“It is becoming increasingly important for conservation to focus on multispecies approaches of wildlife management and it is my hope that my research will bring this to light,” said Scott Flemming, a Ph.D. candidate in the Environmental and Life Sciences program at Trent University.
Mr. Flemming was recently awarded best poster presented by a Ph.D. student at the 13th North American Arctic Goose Conference in Winnipeg, held in April 2015, for his research into the impact goose colonies are having on Arctic shorebirds. The conference, held every three to five years, aims to bring goose biologists and managers together to study all aspects of arctic-breeding goose population dynamics, ecology, management and ecosystem interactions. Over 100 researchers and students from Canada, the United States, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Russia were in attendance with 25 posters being presented.
“Winning this prize is especially important to me since I was one of a handful of shorebird biologists presenting research at a conference centered on geese.,” Mr. Flemming said.
His poster presentation entitled “Impacts of Goose Colonies on Bird Community Composition and Abundance” is just one part of his research and looks at how goose colonies are impacting the abundance and community composition of other tundra-nesting bird species. In particular, populations of geese are causing significant changes to their breeding and staging habitats in specific areas across the Arctic. These habitat changes could impact other tundra-nesting birds, such as shorebirds.
Using bird surveys carried out across the Canadian Arctic as part of the Program for Regional and International Shorebird Monitoring (PRISM), Mr. Flemming relates the abundance and community composition of shorebirds to the distribution of breeding and staging geese. He shows evidence that goose colonies may be impacting the abundance of cover-nesting shorebirds within goose colonies. The dramatic increases in the number of geese breeding in the Eastern Arctic and concurrent declines of shorebirds in this region suggest at least the potential for an issue of conservation concern.
To continue his research, Mr. Flemming is currently preparing to travel to Coats and Southampton Islands, two remote islands in Nunavut, to conduct more site-specific field studies on how goose colonies may be impacting shorebird nesting habitat, diet and predation pressure. His research should provide information on whether and how geese might affect other tundra-nesting birds, so that goose management can acknowledge the needs of these other bird populations.
Posted on Tuesday, April 28, 2015.