LTREB RENEWAL: Predicting the Responses of Swallows and Their Insect Prey to Climate Change

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

This project studies the effects of weather variation on breeding Tree Swallows and their flying insect prey. It combines field and laboratory research with new and sophisticated technology to pursue four main objectives. The first is to understand the biological basis for observed variation in egg laying date. Second, the researchers will refine and deploy a new sensor-node network to test the effects of altered nest temperatures on parental care and the development of chicks. Third, new collaborations will be initiated to document individual swallow flight and foraging in relation to changing weather conditions. Finally, detailed studies of local variation in insect emergence and sensitivity to weather will link changes in food availability with changes in bird dynamics. These objectives will complete the final five years of a ten-year research plan to reach a comprehensive understanding of how individual birds and bird populations respond to climate variation. This research helps explore how changes in the severity and variation of global climates are affecting the breeding biology of birds, and the long-term data are fueling a collaboration in eastern Canada and the northern US searching for the causes of population declines in aerial insectivores, including tree swallows. This study continues to provide training for an international team of students of all levels, and it serves as idea-generator for large-scale comparative studies through the pan-American Golondrinas de las Americas network. Results are communicated to the broadest possible audience through the many outlets of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.