LTREB: Stopover Biology of Intercontinental Landbird Migrants

在北美温带繁殖的鸣鸟中，超过三分之二的鸟类长途迁徙到墨西哥、中美洲和南美洲以及加勒比海岛屿的非繁殖区。这笔赠款将继续一项长期研究计划，该计划围绕移民在移民期间中途停留时面临的问题，以及移民如何在墨西哥湾北部海岸应对这些问题而组织。具体地说，这项研究将探讨抵达候鸟的精力充沛状态与栖息地可用性(合适栖息地的大小和形状)之间对中途停留行为的相互作用的重要性，以及土地利用变化和最近的飓风干扰对这种相互作用的影响。其他研究将考虑抵达移民的资源使用情况，特别是食物供应和营养需求。候鸟中途停留生物学的另一个重要组成部分是睡眠，以及大多数鸟类在夜间正常睡眠时迁徙的事实。还将调查白天的睡眠需求如何影响可用于觅食的时间。最后，调查人员将研究在迁徙期间中途停留期间病原体感染的重要性，特别是西尼罗河病毒和东马脑炎。这些信息将对制定候鸟保护战略至关重要，并将有助于我们了解在过去25年中许多候鸟物种中有记录的种群数量下降。

Over two-thirds of all the songbirds that breed in temperate North America migrate long distances to nonbreeding areas in Mexico, Central and South America and the islands of the Caribbean. This grant will continue a long-term research program that is organized around the problems migrants face when they stop over during migration and how migrants contend with those problems along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Specifically, this research will address the importance of the interplay between the energetic state of arriving migrants and habitat availability (size and shape of suitable habitats) on stop-over behavior and the implications of land use change and recent hurricane disturbance on this interplay. Additional studies will consider resource use by arriving migrants, particularly food availability and nutritional requirements. Another important component in stop-over biology in migratory birds is sleep and the fact that most birds migrate at night when they are normally sleeping. How the need for sleep during the day affects the time available for foraging will also be investigated. Finally, the investigators will look at the importance of infections by pathogens, particularly West Nile Virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis, during stop-overs during migration. This information will be critical in developing conservation strategies for migrant birds and will contribute to our understanding of documented population declines among many migrant species over the past quarter century.