Research Projects
Global climate change is a central concern for raptor conservation and the Arctic provides an ideal system to delineate the effects of environmental change due to its accelerated rate of change relative to other systems. Rapid warming in the Arctic has facilitated changes to precipitation regimes, landscape composition, community structures, and important ecological functions. Direct effects of climate change for raptors can result from changing weather patterns affecting survival and reproduction. Further, indirect effects are facilitated by altered growing conditions for plant communities leading to changes in plant assemblages, prey demography, disease ecology, and ecosystem disruption. Our research aims to inform Arctic Raptor conservation while helping to understand the overarching effects of climate change on raptors.
®Devin Johnson
Adult (right) and 2 nestlings (left) experience a storm event on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska. Older nestlings like this are more likely to survive a storm event.
Effects of weather on Arctic raptor breeding populations
This research effort focuses on detailing weather patterns that impact Arctic raptor's ability to breed successfully and investigates various mechanisms that could facilitate those effects (e.g., reduced nestling survival, prey availability, phenology). Further, we are quantifying changes is important weather variable over recent history and forecast future changes under climate change. For this research we are leveraging nearly two decades of helicopter survey data collected by Alaska Departments of Fish and Game. This work is a chapter of my dissertation and is currently in development.
Effects of landscape change on composition of the Arctic raptor community
This research effort focuses on detailing how changing landscape composition (e.g., increased shrubs and encroachment of the boreal forest) will affect the structure of the Arctic raptor community. Raptor species within the Arctic raptor community rely on different prey species to successfully reproduce and the changing landscape will change the availability of these prey species having differential effects on the raptor community. Here we aim to detail important landscape characteristics the dictate species-specific occupancy patterns, estimate the current extent of habitat and forecast future changes and how that will impact the composition of the Arctic raptor community on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska.
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The view from a raptor nestling cliff on the Seward Peninsula, just off the Bering sea.
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Occupancy survey in May on the Seward Peninsula
Maximizing utility of a multi-species, multi-dataset monitoring effort
Understand population trends is critical for conservation and monitoring efforts focused on breeding raptors convey critical information regarding occupancy, breeding success, phenology, survival. In remote areas, these efforts are logistically difficult and expensive, thus we have a financial obligation to maximize conservation funding by ensuring efforts are designed to capture important changes in population status while minimizing costs. Here we leverage a multispecies, multi-data monitoring effort to establish an integrated population model, test the model's sensitivity to population changes, explore cost saving strategies, and set up annual analyses to allow for adaptive management.
The Gyrfalcon as an indicator for changing Arctic disease ecology
Disease ecology in the Arctic is changing as a result of climate change. Distributions of disease causing pathogens are largely dictated by temperature and humidify, thus as the Arctic continues to see rapid warming and increase precipitation, pathogens are moving northward. Novel pathogens, like those migrating into the Arctic, can have extreme impacts on population that lack immune and behavior responses. Surveying all species for diseases is impractical, but investigating indicator species, like the Gyrfalcon can be an effective way to monitor changes in disease ecology. This collaborative effort aims to test contemporary and historical blood samples from Gyrfalcon nestlings at different latitudes to understand the current disease and parasite loads as well as detail any changes over the last 20 years.
Gyrfalcon toes coved in mosquitos, an important carrier of vector-borne diseases like avian malaria (photo: Kiliii Yuyan)
Map of GYRnomics study areas
®Stephanie Galla
GYRnomics - Characterizing the genomics mechanisms underlying immune competence in a Holarctic raptor
As explained above, disease ecology is changing in the Arctic, and this effort, led by Dr. Stephanie Galla at Boise State University, aims to address the need for mechanisms that can forecast resilience of Gyrfalcons populations in the new arctic. Here, we leverage global partnerships across the Arctic and emergent technologies to sequence the genomes and metagenomes to understand the mechanisms that underpin immune competence.
Arctic range shifts
Climate change is likely to have a disproportionate effect on polar species due to the accelerate rate of change occur at higher latitudes. As temperatures warm, species tend to shift their distribution northward, but the northern most species are likely to experience range contractions. This research effort is lead by GRIN and aims to: 1.) map the current global distribution for each raptor using integrated Species Distribution Models 2.) project each current model to carbon emission scenarios for the year 2070 using a General Circulation Earth System Model that also incorporates vegetation dynamics, and 3.) assess the proportion of predicted distribution within protected area networks. This work is in development and updates will follow.
Three Arctic focal species: the Gyrfalcon, Rough-legged Hawk, and Snowy Owl
Undergraduate Research projects
Noah Andexler
Sebastian Acevedo
Noah investigated the accuracy of existing Gyrfalcon aging guides and quantified the effects of diet on nestling development
Sebastian quantified the nutritive value of Ptarmigan and Arctic ground squirrels, the most important prey species for breeding Gyrfalcon in Alaska.
