Dissertation Enhancement Grant: Impact of Local and Regional Processes on Foraging Patterns and Community Organization

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9724719 Loiselle This Americas Program dissertation enhancement grant will fund Grace Servat, under the direction of Dr. Bette Loiselle, University of Missouri, St. Louis, on a study to elucidate the patterns and underlying mechanisms that shape the foraging ecology of birds associated with a unique woodland habitat of the High Andes in South America. This community is well suited for the present study because it is a distinctive biological system characterized by high levels of endemism, its scattered distribution in the Andes provides discrete replicates for study, and the plant and bird species composition are relatively simple, when compared to more species-rich forests at lower elevation, thus facilitating detailed ecological studies at a community level. The major objectives of the study are to document and compare, across replicate sites, the foraging ecology of individual bird species feeding on arboreal arthropods; to determine the extent to which patterns observed in the foraging ecology of bird species and the assemblage as a whole are repeated across regions; and to determine which scale and factors best explain variation in the foraging ecology of individual species. The research will integrate natural history observations with detailed ecological studies on availability of arthropod resources, vegetation structures and the abundance of potential competitors and predators. The proposed study will contribute new information about a distinctive and highly threatened Andean system, as well as provide a model to examine the importance of local and regional processes in shaping individual foraging ecology and community patterns. ***