Fall 2024
Dec 23. Vanessa is a recipient of a Biological Sciences Student Outreach Award in recognition of her work to prevent bird-window collisions by raising public awareness and promotion of bird-friendly solutions. Congratulations. For more see https://www.sfu.ca/biology/news-events/kudos/2024-bisc-outreach-awards.html
Dec 3. Vanessa gives an amazing summary of her bird-window collision research at SFU and successfully defends her MSc thesis- a job well done.
Sept 17. Hannah’s paper on latitudinal gradients in morphology of Black Oystercatchers is published in Ecology and Evolution. Congrats Hannah, and a big thank-you to all of our collaborators. You can see the paper here https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.70115
Sept 1. Three new people have joined the lab! A warm welcome to Andie Siemens and Robyn Denn, and a welcome back to Katie Chettle. Andie will be studying the amazing Canada Jays of Strathcona Provincial Park with Ryan Norris of Guelph and Dan Strickland of Parks Canada, Robyn is developing a project on Clark’s Nutcracker and their interaction with white bark pine in collaboration with the Ministry of Forests and Environment and Climate Change Canada, and Katie has joined the Black Oystercatcher team working with Laskeek Bay Conservation Society.
Summer 2023
June 27. Vanessa wins a student award for BEST SPEED TALK at the North American Congress for Conservation Biology (NACCB). Another great presentation on her window-collision work by Vanessa!
June 21. Paige is awarded a Together 4 Wildlife Scholarship!! Congratulations
May June July and August. Thanks to everyone who helped with fieldwork chasing towhees in urban parks, monitoring the oystercatchers in the Gulf Islands and Haida Gwaii, tracking surfboards and turnstones, and watching Canada Jays in Strathcona. Too many people to mention but your hard work meant that the data was coming in thick and fast….
Fall 2023
Nov. 16. A big day for Team Warbler. Michal Pavlik defends his PhD. Congratulations!!
Nov 6. Gwyn’s paper on the diet of American Goshawks in BC is accepted by the Journal of Raptor Research. You can read a bit about it here – https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-raptor-research/volume-58/issue-1#FEATUREARTICLES
Sept 1. A big hello to Triana Hohn and Paige Monteiro who have just joined the lab. Triana will be examining urbanization effects on the life history of Spotted Towhees, while Paige will be studying the movement and foraging ecology of Black Turnstones and Surfbirds. Triana is cosupervised by Dr Elizabeth Gow and Paige is cosupervised by Drs Scot Flemming and Mark Drever who all work for Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Summer 2023
August 28. Cole Rankin defends his MSc thesis examining the migratory strategies of black oystercatchers. Congratulations!
August 8-12. Kudos to Vanessa Hum and Triana Hohn on the reception of their posters presented at the AOS/SCO meeting in London, Ontario
June and July. Thanks to Bowen Cai, Katie Chettle, Mark Maftei, Max Bullock and everyone at Laskeek Bay Conservation Society for their help chasing oystercatchers this summer – could not have been more fun
Spring 2023
May 1. Jesse has her first paper accepted in Ornithology and transfers to the PhD program. Congratulations on both fronts. You can access the paper here: https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/140/3/ukad024/7160511
April 25. Tim Forrester, lab alumni, has a paper using data from his MSc thesis on yellow-breasted chats accepted by the Wilson Journal of Ornithology. Tim is currently doing a PhD at the University of Montana. Check out the first paper from his PhD on the life histories of tropical songbirds here (in American Naturalist no less): https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/725056
April 14. Hannah Roodenrijs defends her MSc thesis. Congratulations on a job well done.
April 7. Lena Ware’s Ecology and Evolution paper on habitat selection decisions of black oystercatchers is out! You can read it here: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9957
April 7. Ashleigh Westphal, lab and REM alumni, has her paper on secretive marsh bird responses to hydroelectric reservoir management accepted in the Journal of Wildlife Management. Congratulations!
April 2. Kudos to Vanessa Hum for her prize winning 3 minute talk at the Pacific Ecology and Evolution conference.
Fall 2022
Dec 8. Cole Rankin and Hannah Roodenrijs give a great seminar at Les Ecologistes.
Spring 2022
May 6. Congratulations to Simon Valdez who is finally able to celebrate the completion of his PhD thesis at convocation. Better late than never……
April 18. Bird window collision surveys are underway on SFU campus. If you are in your office and look out to see someone staring intently at your window they are part of Vanessa Hum’s team working for the birds on campus.
April 6. Congratulations to Jesse Kemp who has been awarded a highly competitive NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship.
April 3. Great news as Tess’s paper on migratory connectivity of Barrow’s Goldeneye is accepted in Avian Conservation and Ecology. You can see the paper here: https://ace-eco.org/vol17/iss2/art7/.
Feb 24. A warm welcome to Vanessa Hum who has just arrived in BC. Vanessa will be starting a MSc quantifying bird-window collisions on SFU campus as part of a collaborative project with Elizabeth Gow and Krista De Groot of Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Fall 2021.
Dec 3. Lena Ware defends her MSc thesis, making it three killer defences in 2021….
Summer 2021.
July 21. Gwyn Case defends her thesis on the foraging ecology of goshawks. Congratulations!
June 1. Team BLOY get the all clear for fieldwork! Cole will be travelling to Alaska and David and Hannah will be visiting the Gulf Islands, Pacific Rim and Haida Gwaii.
Spring 2021.
May 1. Michal publishes the first chapter of his thesis in Phyiological and Biochemical Zoology! The title says it all. Check out “Female songbirds can initiate the transition from a migratory to a reproductive physiology during spring migration” Physiol Biochem Zool 94(3): 188-198. https://doi.org/10.1086/714218
February 22. Team Yellow Warbler’s paper examining how management of reservoir water levels influence productivity is published in PLOS ONE. The paper and individual-based model is here doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247318
January 12. Tess Forstner successfully defends her MSc thesis “Migratory connectivity and spatio-temporal aspects of Pacific Barrow’s Goldeneye (Bucephala islandica) migration”. Great thesis, great defence and a great way to start 2021.
Fall 2020.
November 11. Tess Forstner and Lena Ware present ” Seaducks and shorebirds: movement ecology and coastal indicators” at Les Ecologistes
October 10. Lena Ware talks about her MSc research on black oystercatchers at the International Wader Study Group virtual conference to an audience of over 100 people!
September 8. A big welcome to Cole Rankin and Hannah Roodenrijs. Both Cole and Hannah will be working on Black Oystercatchers for their MSc as part of the Black Oystercatcher Project.
Summer 2020
June 8. Tim Forrester’s paper examining the success of habitat restoration for yellow-breasted chats is accepted in The Condor. Go see Forrester TF et al. 2020. Riparian habitat restoration increases the availability and occupancy of Yellow-breasted Chat territories but brood parasitism is the primary influence on reproductive performance”. https://doi.org/10.1093/condor/duaa038
Winter/Spring 2020
February 17-21. Team BLOY enjoyed amazing weather in the Gulf Islands on their first field trip of 2020.
February 14. Mark Hipfner’s paper linking oceanographic conditions, the zooplankton community and reproduction of Cassin’s auklets on Triangle Island is accepted in Progress in Oceanography. The full reference is Hipfner JM, Galbraith M, Bertram DF and Green DJ. 2020. Basin-scale oceanographic processes, zooplankton, diet and reproduction of a sentinel North Pacific seabird over a 22-year period. Progress in Oceanography 182: 102290.
February 10. Isobel Rennie has her first scientific paper, written while an undergraduate at SFU, accepted in Marine Ornithology. Congratulations! Check the next issue for – Rennie IRF, Green DJ, Krebs EA and Harfenist A. 2020. High apparent survival of adult Leach’s Storm-Petrels Oceanodroma leucorhoa in British Columbia. Marine Ornithology
January 14. Kate Fremlin’s paper examining the trophic magnification of organic pollutants in a terrestrial food web ranging from earthworms to Cooper’s hawks is accepted in Science of the Total Environment. Go look at – Fremlin KM, Elliott JE, Green DJ, Drouillard KG, Harner T, Eng A, and A.P.C. Gobas FAPC 2020. Trophic magnification of legacy persistent organic pollutants in an urban terrestrial food web. Science of The Total Environment 174: 136746.
January 10. Simon Valdez successfully defends his PhD thesis examining the impacts of land conversion to agriculture on neotropical migrants in Mexico. Congratulations on an exceptional thesis!
Fall 2019
October 16. Michaela Martin’s paper examining latitudinal trends in life history traits of yellow warblers from tropical to arctic habitats was published in Ibis. Check out – Martin M, Drake A, Rock C, and Green DJ. (2019). Latitudinal gradients in some, but not all, avian life history traits extend into the Arctic. Ibis doi:10.1111/ibi.12789
September 9. Cat Villeneuve successfully defended her MSc thesis “Repurposing brood size manipulation experiments to assess insect availability”. Congratulations! She now heads off to Australia to chase superb fairy-wrens in Melbourne, Australia.