07-31-2002 - Biodiversity

sagar: Author=’Jorge Salazar’ program=’3495′ video=”Image from the Connecticutt DEP’s Wildlife Division volunteer page._DB:_ This is Earth and Sky with a look at a study called “Birds in Forested Landscapes,” which coordinates the efforts of both scientists and volunteers.

_JB:_ We spoke with Stefan Hames, a researcher with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York.

_Stefan Hames:_ The goal of the project is to help us understand how fragmentation affects forest birds… And the secondary goals are to teach citizens how science works on the ground, how we develop hypothesis, how we test them, as well as how scientific fieldwork is carried out… And basically, these people do it I think because they think it’s a fun, it’s a cool thing to do. And it also gives them a chance to give back something to the natural world.

_DB:_ Thousands of birders and amateur scientists across North America are trained to collect field data about forest-dwelling bird species. These are birds like the Veery that need a patch of forest to be a minimum size in order to breed successfully.

_JB:_ Forest fragmentation increases the likelihood that the Veery won’t breed. In edge habitat, there tends to be less food and an increase in predators and pollution .

_DB:_ To find out more about this study, come to earthsky.org. Thanks today to the “U.S. Forest Service”:http://www.fs.fed.us/ and to the “National Fish and Wildlife Foundation”:http://www.nfwf.org/ – supporting the conservation of native fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.

Written by EarthSky