Dissertation Research: Using hummingbirds to test the link between bird and plant distributions in tropical montane rainforest

在热带地区，有超过320种蜂鸟，喙的形状和大小各不相同。 有些蜂鸟会造访许多种类的花，而另一些蜂鸟只会造访少数几种。 沿着热带山坡，大多数蜂鸟物种出现在狭窄的海拔范围内。 该项目的目标是了解环境因素，防止鸟类与这些限制范围生活在其他地方。 该假说认为蜂鸟的活动范围仅限于它们授粉的开花植物的种类。 验证这一假设需要哪些植物是由哪些蜂鸟授粉的数据。 通过识别蜂鸟喙上的花粉，人们可以确定它们依赖哪些开花植物。花粉将从沿着秘鲁东南部的一个山腰发现的不同蜂鸟物种中被识别出来。 为了验证这一假设，花粉数据将与沿着同一山腰的开花植物物种分布数据相结合。这项研究的更广泛影响包括：（1）它在评估诸如蜂鸟等可能受到开花植物资源限制的物种是否能够在未来气候变化的事实中持续存在方面的重要性;（2）制作教育宣传材料，包括蜂鸟开花植物照片指南和三张记录秘鲁山区鸟鸣的光盘; 3）对13名未来的不同种族背景的科学研究人员进行新热带鸟类学和生态学的广泛培训。

In the tropics there are over 320 species of hummingbirds, with bills of different shapes and sizes. Some hummingbird species visit many species of flowers and others visit just a few. Along tropical mountainsides, most hummingbird species occur within a narrow range of elevations. The goal of this project is to understand environmental factors that prevent birds with such restricted ranges from living elsewhere. The hypothesis is that hummingbird ranges are restricted to the ranges of the species of flowering plants that they pollinate. Testing this hypothesis requires data on which plants are pollinated by which hummingbirds. By identifying pollen on bills of hummingbirds one can determine which flowering plants they rely on. Pollen will be identified from different hummingbird species found along a mountainside in southeastern Peru. To test the hypothesis, pollen data will be combined with data of the distributions of flowering plant species along the same mountainside. The broader impacts of this study include: 1) its importance in assessing whether species such as hummingbirds, which are potentially constrained by their flowering plant resources, will be able to persist in the fact of future climate change; 2) the production of educational outreach materials, including a hummingbird-flowering plant photo guide and three compact discs of recorded bird songs from the mountains of Peru; and 3) extensive training of thirteen future scientific researchers of diverse ethnic backgrounds in Neotropical ornithology and ecology.