Why do birds live where they do? And when is it time to move?
I am a graduate student in the Beissinger Lab at UC Berkeley, and my research focuses on bird spatial ecology. I am interested in the determinants of bird range limits in California, and how the ranges of different species are shifting in response to climate change and human habitat modification such as urbanization.
To determine where birds were found historically, my work is part of the Grinnell Resurvey Project. In the early 1900s, Joseph Grinnell and a number of similarly forward-looking naturalists traveled throughout the state of California, keeping detailed records of what birds they saw and where. A full 100 years later, I am returning to sites throughout the California Central Valley and beyond, the very same locations where Grinnell and his colleagues once stood, and once again surveying the diversity of birds. By comparing my surveys to the historical record, I will be able to determine how different species have responded to the significant changes they have witnessed over the past century.
I am a graduate student in the Beissinger Lab at UC Berkeley, and my research focuses on bird spatial ecology. I am interested in the determinants of bird range limits in California, and how the ranges of different species are shifting in response to climate change and human habitat modification such as urbanization.
To determine where birds were found historically, my work is part of the Grinnell Resurvey Project. In the early 1900s, Joseph Grinnell and a number of similarly forward-looking naturalists traveled throughout the state of California, keeping detailed records of what birds they saw and where. A full 100 years later, I am returning to sites throughout the California Central Valley and beyond, the very same locations where Grinnell and his colleagues once stood, and once again surveying the diversity of birds. By comparing my surveys to the historical record, I will be able to determine how different species have responded to the significant changes they have witnessed over the past century.