summarizing research themes and identifying remaining important gaps in understanding. We also highlight research and opportunities using 2 recently developed tracking technologies: archival GPS tags and automated radio-telemetry systems. In our review, we found that most (54%) geolocator studies focused on quantifying natural history of migration, such as identifying migration routes, nonbreeding range, and migration timing. Studies of behavioral ecology (20%) uncovered proximate drivers of movements, including en route habitat quality; that migration routes, but not timing, may be flexible in some species; and different age and sex classes show significant differences in migration strategy. Studies of the evolution of migration (9%) have illustrated that migration is a potential barrier to hybridizing species or subspecies, and some work has correlated gene polymorphisms and methylation patterns with migration behavior. Studies of migratory connectivity (11%) have shown that a moderate level of connectivity is common, although variability across and within species exists. Studies of seasonal interactions (7%) have found mixed results: in some cases, carryover effects have been identified; in other cases, carryover effects are buffered during intervening stages of the annual cycle. Archival GPS tags provide unprecedented precision in locations of nonbreeding sites and migration routes, and will continue to improve understanding of migration across large spatial scales. Automated radio-telemetry systems are revolutionizing our knowledge of migratory stopover biology, and have led to discoveries of previously unknown stopover behaviors. Together, these tracking technologies will continue to provide insight into small migratory landbird movements and contribute important information for conservation of this rapidly declining group

Ten years tracking the migrations of small landbirds: Lessons learned in the golden age of bio-logging

In 2007, the first miniature light-level geolocators were deployed on small landbirds, revolutionizing the study of migration. In this paper, we review studies that have used geolocators to track small landbirds with the goal of summarizing research themes and identifying remaining important gaps in understanding. We also highlight research and opportunities using 2 recently developed tracking technologies: archival GPS tags and automated radio-telemetry systems. In our review, we found that most (54%) geolocator studies focused on quantifying natural history of migration, such as identifying migration routes, nonbreeding range, and migration timing. Studies of behavioral ecology (20%) uncovered proximate drivers of movements, including en route habitat quality; that migration routes, but not timing, may be flexible in some species; and different age and sex classes show significant differences in migration strategy. Studies of the evolution of migration (9%) have illustrated that migration is a potential barrier to hybridizing species or subspecies, and some work has correlated gene polymorphisms and methylation patterns with migration behavior. Studies of migratory connectivity (11%) have shown that a moderate level of connectivity is common, although variability across and within species exists. Studies of seasonal interactions (7%) have found mixed results: in some cases, carryover effects have been identified; in other cases, carryover effects are buffered during intervening stages of the annual cycle. Archival GPS tags provide unprecedented precision in locations of nonbreeding sites and migration routes, and will continue to improve understanding of migration across large spatial scales. Automated radio-telemetry systems are revolutionizing our knowledge of migratory stopover biology, and have led to discoveries of previously unknown stopover behaviors. Together, these tracking technologies will continue to provide insight into small migratory landbird movements and contribute important information for conservation of this rapidly declining group

Communities Moving Past the Daddy Daughter Dance: Adapting Gender-Exclusive Events for the 21st Century

Executive Summary Parent-child community events like father-daughter dances are a celebrated tradition in many communities. However, when these events specify the gender of who can participate, they exclude many families. They also tend to reinforce gender stereotypes (e.g., a dance for girls and a sports event for boys), and are legally questionable for public school and associated P.T.A./P.T.O. sponsors that may be violating federal Title IX requirements and for local governments that may be violating the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. Contemporary U.S. society is made up of families that come in diverse forms and structures. Two-parent households may have a working mother and stay-at-home father or two parents of the same gender. Some children live with only one parent, sometimes due to factors such as deployment, death, divorce, and incarceration. Excluding families from these events prevents them from participating in community events meant to foster and celebrate family bonds, ultimately adding unnecessary stressors and stigmatizing these families and children. To address these concerns, over the past decade a growing number of communities across the United States have adapted their family events to make them gender inclusive. From Rhode Island to North Carolina to Wisconsin to Oregon, schools, local governments, and other sponsors of gender-exclusive parent-child events have adapted their events to be welcoming and inclusive. These communities strive to ensure the whole community is represented, and that they bring families in the community together, providing equal access to community events. Daddy Daughter Dances become Family Dances or Spring Flings. Me and My Son Bowling becomes a Bowling Bonanza. These events have been expanded to preserve the opportunity for parents and children to bond, including for fathers with their daughters, while also ensuring that girls who like bowling, boys who like dancing, nonbinary children, widowed parents otherwise considered the “wrong” gender, and other community members are able to participate in events that are designed for the community of which they are a part. A number of organizations, from the American Civil Liberties Union (A.C.L.U.) to the American Association of University Women (A.A.U.W.) to PFLAG National to the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (N.C.W.G.E.), support communities making these events gender inclusive. However, these changes have not occurred without resistance, often rooted in an attachment to tradition, a desire to enforce values and normative gender roles in our society, and a fear that inclusive policies are part of a cultural politics they find troubling. However, public institutions have responded that they should serve their entire constituency, regardless of any staff or politician’s personal views. Regardless of who lives in their community, communities that have adapted their events seek to serve all the children and families who live there. Being inclusive does not mean ending a tradition; it means finding a way to continue a tradition and bring more people into the celebration. A family dance that used to be a Daddy Daughter Dance still welcomes fathers and daughters to attend together. Families and community leaders seeking change want to be able to participate in community traditions with their family and for these events to be welcoming to their neighbors. Across the country, gender-exclusive community events are being challenged. Some have changed and become gender inclusive. Others continue to exclude members of the public. Advocates, community leaders, and decision-makers in communities with gender-exclusive events seeking to create equal access to these community events can advocate for and adopt changes to specific events or broader inclusive policies that requires these events be inclusive. Community leaders can work to create inclusive policies that represent their whole community and bring families of all kinds together

No common pesticides detected in snow buntings utilizing a farmland landscape in eastern Québec

Many species of migratory birds are declining worldwide, including throughout North America. Some of the most cited causes of decline are linked to climate change, urbanization, and growth in agriculture. Across eastern Canada, a number of insecticides and herbicides are commonly sprayed before and during the grain growing season to control pests and foliage competitors. During wintering and migration, a declining Arctic-breeding songbird, the snow bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis), utilizes open farmlands of southern Canada; therefore, this could be a period when the species is most exposed to these pesticides. We tested snow bunting tissues (blood and liver) for the 4 pesticides most commonly used in grain agriculture in Canada: atrazine, chlothianidin, imidacloprid, and glyphosate, as well as a glyphosate derivative (aminomethylphosphic acid, AMPA). Although this species is thought to forage in grain fields during autumn through spring, we found no detectable traces of any of the five substances. Wintering buntings may either not be exposed to these pesticides during their presence in agriculture fields or, given the rapid turnover of these pesticides in the blood and tissues, be exposed to doses below detection level in samples

Chickadees Faced with Unpredictable Food Increase Fat Reserves but Certain Components of Their Immune Function Decline

In winter, temperate resident birds are often faced with periodic low natural food availability. This reduction or unpredictability in resource availability might then have a negative impact on immune function, given that immune system support is highly resource dependent. We investigated the balance between energetic and immune management in captive black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapilus) by manipulating the predictability of resources. The control group received food ad lib. every day, while the experimental group received a reduced amount of food on random days and food ad lib. on all other days. We measured two key metrics of energetic management (body and fat mass) as well as a suite of immune system components. Compared with control birds, experimental birds maintained significantly higher total body and fat mass, had lower acute phase protein concentrations, and had decreased body temperature and lost more body mass during the fever response following injection with lipopolysaccharides. Interestingly, birds in both groups had similar levels of complement lysis, delayed-type hypersensitivity response (phytohemagglutinin), and primary antibody production (keyhole limpet hemocyanin). This experiment demonstrates that black-capped chickadees strategically increase their fat mass in response to decreased food availability and that this might allow the birds to maintain most of the immune system unaltered, except some of the most costly immune components

Tracking Landscape-Scale Movements of Snow Buntings and Weather-Driven Changes in Flock Composition During the Temperate Winter

Nomadic movements of migratory birds are difficult to study, as the scale is beyond the capabilities of hand-held telemetry (10 s of kms) but too fine-scale for long-range tracking devices like geolocators (50–100 km accuracy). Recent widespread installation of automated telemetry receiving stations allowed us, for the first time, to quantify and test predictions about within-winter movements of a presumed nomadic species, the Snow Bunting (Pletrophenax nivalis). We deployed coded radio-transmitters on 40 individual Snow Buntings during two winters (2015-16 and 2016-17) in southern Ontario, Canada, and tracked movements over a 300 by 300 km area with 69–77 active radio-receiving stations (Motus Wildlife Tracking Network). To complement our tracking data, we also examined the influence of weather on the demographics of winter flocks at a single wintering site over 6 consecutive years (n = 9312 tagged birds). We recorded movements of 25 Snow Buntings from the deployment sites to 1–6 different radio recievers (mean 2.68 locations/bird). Birds traveled a minimum average distance of 49 km between detections (range: 3 to 490 km) in the core wintering period of Dec-Feb, and cumulative total movements ranged from 3 to 740 km (average 121 ± 46 km). In March distances between detections increased to an average of 110 km, suggesting an extended early-migration period. Overall, older birds (after-second year or older) tended to move more (higher cumulative distances traveled) than younger (first winter) birds, even during the Dec-Feb period. The long-term banding data revealed that larger, male birds were more likely to be captured in colder and snowier weather, relative to female and smaller birds, suggesting that they can withstand these conditions more easily owing to their body size. We have provided the first direct-tracking data on nomadic winter movements of Snow Buntings, and tested the hypothesis that winter weather drives flock composition at a single site. Site-specific banding data suggest that weather-related changes in flock composition could explain the nomadic, landscape-scale movements of Snow Buntings we observed by using automated telemetry. Future work should explore the importance of resource availability, competition, and predation risk as drivers of winter movements in Snow Buntings

WOU Community Health + Polk County COVID-19 Project: Contact Tracing Efforts

The Western Oregon University (WOU) Community Health + Polk County COVID-19 Project is a partnership between WOU and Polk County Public Health Services that provides contact tracing and outreach efforts to Polk County, OR. Contact tracing is the process of notifying individuals of their exposure to COVID-19, encouraging them to get tested, self-quarantine, and monitor for signs and symptoms during their 14-day quarantine period. Contact tracing has been used in public health since the 1920s; it is an important strategy to limit the spread of communicable disease and connect affected populations with resources that promote well-being. Since September 1, 2020, our team of WOU Community Health majors has monitored 4,084 individuals. Our current team consists of 11 contact tracers, of which 7 are bilingual in Spanish. In total, 23 students have been part of the team since the inception of the program. This poster will review the process and importance of contact tracing in Polk County, while also reflecting on students\u27 professional development

Chickadees faced with unpredictable food increase fat reserves but certain components of their immune function decline

In winter, temperate resident birds are often faced with periodic low natural food availability. This reduction or unpredictability in resource availability might then have a negative impact on immune function, given that immune system support is highly resource dependent. We investigated the balance between energetic and immune management in captive black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapilus) by manipulating the predictability of resources. The control group received food ad lib. every day, while the experimental group received a reduced amount of food on random days and food ad lib. on all other days. We measured two key metrics of energetic management (body and fat mass) as well as a suite of immune system components. Compared with control birds, experimental birds maintained significantly higher total body and fat mass, had lower acute phase protein concentrations, and had decreased body temperature and lost more body mass during the fever response following injection with lipopolysaccharides. Interestingly, birds in both groups had similar levels of complement lysis, delayed-type hypersensitivity response (phytohemagglutinin), and primary antibody production (keyhole limpet hemocyanin). This experiment demonstrates that black-capped chickadees strategically increase their fat mass in response to decreased food availability and that this might allow the birds to maintain most of the immune system unaltered, except some of the most costly immune components