The Lab      Research      Publications      Prospective Students 

In collaboration with the Hudson Bay Project, I have begun research examining survival, dynamics, and management of the lesser snow goose population at LaPérouse Bay near Churchill, Manitoba. In particular, I am interested in how population density in early life indirectly affects physical & physiological development, which is known to affect survival of young snow geese, but may also affect rates of senescence later in life (for those making it past the stressful conditions of adolescence). Alongside predation (which mainly comes in the form of human harvest), these factors could have important impacts on population structure, dynamics, abundance, and thus the ways in which management should focus their efforts when trying to control population numbers. I am also interested in how the edge of the snow goose colony (i.e., the wavefront) moves over time in response to population density, and how this affects both the plant and  animal communities.

I continue to study the breeding ecology, demography, and population dynamics of lesser scaup in order to elucidate why the continental population is declining, which factors most influence change in population dynamics, and what can be done to manage them. I currently have a graduate student, Beth Ross, who is using the May Breeding Pairs Survey data to examine whether the occurrence of ‘breeding pairs’ relative to ‘groups’ has changed over time in the various biomes in which scaup nest. Beth is also integrating the BPS data with banding data and hunter survey data to assess the relative impacts of harvest, population density, as well as climate and habitat change on continental scaup population dynamics.