LTREB: Long term studies of social behavior in a colonial bird

该奖项延续了对内布拉斯加州西南部殖民筑巢的悬崖燕子社会行为的30年研究。每年的生存和殖民地的选择将研究超过20万个单独标记的鸟类样本重新捕捉鸟类在不同的筑巢殖民地。收集的数据将研究筑巢群体的大小如何影响崖燕的年度生存，以及个体是否每年使用相同大小的群体。 这项研究还将确定为什么大多数季节性繁殖鸟类的筑巢成功率在夏季会随着时间的推移而下降。用杀虫剂对崖燕种群进行实验性处理，创造了刺激一些鸟类在夏季比通常看到的晚得多筑巢的条件，并将提供机会比较在季节早期和晚期饲养的鸟类的第一年生存率。 许多种类的动物生活在不同大小的群体中，包括人类，这项研究解决了关于什么因素创造和维持群体大小多样性的基本问题;燕子的发现可能适用于生活在社会群体中的其他物种。 本科生将大量参与，其中许多人是妇女，少数民族和其他研究中代表性不足的群体。 这项工作将是相关的保护，因为了解殖民地的选择和物种的生存概率，如崖燕每年的变化可能有助于建立管理准则，类似的迁徙物种正在下降。

This award continues a 30-year study of social behavior of colonially nesting cliff swallows in southwestern Nebraska. Annual survival and colony choice will be studied for a sample of over 200,000 individually marked birds by re-catching birds at different nesting colonies. The data gathered will examine how size of a nesting colony affects annual survival of cliff swallows and whether individuals use the same size colony each year. The research will also determine why nesting success in most seasonally breeding birds declines with time during the summer. Experimental treatment of cliff swallow colonies with insecticide creates conditions that stimulate some birds to nest much later in the summer than typically seen and will provide the opportunity to compare first-year survival of birds raised both early and late in the season. Many kinds of animals live in groups of different sizes, including humans, and this research addresses fundamental questions about what factors create and maintain diversity in group sizes; what is discovered for swallows may apply to other species that live in social groups. Undergraduate students will be heavily involved, many of whom are women, minorities, and other underrepresented groups in research. This work will be relevant for conservation, because understanding colony choice and annual variation in survival probabilities of species such as cliff swallows could help in establishing management guidelines for similar migratory species that are declining.