Winter range shifts in eastern North American songbirds

Bird responses to environmental change in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park

  • Current students Ally Melrose and Nicole Mooradian, along with alumni Savannah Clark, Kristin Anderson, Doug Black, and Clayton Gibb, in addition to many volunteers (esp. Seth Buddy and Miles Buddy), have re-surveyed many of the same sites in the GSMNP that were surveyed more than 25 years ago by researchers from NC State. How have the bird communities responded to 20 years of environmental changes, including climate change and Eastern Hemlock die-off? This research began in the summer of 2017 and will conclude in the summer of 2024. Check back for updates!

Chimney Swift roost sites in urban Asheville and surrounding areas

  • Chimney Swifts (Chaetura pelagica) are migratory aerial insectivores that breed across Eastern North America and winter in north South America. During autumn migration, they aggregate in communal roosts in chimneys (because their original roosting habitat, large dead tree snags, have mostly been removed). Where do Chimney Swifts roost in the Asheville area during their fall migration? Which chimneys are the most important ones, that either hold the most birds or are active the longest during the autumn? Click here to view the paper in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology, co-authored by UNCA undergraduate students Torin Brewer-Jensen and T. Blake Hudson.

Bird mortality from window-strikes on campus

  • Research student Daniel Wascoe is following up on two years of window collision surveys and will present his final report Spring 2023.
  • Research student Paulina Jones led the fall 2020 and 2021 survey of UNCA campus buildings to understand where bird mortality is highest, which windows are the most heavily struck by birds, which birds are most at risk from window-collisions, and what parts of the year are worse than others. Click here for a PDF of Paulina’s paper in the UNCA Journal of Undergraduate Research.

North American Insect Abundance Network

  • I manage an insect monitoring site at Beaver Lake in North Asheville, NC, as part of a large-scale study examining insect abundance, diversity, and phenology across North America
  • Former UNCA research student Rose Ruegg and I are co-authors on the first paper to describe the initial results of the study, which showed that insect Orders vary in their response to temperature across North America.
  • The study has grown and now includes more than 130 sites, and will continue to monitor insect populations for signs of large-scale insect decline, and responses to climate and land cover changes.