Monthly Archives: March 2011

Harnessing March Madness – Great Lakes SmackDown

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A great example of how to liven up important conservation information is the Great Lakes SmackDown!, created by two graduate students at Michigan State University. (In the spirit of academia, their work is done for the Great Lakes Echo, a news service that is a program of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at MSU. Got it?)

Graphic: John Kalmar. Great Lakes Echo

This March, an invasive species version of the NCAA basketball tournament has a Sweet Sixteen of invasive plants and animals facing off to determine which of the exotic losers is the most destructive to the Great Lakes region. This time the focus is on land-based invaders, and the competitors include the mute swan, the feral hog, and the gypsy moth.

After perusing fighter profiles, participants submit their brackets, then vote to influence the outcome of each bout.

Last October, a similar SmackDown pitted eight aquatic invaders against each other for the title of “most destructive.” The quagga mussel, aka “The Quagmeister” finished on top. Twenty-five people submitted brackets, and there were over 100 votes in the polls. Best of all, the SmackDown received local newspaper and radio coverage.

“The fact that we pulled it together and got very positive feedback from readers, scientists and our colleagues was a success in itself,” said Alice Rossignol, who coordinates the SmackDown with Rachael Gleason. She expects this March’s SmackDown to be even more successful, thanks to public relations assistance from Michigan State University.

While everything about the SmackDown is executed with Comedy Central-worthy humor, you don’t have to be funny to pull off a similar project, the coordinators said.

“If you have a new idea that discusses an issue in a new way, go for it,” said Rossignol. “The project’s character will be shaped for your own effort and how people interact and respond to it.”

“The SmackDown! was funny because it was fun — fun to read, fun to be a part of and especially fun to put together,” said Gleason, . “We wanted to relate to our readers and get them thinking about an important issue in a new way. And who doesn’t love filling out a March Madness bracket? After deciding on that theme, everything else, like the idea to characterize invasive species as cage fighters, fell into place”

Light, fertilization, and biodiversity

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Fertilizing a grassland will cause plant biodiversity there to decrease. It’s not known why this is so, and one theory says that it is because some fast-growing species shade out slower-growing species. A recent study in the journal Ecology Letters says that it’s not a lack of light, or at least not just a lack of light, that is stifling diversity. The study found that the impact of light availability varied greatly in years when there were droughts.

In dry years more light meant less diversity, but in wet years, more light meant more diversity. Either way, fertilization meant species diversity went down, no matter what the light situation was.

With nutrient pollution such a widespread problem, getting to the bottom of this would be useful in protecting rare plants and threatened ecosystems.This paper doesn’t offer the answer, but adds another piece to the puzzle.

Find the paper here.

A previous paper on the subject appeared in the journal Science two years ago. Find that paper here.

Photo: Bobolink, a grassland bird, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Light, fertilization, and biodiversity

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Fertilizing a grassland will cause plant biodiversity there to decrease. It’s not known why this is so, and one theory says that it is because some fast-growing species shade out slower-growing species. A recent study in the journal Ecology Letters says that it’s not a lack of light, or at least not just a lack of light, that is stifling diversity. The study found that the impact of light availability varied greatly in years when there were droughts.

In dry years more light meant less diversity, but in wet years, more light meant more diversity. Either way, fertilization meant species diversity went down, no matter what the light situation was.

With nutrient pollution such a widespread problem, getting to the bottom of this would be useful in protecting rare plants and threatened ecosystems.This paper doesn’t offer the answer, but adds another piece to the puzzle.

Find the paper here.

A previous paper on the subject appeared in the journal Science two years ago. Find that paper here.

Photo: Bobolink, a grassland bird, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Stats on two threats to birds

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A study of a Wisconsin wind farm found that raptors mostly avoided the site, resulting in a big reduction of raptors in the area after the turbines went up. It also found that red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures took the most risks near the turbines, although red-tails were the only raptors found dead in the wind farm. Read the open-access article in The Journal of Applied Ecology here.

Also in the Journal of Applied Ecology, Dutch researchers found that birds breeding near noisy roadways had smaller clutch sizes than other birds. When the roads were noisy in April, the birds had fewer fledglings, regardless of clutch size. The species studied was Parus major. The paper, again, open access, is here.

Stats on two threats to birds

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A study of a Wisconsin wind farm found that raptors mostly avoided the site, resulting in a big reduction of raptors in the area after the turbines went up. It also found that red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures took the most risks near the turbines, although red-tails were the only raptors found dead in the wind farm. Read the open-access article in The Journal of Applied Ecology here.

Also in the Journal of Applied Ecology, Dutch researchers found that birds breeding near noisy roadways had smaller clutch sizes than other birds. When the roads were noisy in April, the birds had fewer fledglings, regardless of clutch size. The species studied was Parus major. The paper, again, open access, is here.

Climate change and bird feeders

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Even when bird feeders are readily available, some species of birds head for warmer climes, says a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Animal Ecology. The scientists, who are affiliated with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Project FeederWatch, studied 18 bird species that are common at bird feeders in the northeastern US and found that some species of birds did not stick around over the winter in spite of there being plenty to eat at bird feeders.

They also found that the birds that stayed north in winter were more likely to visit a bird feeder during a cold snap. Finally, the scientists found that for species that tolerate urban life, such as house sparrows, the abundant bird feeders in developed areas provide a winter refuge. Species that find urban life stressful, such as downy woodpeckers, are less likely to stay in developed areas during winter.

The scientists note that when predicting how climate change will influence a bird species, these other factors, such as tolerance to urbanization, need to be considered as well.

You can find the paper here, and a simple summary of the work on the Project FeederWatch blog.

Photo: I say it’s a nuthatch, although admittedly not the nuthatch species in this study. So don’t look too closely at the bird, just look at the bird feeder and the pretty green background, OK?

Climate change and bird feeders

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Even when bird feeders are readily available, some species of birds head for warmer climes, says a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Animal Ecology. The scientists, who are affiliated with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Project FeederWatch, studied 18 bird species that are common at bird feeders in the northeastern US and found that some species of birds did not stick around over the winter in spite of there being plenty to eat at bird feeders.

They also found that the birds that stayed north in winter were more likely to visit a bird feeder during a cold snap. Finally, the scientists found that for species that tolerate urban life, such as house sparrows, the abundant bird feeders in developed areas provide a winter refuge. Species that find urban life stressful, such as downy woodpeckers, are less likely to stay in developed areas during winter.

The scientists note that when predicting how climate change will influence a bird species, these other factors, such as tolerance to urbanization, need to be considered as well.

You can find the paper here, and a simple summary of the work on the Project FeederWatch blog.

Photo: I say it’s a nuthatch, although admittedly not the nuthatch species in this study. So don’t look too closely at the bird, just look at the bird feeder and the pretty green background, OK?

Old birds

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The bird bands you placed on birds last season may be informing science long after you retire, a series of recent stories suggests.

A Laysan albatross named Wisdom is the oldest bird in the United States, and in North America, according to a US Geological Survey press release. The bird is at least 60 years old. It was banded while sitting on an egg in 1956, and was at that time estimated to be five years old. The bird was recently spotted at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. It has been spotted there several times in the last few years.


There’s already lots of press on this, such as this article in USA Today.

In late February, a bald eagle electrocuted on a power line in Alaska was found to be the second-oldest bald eagle in the state, and one of the oldest bald eagles in the country. The bird was 25 years old, according to its leg band. The story ran in the Anchorage Daily News.

And rounding out the tales of old birds and old bands, back in December The New York Times wrote about a red-tailed hawk in New York State that was 27 years old.

Photo: John Klavitter , U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

How dense do coyotes get?

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The pack density of urban coyotes can be high, says a paper in the current issue of American Midland Naturalist. As part of a long-term study of coyotes in Massachusetts, the researchers observed that a pack of coyotes north of Boston was able to survive in a particularly small territory. The pack, they say, was of average size for the region: four coyotes in winter, six to seven in summer. But the pack occupied just two square kilometers. Read more here.

Find a free version of the paper here.

Eastern cougar declared extinct

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The US Fish and Wildlife Service has declared the Eastern cougar subspecies extinct. The declaration was part of an Endangered Species Act (ESA) review. Next, the Service will propose that the Eastern cougar be removed from the federal endangered species list because extinct species are not covered under the ESA. The designation does not include the Florida panther, which is considered another subspecies.

The designation Eastern cougar refers to the subspecies that once ranged from Maine to South Carolina, and west to Michigan down through Tennessee.

The straight-up news coverage, including all the details on the various subspecies and extirpation-versus-extinction, can be found in The New York Times, National Public Radio, CNN, and Reuters. It’s served up with a twist of Thoreau in the Boston Globe. And the Canadians say it just ain’t so in this article from the Montreal Gazette.

The US Fish and Wildlife press release came from Region 5.

Photo: Not an Eastern cougar, but another, unknown, P. concolor subspecies.