Research
Movement & habitat ecology
An American Woodcock forages in a swamp during an early spring snowfall
Recent focus on migratory bird declines have led to increased
interest in how birds move and use habitat throughout their full annual
cycle. The EWMRC has been
examining migratory bird movement ecology and habitat selection using
migratory data from >500 GPS-tagged American Woodcock. One of our
early management-oriented products is the Woodcock Priority Area Siting
Tool (W-PAST; see our
summary on the applications page).
During this project we’ve developed a process for classifying GPS
data collected during bird migration, which uses a modified step-length
threshold with a hidden Markov model to estimate the migratory state of
a woodcock at any point of its full annual cycle. As this technique can
be used to estimate the migratory state of a bird during a mortality
event, we’ll be able to integrate these classifications into an upcoming
paper which examines woodcock survival in respect to migration. We’ve
also used woodcock as a model for understanding how functional responses
impact the habitat use of migratory birds throughout the year, and as an
example of a low-altitude flier when examining how airspace obstacles
overlap with migratory flight altitudes.
Publications:
Slezak , C. R., E. J. Blomberg, A. M. Roth, L. A. Berigan, A. C. Fish, R. L. Darling, … and S. R. McWilliams (2024). Unconventional life history in a migratory shorebird: desegregating reproduction and migration. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 291: 20240021. PDF
Clements, S. J., L. A. Berigan, A. C. Fish, R. L. Darling, A. M. Roth, G. Balkcom, … and E. J. Blomberg (2024). Satellite tracking of American Woodcock reveals a gradient of migration strategies. Ornithology 141:ukae008. PDF
Fish, A. C., A. M. Roth, G. Balkcom, L. A. Berigan, K. L. Darling, S. J. Clements, … and E. J. Blomberg (2024). American woodcock migration phenology in eastern North America: implications for hunting season timing. Journal of Wildlife Management e22565. PDF
Blomberg E. J., A. C. Fish, L. A. Berigan, A. M. Roth, R. Rau, S. J. Clements, … and L. Williams (2023). The American woodcock singing ground survey largely conforms to the phenology of male woodcock migration. Journal of Wildlife Management 87(8):e22488. PDF
Popular science presentations: Harris Center, Friends of Mississquoi NWR
Conservation of at-risk species
Lesser prairie-chickens have recently been listed under the U.S.
Endangered Species Act due to widespread declines throughout most of
their range. To combat these declines, a collaborative federal, state,
and university effort translocated 411 lesser prairie-chickens to
unoccupied areas of presumed habitat in the Sand Sagebrush Prairie
Ecoregion. During the translocation, we conducted an assessment of
lesser prairie-chicken habitat requirements in areas where birds were
released (especially the Cimarron
and Comanche
National Grasslands) and found that areas of Sand Sagebrush prairie
which had formerly hosted lesser prairie-chickens no longer contained
sufficient nesting habitat for their persistence.
We also
found that lesser prairie-chicken dispersal after translocation was
almost universal, and resulted in the diffusion of the translocated
population across an area totalling nearly 4,000 square kilometers
(~1.25x the size of Rhode Island). Our paper describing this dispersal,
published in Ecology and Evolution in 2024, advises that practitioners
carefully evaluate the role of translocation before they use it for the
restoration of this iconic prairie species.
Publications:
Berigan, L. A., C. S. Aulicky, E. C. Teige, D. S. Sullins, K. A. Fricke, J. H. Reitz, … and D. A. Haukos (2024). Lesser prairie-chicken dispersal after translocation: Implications for restoration and population connectivity. Ecology and Evolution 14(2):e10871. PDF
Teige, E. C., L. A. Berigan, C. S. Aulicky, J. H. Reitz, D. A. Haukos, D. S. Sullins, … and L. G. Rossi. Assessment of lesser prairie‐chicken translocation through survival and lek surveys. Wildlife Society Bulletin 47(4):e1493. PDF
Berigan, L. A., C. S. Aulicky, E. C. Teige, D. S. Sullins, D. A. Haukos, K. A. Fricke, … and A. M. Ricketts (2022). Availability of lesser prairie‐chicken nesting habitat impairs restoration success. Wildlife Society Bulletin 46(5):e1379. PDF
Berigan, L. A. (2019). Dispersal, reproductive success, and habitat use by translocated lesser prairie-chickens. Master’s thesis, Kansas State University. PDF
Use in listing decisions: Federal Register 87(226), page 72739
Media: CBS News, Denver Post, Boulder Weekly, Colorado Outdoors Magazine, North Forty News
Lesser prairie-chicken tagged with a VHF transmitter in preparation for translocation
Urban bird declines
Artwork by Jen Lobo, frontispiece for the Wilson Journal of Ornithology (Issue 132)
Nearly
3 billion birds have disappeared from North America since 1970, in
large part due to massive declines in abundance among common bird
species. Our team used citizen science data collected by Project Feederwatch to measure
trends in House Sparrow abundance and evaluate potential reasons for
their disappearance. We found that House Sparrow declines were closely
linked to highly-urbanized landscapes, and did not appear to be related
to the resurgence in Accipiter hawk populations that
contributed to declines in Europe. The cause of House Sparrow declines
in North America is likely tightly linked to urban landscapes, and may
include the modification of urban greenspaces or feral cat populations.
Our results were published in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology in 2020.
Publication:
Berigan, L. A., E. I. Greig, and D. N. Bonter (2020). Urban House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) populations decline in North America. The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 132(2):248-258. PDF
Compiled in R with RMarkdown and Github Pages.
Copyright © Liam Berigan