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Nest-box trails designed for Sialia sialis (Eastern Bluebird) increase viable nesting sites for several native bird species as well as invasive species such as Passer domesticus (House Sparrow). The management technique of egg and nest removal is purported to cause sparrow usurpation at neighboring boxes. We studied the behavior of nesting House Sparrow pairs before, during, and after application of 2 management treatments: egg swapping and nest removal. Video surveillance did not detect House Sparrows visiting neighboring boxes during the management period. After the removal treatment, 42% of the pairs renested in the same nest box. We also tested the hypothesis that nest removal may shift sparrow interference to neighboring boxes spaced on average 170 m apart. In the week after management, 91% of boxes neighboring a managed box proceeded without incident, which was not different from the outcomes of boxes in areas without sparrow competition. We conclude that nest-box failure does not correlate with management technique at this study site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leveraging Citizen Science in a College Classroom to Build Interest and Efficacy for Science and the Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opportunities for marginalized students (such as women, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students, first-generation college students, LGBTQ+-identified individuals, and people/persons with disabilities) to engage in undergraduate research can help increase their persistence in STEM degrees and careers. The incorporation of citizen science projects into higher education provides unique opportunities for undergraduate students to get involved in scientific research, yet there is still much to be learned about how students, especially those with marginalized identities, interact with and perceive citizen science in higher education settings. Our goal was to understand student perspectives on citizen science, examine connections between participation in citizen science and student interest and sense of belonging in science, and explore how this varies based on demographic attributes. We did this using a case study with a mixed-methods design: a survey of students at a large predominantly white institution (PWI) (n = 143) and interviews with a subset of citizen science participants (n = 6). Results indicate that participation in citizen science occurred both within and outside of traditional classroom settings. Citizen science was valued most by students with an existing interest in science, and students who participated in citizen science projects reported a stronger sense of belonging in science. Our study uncovered challenges and misconceptions related to citizen science participation within higher education settings, highlighting the need for a commitment to broadening participation. Additional investigations of student perspectives regarding citizen science could allow for broader engagement of citizen science projects in higher education, ultimately helping to retain marginalized students in STEM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protected areas are critical locations worldwide for biodiversity preservation and offer important opportunities for increasingly urbanized humans to experience nature. However, biodiversity preservation and visitor access are often at odds and creative solutions are needed to safeguard protected area natural resources in the face of high visitor use. Managing human impacts to natural soundscapes could serve as a powerful tool for resolving these conflicting objectives. Here, we review emerging research that demonstrates that the acoustic environment is critical to wildlife and that sounds shape the quality of nature-based experiences for humans. Human-made noise is known to affect animal behavior, distributions and reproductive success, and the organization of ecological communities. Additionally, new research suggests that interactions with nature, including natural sounds, confer benefits to human welfare termed psychological ecosystem services. In areas influenced by noise, elevated human-made noise not only limits the variety and abundance of organisms accessible to outdoor recreationists, but also impairs their capacity to perceive the wildlife that remains. Thus soundscape changes can degrade, and potentially limit the benefits derived from experiences with nature via indirect and direct mechanisms. We discuss the effects of noise on wildlife and visitors through the concept of listening area and demonstrate how the perceptual worlds of both birds and humans are reduced by noise. Finally, we discuss how management of soundscapes in protected areas may be an innovative solution to safeguarding both and recommend several key questions and research directions to stimulate new research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human activities have caused a near-ubiquitous and evolutionarily-unprecedented increase in environmental sound levels and artificial night lighting. These stimuli reorganize communities by interfering with species-specific perception of time-cues, habitat features, and auditory and visual signals. Rapid evolutionary changes could occur in response to light and noise, given their magnitude, geographical extent, and degree to which they represent unprecedented environmental conditions. We present a framework for investigating anthropogenic light and noise as agents of selection, and as drivers of other evolutionary processes, to influence a range of behavioral and physiological traits such as phenological characters and sensory and signaling systems. In this context, opportunities abound for understanding contemporary and rapid evolution in response to human-caused environmental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social justice is increasingly being seen as relevant to the science curriculum. We examine the intersection of participatory science, social justice, and higher education in the United States to investigate how instructors can teach about social justice and enhance collaborations to work toward enacting social justice. Participatory science approaches, like those that collect data over large geographic areas, can be particularly useful for teaching students about social justice. Conversely, local-scale approaches that integrate students into community efforts can create powerful collaborations to help facilitate social justice. We suggest a variety of large-scale databases, platforms, and portals that could be used as starting points to address a set of learning objectives about social justice. We also describe local-scale participatory science approaches with a social justice focus, developed through academic and community partnerships. Considerations for implementing participatory science with undergraduates are discussed, including cautions about the necessary time investment, cultural competence, and institutional support. These approaches are not always appropriate but can provide compelling learning experiences in the correct circumstances., Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest: none.

The bulk of research on citizen science participants is project centric, based on an assumption that volunteers experience a single project. Contrary to this assumption, survey responses ( n  = 3894) and digital trace data ( n  = 3649) from volunteers, who collectively engaged in 1126 unique projects, revealed that multiproject participation was the norm. Only 23% of volunteers were singletons (who participated in only one project). The remaining multiproject participants were split evenly between discipline specialists (39%) and discipline spanners (38% joined projects with different disciplinary topics) and unevenly between mode specialists (52%) and mode spanners (25% participated in online and offline projects). Public engagement was narrow: The multiproject participants were eight times more likely to be White and five times more likely to hold advanced degrees than the general population. We propose a volunteer-centric framework that explores how the dynamic accumulation of experiences in a project ecosystem can support broad learning objectives and inclusive citizen science., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.)

Expansion of anthropogenic noise and night lighting across our planet 1,2 is of increasing conservation concern 3-6 . Despite growing knowledge of physiological and behavioural responses to these stimuli from single-species and local-scale studies, whether these pollutants affect fitness is less clear, as is how and why species vary in their sensitivity to these anthropic stressors. Here we leverage a large citizen science dataset paired with high-resolution noise and light data from across the contiguous United States to assess how these stimuli affect reproductive success in 142 bird species. We find responses to both sensory pollutants linked to the functional traits and habitat affiliations of species. For example, overall nest success was negatively correlated with noise among birds in closed environments. Species-specific changes in reproductive timing and hatching success in response to noise exposure were explained by vocalization frequency, nesting location and diet. Additionally, increased light-gathering ability of species' eyes was associated with stronger advancements in reproductive timing in response to light exposure, potentially creating phenological mismatches 7 . Unexpectedly, better light-gathering ability was linked to reduced clutch failure and increased overall nest success in response to light exposure, raising important questions about how responses to sensory pollutants counteract or exacerbate responses to other aspects of global change, such as climate warming. These findings demonstrate that anthropogenic noise and light can substantially affect breeding bird phenology and fitness, and underscore the need to consider sensory pollutants alongside traditional dimensions of the environment that typically inform biodiversity conservation.

Development of avian embryos requires thermal energy, usually from parents. Parents may, however, trade off catering for embryonic requirements against their own need to forage through intermittent incubation. This dynamically adjusted behaviour can be affected by properties of the nest. Here, we experimentally show a novel mechanism by which parents, through incorporation of aromatic herbs into nests, effectively modify their incubation behaviour to the benefit of their offspring. Our study species, the European starling, includes in its nest aromatic herbs which promote offspring fitness. We provided wild starlings with artificial nests including or excluding the typically selected fresh herbs and found strong support for our prediction of facilitated incubation. Herb effects were not explained by thermal changes of the nests per se , but by modified parental behaviours. Egg temperatures and nest attendance were higher in herb than herbless nests, egg temperatures dropped less frequently below critical thresholds and parents started their active day earlier. These effects were dynamic over time and particularly strong during early incubation. Incubation period was shorter in herb nests, and nestlings were heavier one week after hatching. Aromatic herbs hence influenced incubation in beneficial ways for offspring, possibly through pharmacological effects on incubating parents., (© 2018 The Author(s).)

Life-history traits in birds, such as lifespan, age at maturity, and rate of reproduction, vary across environments and in combinations imposed by trade-offs and limitations of physiological mechanisms. A plethora of studies have described the diversity of traits and hypothesized selection pressures shaping components of the survival-reproduction trade-off. Life-history variation appears to fall along a slow-fast continuum, with slow pace characterized by higher investment in survival over reproduction and fast pace characterized by higher investment in reproduction over survival. The Pace-of-Life Syndrome (POLS) is a framework to describe the slow-fast axis of variation in life-history traits and physiological traits. The POLS corresponds to latitudinal gradients, with tropical birds exhibiting a slow pace of life. We examined four possible ways that the traits of high-elevation birds might correspond to the POLS continuum: (i) rapid pace, (ii) tropical slow pace, (iii) novel elevational pace, or (iv) constrained pace. Recent studies reveal that birds breeding at high elevations in temperate zones exhibit a combination of traits creating a unique elevational pace of life with a central trade-off similar to a slow pace but physiological trade-offs more similar to a fast pace. A paucity of studies prevents consideration of the possibility of a constrained pace of life. We propose extending the POLS framework to include trait variation of elevational clines to help to investigate complexity in global geographic patterns., (© 2014 The Authors. Biological Reviews © 2014 Cambridge Philosophical Society.)

Accurate phenology data, such as the timing of migration and reproduction, is important for understanding how climate change influences birds. Given contradictory findings among localized studies regarding mismatches in timing of reproduction and peak food supply, broader-scale information is needed to understand how whole species respond to environmental change. Citizen science-participation of the public in genuine research-increases the geographic scale of research. Recent studies, however, showed weekend bias in reported first-arrival dates for migratory songbirds in databases created by citizen-science projects. I investigated whether weekend bias existed for clutch-initiation dates for common species in US citizen-science projects. Participants visited nests on Saturdays more frequently than other days. When participants visited nests during the laying stage, biased timing of visits did not translate into bias in estimated clutch-initiation dates, based on back-dating with the assumption of one egg laid per day. Participants, however, only visited nests during the laying stage for 25% of attempts of cup-nesting species and 58% of attempts in nest boxes. In some years, in lieu of visit data, participants provided their own estimates of clutch-initiation dates and were asked "did you visit the nest during the laying period?" Those participants who answered the question provided estimates of clutch-initiation dates with no day-of-week bias, irrespective of their answer. Those who did not answer the question were more likely to estimate clutch initiation on a Saturday. Data from citizen-science projects are useful in phenological studies when temporal biases can be checked and corrected through protocols and/or analytical methods.

Cat predation of birds in residential landscapes is ephemeral, unpredictable, and spatially dispersed, and thus requires many person-hours to observe. We sought to identify whether specific behaviors, traits, or feeding ecologies of birds contribute to their probability of cat-caused mortality around residences across temperate North America. In addressing this question, we evaluated citizen science data with respect to peer-reviewed species accounts (Birds of North America, BNA). Using information on cat predation from the BNA, we found that species that glean their prey from the ground or breed in nest boxes were three times more likely to be depredated by cats, while birds that hawk were over two times less likely to become cat prey than would be predicted by random chance. Data from citizen science sources also showed that birds using nest boxes had increased susceptibility to cat predation, as did those that use feeders and that glean from foliage. We caution that observations of predation by citizen science volunteers may be biased towards detection at feeders. Future research should focus on developing volunteer survey techniques for improving estimates of bird mortality rates and sources.

Many animals use photoperiod cues to synchronize reproduction with environmental conditions and thereby improve their reproductive success. The circadian clock, which creates endogenous behavioral and physiological rhythms typically entrained to photoperiod, is well characterized at the molecular level. Recent work provided evidence for an association between Clock poly-Q length polymorphism and latitude and, within a population, an association with the date of laying and the length of the incubation period. Despite relatively high overall breeding synchrony, the timing of clutch initiation has a large impact on the fitness of swallows in the genus Tachycineta. We compared length polymorphism in the Clock poly-Q region among five populations from five different Tachycineta species that breed across a hemisphere-wide latitudinal gradient (Fig. 1). Clock poly-Q variation was not associated with latitude; however, there was an association between Clock poly-Q allele diversity and the degree of clutch size decline within breeding seasons. We did not find evidence for an association between Clock poly-Q variation and date of clutch initiation in for any of the five Tachycineta species, nor did we found a relationship between incubation duration and Clock genotype. Thus, there is no general association between latitude, breeding phenology, and Clock polymorphism in this clade of closely related birds.Figure 1Photos of Tachycineta swallows that were used in this study: A) T. bicolor from Ithaca, New York, B) T. leucorrhoa from Chascomús, Argentina, C) T. albilinea from Hill Bank, Belize, D) T. meyeni from Puerto Varas, Chile, and E) T. thalassina from Mono Lake, California, Photographers: B: Valentina Ferretti; A, C-E: David Winkler.

Estimates of distributions of natal dispersal distances and juvenile recruitment rates in open populations are strongly influenced by the extent and shape of the areas sampled. Techniques to improve biased dispersal and survival estimates include area-ratio methods based on weighting observations by sampling effort, the extent and shape of the area sampled, and the amount and distribution of preferred habitat surrounding the area sampled. We partitioned territories within the boundaries of a large, almost geographically closed, population of individually marked Red-cockaded Woodpeckers (Picoides borealis) and estimated dispersal and survival parameters from hypothetical smaller study areas (sampling areas) of varying sizes and shapes in order to examine whether an area-ratio method provides accurate or improved estimates of juvenile dispersal distance and survival. Non-aggregated sampling areas resulted in the detection of fewer dispersal events, but because of their large spatial extent, produced unbiased dispersal estimates. The use of aggregated sampling areas (circular or linear) resulted in the detection of higher numbers of dispersal events, but produced biased dispersal estimates that were generally improved by the area-ratio method. Area-ratio corrections usually provided better estimates of median dispersal distance than uncorrected estimates. Survival to breeding was usually underestimated and often not improved by the area-ratio method, regardless of extent and shape of the sampling area. Estimates of juvenile survival to breeding were improved by assuming that rates of emigration were equivalent to immigration, and correcting survival estimates accordingly. Small, local studies should use an area-ratio method to improve their estimates of median dispersal distance. Because the correction method estimates relative, but not absolute, numbers of individuals dispersing across distance categories, the area-ratio method should not be used for estimating survival. Non-aggregated sampling areas may be an effective design to increase spatial extent (and thus decrease bias) without proportionately increasing the amount of habitat sampled.

After House Finches were introduced from the western to the eastern United States and rapidly increased in numbers, House Sparrows declined, leading to suggestions that the decline was caused by interspecific competition. However, other potential causes were not excluded. The rapid decline in House Finches following the emergence of a new disease (mycoplasmal conjunctivitis) caused by a novel strain of Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) in 1994 has provided a natural experiment and an opportunity to revisit the hypothesis that interspecific competition from House Finches drives population changes in House Sparrows. If true, the recent decline in House Finches should lead to an increase in House Sparrows. In this paper we test the hypothesis that House Sparrow and House Finch numbers in the northeastern United States vary inversely by examining data from three independent volunteer programs that monitor bird species' abundance and distribution (Christmas Bird Count, Project FeederWatch, and Breeding Bird Survey). In the first analysis we found that House Sparrow and House Finch numbers varied inversely during a time interval when House Finches were increasing and a time interval when House Finches were decreasing. In the second analysis, we found that the rates of geometric change in House Sparrow abundance (ln[HOSP(t+1)/HOSP(t)]) were negatively correlated with initial House Finch (HOFI(t)) and sparrow (HOSP(t)) abundances at individual sites, irrespective of the time period. Given that finch range expansion and subsequent declines in abundance are the result of two very different phenomena, it would be very unlikely for apparent competition or spurious correlations to cause the observed concomitant changes in House Sparrow abundance. We conclude that interspecific competition exists between these two species.