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。一些蜂鸟会拜访许多种花，而另一些只会拜访几种花。沿着热带山腰，大多数蜂鸟物种都生活在狭窄的海拔范围内。这个项目的目标是了解环境因素，这些因素阻碍了鸟类在其他地方生活。假设蜂鸟的活动范围仅限于它们授粉的开花植物的种类。要验证这一假设，需要了解哪些植物是由哪些蜂鸟授粉的数据。通过辨认蜂鸟喙上的花粉，可以确定它们所依赖的开花植物。花粉将从秘鲁东南部山坡上发现的不同蜂鸟物种中鉴定出来。为了验证这一假设，将把花粉数据与同一山腰上开花植物物种的分布数据结合起来。本研究的更广泛影响包括：1)它在评估蜂鸟等物种是否能够在未来气候变化的事实中持续存在方面具有重要意义，这些物种可能受到开花植物资源的限制；2)制作教育宣传材料，包括蜂鸟开花植物照片指南和三张秘鲁山区鸟鸣录音光盘；3)在新热带鸟类学和生态学方面广泛培养13名不同民族背景的未来科学研究人员。

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.