Olivia Beaudette - "Bottom-up influences on juvenile fitness in a suite of declining songbirds"
I am very appreciative of the generous funding provided by the Biodiversity Institute. This funding will help support my work examining factors influencing juvenile survival within a suite of declining songbird species. Better understanding of the connections between habitat, food availability, diets, and resulting juvenile outcomes will help inform future management decisions to best support these species. Specifically, this funding will help support a field technician for the season. Nest searching and monitoring, along with the other objectives of this study, are time intensive and having adequate help will be instrumental for achieving our research goals. I am looking forward to further sharing my work with the community and am grateful for the platform the BI provides to do so.
Olivia Beaudette
2025 Recipient of the Biodiversity Institute Graduate Student Excellence Grant
Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
Graduate Advisor: Anna Chalfoun
Background:
Despite underpinning many of the fitness outcomes observed within ecology, fundamental information on food preferences, resultant fitness benefits, and the distribution of those key foods is lacking for many wildlife species of concern. A more complete understanding of interactions between these factors is needed to address wildlife population declines and habitat management, especially in the face of rapid environmental change. Sagebrush songbirds, which include the Brewer’s sparrow (Spizella breweri), sagebrush sparrow (Artemiziospiza tridentata), and sage thrasher (Oreoscoptes montanus), nest within increasingly altered sagebrush habitat and are Species of Greatest Conservation Need in Wyoming. Juvenile stages are defined by high rates of mortality and can function as a bottleneck within songbird populations, which reinforces the importance of examining factors influencing juvenile survival. Nestling morphological traits carryover to influence survival once birds leave their nests and are likely influenced by the food types, rates, and amounts fed to nestlings. Therefore, diet might be a missing link driving trait development and subsequent fitness outcomes in our focal species.
We aim to better understand the food preferences (arthropods) of parents when feeding nestlings and the associated fitness benefits, along with how those preferred foods are distributed across habitat and landscape disturbance gradients. We will do this by monitoring and measuring songbird nestlings, collecting data on nestling diets, and sampling for arthropods in nesting habitat both within and adjacent to two natural gas fields in Sublette County, WY. Clarifying the link between diet characteristics, juvenile fitness outcomes, and food distributions, especially in altered habitats, will help inform optimal habitats and land use planning within sagebrush landscapes to best support a suite of declining songbirds.
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Olivia holding sagebrush sparrow captured during netting in Sublette County, WY.
Research Highlights
