Wild Things 2009: Conference Sessions
Saturday, February 7, 2009
University of Illinois at Chicago
Session: D5
Backyards provide safer nesting sites: Avian nest predation across the urban-rural gradient
General: Backyards/Neighborhoods Birds/Bird Conservation Volunteers/Community Building/OutreachAmy Hank
University of Illinois at Chicago
Urban bird communities are characterized worldwide by high abundances of few species. Researchers from UIC, Lincoln Park Zoo, and Roosevelt University are working to describe and quantify patterns of nest predation across habitats in the Chicago metropolitan region. In Stage I of the project, we used artificial nests to assay predation on open-cup nests in both residential and wildland habitat across the Chicago metropolitan region. We found reduced nest predation in residential habitats compared towildlands, which suggests a mechanism other than predation must be causing the low diversity bird communities typical of urban environments. Our next steps will focus on understanding those causal relationships.
Click on the session code (e.g. D1, C2, M3) to view the the title, topic, presenter and abstract for a particular session or keynote for the keynote's abstract. (See the detailed schedule for the conference overall.)
