{"id":10685,"date":"2021-08-26T14:46:48","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T18:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/earlham.edu\/?p=10685"},"modified":"2021-11-22T12:51:16","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T17:51:16","slug":"set-your-alarm-and-pack-your-nest-rope-how-earlham-scientists-are-investigate-decline-of-grassland-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earlham.edu\/news-events\/set-your-alarm-and-pack-your-nest-rope-how-earlham-scientists-are-investigate-decline-of-grassland-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"Set your alarm and pack your nest rope: How Earlham scientists are investigating the decline of grassland birds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Students and faculty from Earlham College spent seven weeks in the Grand River Grasslands.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Wildlife ecologists from Earlham College are investigating ways to restore the tall grass prairie, a now declining ecosystem that once sustained an abundance of grassland birds across the Great Plains and Midwest, including Indiana.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Earlham professors Jaime Coon<\/em><\/strong><\/a> and Wendy Tori<\/em><\/strong><\/a> travelled with a team of Earlham students this summer to the Grand River Grasslands in southern Iowa, home to some of the last remaining tallgrass prairies in the United States. For seven weeks, they collected data, recorded nesting behaviors and assessed native plant communities in these highly threatened ecosystems. The project is continuing this fall on campus, and could offer clues for how to strengthen existing grasslands and rebuild habitats closer to Earlham<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have lost about 90 percent of original tallgrass prairie, so it is not surprising that grassland birds are one of the fastest declining avian group in North America,\u201d said Coon, a visiting assistant professor of biology and environmental sustainability. Coon got involved with the project in 2014 while earning her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cDiverse bird and plant communities can be a reflection of how healthy an ecosystem is and so it is critical to examine factors that could be contributing to these declines. We want to maintain the grassland populations we have left and restore functionality to grasslands that have been degraded,\u201d she notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project is a part of an ongoing collaboration between Earlham and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, private landowners and researchers from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is an extraordinary opportunity for our students interested in field ecology. There are not many places you can go where there are relatively large expanses of tallgrass prairie in the United States and experimental management strategies already in place,\u201d said Tori, who is Earlham\u2019s Martha Sykes Endowed Chair for Biology in Ornithology. \u201cConservation cannot only rely on state parks because those are only tiny islands. The only way to be successful is to bring private owners into the conservation effort. I think this long-term project in southern Iowa has the right vision, all stakeholders working together towards a common goal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlham students with a demonstrated interest in animal ecology and conservation were invited to apply. Five biology or environmental sustainability students\u2014seniors Joshua Angell, Thea Clarkberg, Claudette Roskamp, Ethan King and junior Hannah Grushon\u2014were supported by Earlham\u2019s Summer Collaborative Research program and the Department of Biology\u2019s endowed funds. Earlham senior Molly McKellar also received an internship from collaborator Jessica Mingione, a master\u2019s student working for the University of Illinois.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really enjoyed working with everyone on our team,\u201d said Angell, a biology major from Havertown, Pennsylvania. \u201cI love being outside with nature and birds, especially in these spectacular habitats that are so different from everything I\u2019ve been around in my whole life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe biggest benefit is being able to say, \u2018I already know how to do avian transect surveys, I have performed vegetation work, I already have experience working in the field,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThat says a lot to future employers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parasite bullies, predators and other perils<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Grassland birds are facing many threats in their tallgrass prairie habitats, including habitat loss to agriculture, increasing prevalence of invasive plants, and even other birds with unusual parenting techniques. That\u2019s bad news for the meadowlarks, sparrows and bobolinks that frequent Iowa\u2019s last remaining prairies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tall fescue, an invasive perennial grass, is a known problem in the Iowa prairies and across the Midwest. Its prevalence is believed by researchers to choke out native prairie plants and increase the likelihood of bird eggs or nestlings being eaten by snakes or other predators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Healthy ecosystems have a diversity of plants, birds and arthropods, like ants, spiders and other insects, Coon notes. \u201cWhen you only have one species, such as a grassland taken over by tall fescue, the ecosystem can be less resilient to change, which can drastically affect native populations and reduce ecosystem services grasslands provide to humans, such as cattle production, flood control, pollination, cultural connections to nature and more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unusual reproductive strategy of brown-headed cowbirds is another potential threat to grassland birds. These birds are notorious for laying their eggs in other nests, leaving the host birds to raise their young. Scientists call this \u201cnest parasitism,\u201d and there is evidence that human actions, such as habitat destruction and increasing prevalence of invasive plants, might be increasing the abundance of these sneaky birds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone knows that raising childrentakes a lot of effort,\u201d Tori said. \u201cBut if birds dump their eggs in another nest and don\u2019t use their energy on raising their own offspring, they can potentially produce a lot of more eggs. It\u2019s a super cool reproductive strategy but it could be having a negative effect on birds that are already not doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Iowa DNR is implementing several land management strategies on private-owned land and protected lands. \u201cOur sites have different treatments consisting of grazing, invasive species control, and controlled burning.These are treatments that the collaborative Grand River Grassland research team has been tracking for over a decade,\u201d Coon explains. \u201cFor instance, if we control the fescue, does it have an impact on these grasslands birds? Does it influence nest parasites or feeding behaviors? These are some of the questions we\u2019re trying to get answers to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team is also conducting an analysis this fall of an avian oddity known as \u201cdipping,\u201d or a process by which parent birds insert food in and out of their chicks\u2019 mouths before letting it go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have no idea what the function of this behavior is, so students generated some hypotheses to test,\u201d Coon said. \u201cIs it a way for parents to assess whether the nestling is hungry? Is it used to determine whether the nestling is a brown headed cowbird or one of their own young? It\u2019s such a cool thing to be able to describe new behaviors in the scientific literature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up before sunrise ready to work<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Field research is not for the faint of heart, but for those with an adventuresome spirit who are ready to work hard. The days can be long, and often begin just before sunrise, the optimal time to observe birds singing and protecting their nests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing in the field takes some passion and motivation and grit,\u201d said Coon. \u201cYou are working in the heat, in the rain and must be ready to walk long miles. But it\u2019s also so incredibly rewarding.  In addition to testing hypotheses and creating new knowledge, you get to see the sunrise every morning, stroll through fields of wildflowers, and get to know native bird species on a very personal, deep level. There\u2019s nothing like it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Searching for and monitoring bird nests requires patience and ingenuity. In addition to the binoculars and camera equipment needed to locate and record bird activity, the team constructed a 60-foot long \u201cnest rope\u201d that can quickly scan the terrain in search of nests buried deep in the tall grass. Empty aluminum cans are tied to the rope, which produces a noise that startles the birds that might be lurking out of sight of the researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The research team uses a “nest rope” to find bird nests.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThe birds will shoot up into the air when the rope gets close to them,\u201d Angell said. \u201cThen you will go and check that spot to see if there\u2019s a nest there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each day of the project, the team would conduct bird surveys, search for nests, and set up cameras to record parental and nestling behavior. The team would finish each day with an assessment of vegetation structure and composition near nests. On rainy days, the group would watch the videos they recorded in the field to code parental behaviors at the nest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not glamorous, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not fun and exciting,\u201d Angell said. \u201cYou would sometimes find ticks on your clothes. We were proactive about it though. We would tuck our pants into our socks and tuck our shirt into our pants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this experience students had the opportunity to immerse themselves in the scientific process, from learning how to ask relevant questions, generate testable hypotheses and predictions, how to design and conduct a field study, collect and analyze data, and ultimately how to share the results with the scientific community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis opportunity has really helped me better understand what I want to do after Earlham,\u201d said Thea Clarkberg, a senior biology major from Ithaca, New York. \u201cI originally thought I wanted to be veterinarian, but after taking classes on conservation and biology, and conducting biological research in the field, I\u2019ve changed my thinking. This experience really solidified that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWendy and Jaime are also just really cool,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are my kind of people. Working on a team and working outside with them, all of those technical skills we\u2019ve learned will transfer to any kind of research that I do in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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