Vol. 8 (Winter 2003)

1. News from Tony
2. Post-docs and Current Students
3. Alumni News
4. Publications

1) News from Tony:

My main activities over the winter have been focused on family issues. However several papers have appeared (see Publications) and others submitted. I participated in the EC Planning Meeting in Memramcook 21-23 January. Neal Simon visited from Labrador in late January and the paper we worked on together has since been accepted by EcoScience. In late February I took a 2-week trip to the Seychelles on family business, and hope to pursue some interesting research questions arising from ecological changes which have taken place there over the last 30 years. Matt Charette and Kate Devlin completed the 2002 Machias Seal Island report. Pete McKinley and Tara Warren have both applied for extensions to complete their theses. Other theses are proceeding more or less on track.

2) POST DOCS & CURRENT STUDENTS:

Karel Allard

Fitness first. If all goes according to plan (plan, what plan?), child number two, sex yet undetermined (The child will figure it out soon enough...), should join the flock in late August (Yes Tony, I know... that wasn't in my proposal). Daughter Rafaelle (now 18 months) is healthy and keeping us busy and on our toes in a very good way (She wasn't in the proposal either...).

Thesis work is advancing. Focus is presently on remaining data compilations and analysis (Quite enjoyable and very satisfying, surprisingly). I am dealing with a few not insurmountable stats challenges (Wow, that's novel!). I am thankfully not alone in this "boat" and have gained much in discussions with lab mates. I look forward to more face-to-face interaction with the Dunnlins and the rest of the Fredericton crew during the spring and summer (now that we have a functional Fundy ferry).

I guess that's it for the "nutshell update" from Karel the expat.

Happy trials (or is it trails?)

Matt Betts

Not too much new news except that Matt got married last summer and is currently working on his PhD up at the Dunn.

Joël Bêty

The big news with Joël and Dianne is the arrival of a new extension to their family, Kaïla Bêty-Leclerc. Jöel is currently taking parental leave until May and recently came back from field work in the Arctic. Forthcoming papers by Jöel are:

Forthcoming PAPERS:
Gauthier, G., Bêty, J., and Hobson, K. 2003. Are greater snow geese capital breeders? New evidence from a stable isotope model. Ecology. In press.
Gauthier, G., Bêty, J., Giroux, J.-F., Rochefort, L. 2003. Trophic interactions in a High Arctic Snow Goose colony. Integrative and Comparative Biology. In press.
Bêty, J., Gauthier, G., and Giroux, J.-F. 2003. Body condition, migration and timing of breeding in snow geese: A test of the condition-dependent model of optimal clutch size. American Naturalist. In press.
Demers, F., Giroux, J.-F., Gauthier, G., and Bêty, J. 2003. Effects of collar-attached transmitters on behavior, pair bond and breeding success of snow geese. Wildlife Biology. In press.
Reed, E., Bêty, J., Mainguy, J., Gauthier, G., and Giroux, J.-F. 2003. Molt migration in relation to breeding success in Greater Snow Geese. Arctic. In press.

papers Presented:
Gauthier, G., Giroux, J.-F., Bêty, J., and Rochefort, L. 2003. Trophic interactions in a High Arctic Snow Goose colony. Symposium on Arctic Biology, SICB annual meeting, Toronto, ON.
Bêty, J. 2002. Timing of breeding and optimal resource allocation in arctic-nesting common eider: preliminary results. Eighth ACWERN's annual meeting, Bonne Bay, NF.
Bêty, J. 2002. Are goose nesting success and lemming cycles linked? Interplay between nest density and predators. Invited paper at the Arctic Research Consortium of United States (ARCUS) Fourteenth Annual Meeting and Arctic Forum, Washington, DC. USA.

Brenda Blynn

The only news, is that I'm writing my thesis. I worked for Point Reyes Bird Observatory last summer, on a riparian habitat restoration project, collecting baseline information on songbird focal species.

Jill Boucher

Jill Boucher is in the last year of her MScF program and her project is on the Effect of Climate Change on the Breeding Phenology and Clutch Size of the American Robin and Tree Swallow in New Brunswick. Her rationale for this study is that if we are experiencing earlier springtime events in response to climate change, then these birds should be able to take advantage of earlier prey availability and begin their breeding cycles earlier, and have an abundance of food resources to turn into more eggs.

After preliminary analyses of her data, she is finding that there is a weak correlation between earlier egg laying trends and earlier, warmer spring temperatures. At best, there is only inter-annual variation in egg laying dates and clutch sizes. Studies in the past, in particular the Tree Swallow, had shown an advance in egg laying dates by 8-10 days across North America over the last 40 years. However, a closer examination of this trend does not hold true when only looking at our area of the country. Our colder, maritime climate has not caused birds to advance their breeding schedules. In fact, New Brunswick's springtime events have not advanced much in the past 40 years nor become significantly warmer as in other parts.

Also the birds have only laid more eggs per clutch during warmer years, but there is not a net trend in any one direction.

Andre Breton

From June through August 2002, I enjoyed my first summer in general circulation, i.e. not far offshore working on a seabird island, since 1994. I did, however, make two short trips to Machias Seal Island and an extended trip to Newfoundland. For many years now I have looked east from Seal Island (24 miles east of Rockland, Maine) out to sea and imagined visiting some of the large seabird colonies of the Western Atlantic including the Bird Islands, Cape Breton, Cape St. Mary's and Gull, Green, and Great Islands in Witless Bay, Newfoundland. Starting from Boston, Massachusetts, on June 25th, I went by motorcycle to the ferry in Portland, Maine and then onto Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. A few days later I was in Port Aux Basque, Newfoundland. For the next three weeks I wandered the inlands, lakeshores, and seacoast of the 10th largest island on Earth. I took in many sites including all those seabird colonies just mentioned and other places such as Gros Morne Summit and National Park, Lance Aux Meadow Historical Site, Cape Bonavista, Conception Bay, George Street in downtown St. John's (!), and Twillingate. Newfoundland was exceptional in many ways…with both its diversity of landscapes and the kind people placing high up on the list. On the 28th of July, I returned to Fredericton following a tour of Cape Breton including the Bird Islands and many sites along the scenic Cabot Trail.

From August 1st through middle December, my main focus was building and presenting lectures to 130 students for a 2nd year Ecology course. It was my first experience at teaching at the University level. I enjoyed the experience…but I'm not eager to try again until I complete my thesis. My basic issue was that it took as much of my time as I had available!

This term I am back full time working on thesis related topics. I hope to submit a new draft of an adult survival paper to Auk in the next month and, ideally, complete a second paper describing survival and emigration rates in known-age puffins by late spring. To break up the routine of thesis writing and data analysis, I presented at an on campus Graduate Student Conference on February 15th and will present at an upcoming Wildlife conference on PEI March 1st. These are the highlights!

Mathieu Charette

I am finally getting to know how things work around here and now I am ready to go. My project changed a little bit as expected and I have now incorporated stable isotope analysis in my project. I will be combining more traditional diet monitoring techniques with stable isotopes of eggs and blood and some body tissues such as bone and liver. This will enable us to find what trophic level and from marine or freshwater source the preys of the adult terns are found. I want to compare adult and chick diets between Common and Arctic Terns and between the chicks and the adults. I am hoping to answer questions about the breeding biology of two sympatric nesting seabirds.

The rest of my school time is spent T.A.'ing to first year students who don't really care. Ecology does not seem to be a very popular topic at the moment, or was it ever? They don't get too excited by terns anyways. More jobs for us I guess…

Kate Devlin

Kate's very happy to turn over the duties of student rep & newsletter editor to fellow sucker...I mean Mathieu. She has been splitting her time this winter between the lab (yes, still working on the search for microsatellites) and teaching Ethology. Two of her photographs of razorbills were used in the latest issue of "The Gulf of Maine Times" and rumors are that another may be used in an up-coming issue of "Picoides."

Sarah Jamieson

If I don't have any decent gossip on the offenders, can I make some up??? I have a pretty good imagination....

Not much is new with me... in the process of writing my thesis, so far it looks like it is going to a suspenseful piece of fiction with a conclusion that will surprise everyone, no the butler didn't do it. I went to the Sea Duck Joint Venture meeting in November and had a blast. I co-authored a talk (remind me to get you the title when I get back) and poster (same as before). I am spending most of February in NF getting help from the stats gurus, Greg Robertson and Ian Goudie, and training a student of Bill Montevecchi's who is starting a project on Ptarmigan energetics. I dissected the coolest bird ever... a ptarmigan that flew into a telephone wire so hard that it severed its heart and lodged it up in its throat (we can probably blame sex hormones for that one, seeing that it was a male at the beginning of the breeding season).

3) ALUMNI NEWS:

Laurel Bernard

No new and exciting news in my life to report. I am still working as
the stewardship coordinator for the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC)
in Fredericton. I did get Kate to distribute job descriptions for
summer interns that NCC (i.e. me) will be hiring this summer, in case
any grad student needs a summer job. It pays fairly well. If anyone is
interested they can check out www.natureconservancy.ca.

I will be taking a wilderness first aid course with a few ACWERNers in
March...in the woodlot with a retired army guy as an instructor...so
that should be fun. And I am working towards getting NCC to pay for a
trip to Victoria to go to a stewardship conference there in July - maybe
I can hook up with Krista Amey!

Jean-Michel DeVink

I finally graduated from UNB's BSc Forestry program, and have recently started my MSc biology program at the University of Saskatchewan with supervisor Bob Clark of CWS. My project will examine the relationship of nutrient reserves, selenium and mercury levels and potentially wintering location on breeding propensity of Lesser Scaup (population declining) and Ring-necked Ducks (stable or increasing population) in the Western Boreal forest. Hopefully I'll get out of the woods in time to get married at the end of August. After a second field season (2002) assisting Karel Allard with his field work and replicating the water salinity/duckling survival experiment of the previous summer, a paper is in the works on the results of this study. Hope everyone is doing great.

Falk Huettman

Falk continues working as a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of
Calgary in the Geography Dept. submitting PhD publications with ACWERN on
pelagic seabirds and on Marbled Murrelets with Simon Fraser University.
Besides some teaching, he creates with a GIS and some software tools
(Woodstock/Stanley and LANDIS) Future Landscape Scenarios for Grizzly Bear
Habitats in the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains in western Alberta. The
goal of this interesting exercise is to derive within sound confidence
bounds a realistic landscape of the future. Eventually, these findings will
feed into a Population Viability Analysis (PVA) to aid managers how to
conserve and manage wildlife landscapes and habitats. Once this goal is
achieved, obviously there is nothing what stops such approaches and methods
to be applied for deriving future pelagic seascapes...

Cam Stevens

I'm still in my PhD program at U of A. I have two papers
in review:

1) Gabor, T.S., C.E. Stevens, and H. Murkin. 2003. Anuran callsurveys on managed and natural beaver ponds in south-central Ontario.Canadian Field Naturalist; and

2) Stevens, C.E., L. Foote, and C.A.Paszkowski. 2003. Use of habitat by beaver: implications for forest
management. Forest Ecology and Management.

I am currently preparing a manuscript titled "Can PVC pipe refugia census boreal chorus frogs
(Pseudacris maculata)?" for Herpetological Review co-authored by Sarah Eaves
and Cindy Paszkowski. To anyone interested, see http://www.ualberta.ca/~stevens/ for more information. I have one more field season to go and my graduation in the near future with some luck
(Summer 2004?). I wish everyone the best.

4) PUBLICATIONS (others listed above):

Lowther, P., Diamond, A.W., Kress, S. and Robertson, G.R. 2002. Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica). Birds of North America No. 709.

Cumming, E.E. and Diamond, A.W. 2002. Songbird community composition and rotation age in Saskatchewan boreal mixedwood forest. Canadian Field-Naturalist 116(1): 69-75.

Stevens, C. E., T. S. Gabor, and A. W. Diamond. 2003. Use of Restored Small Wetlands by Breeding Waterfowl in Prince Edward Island, Canada. Restoration Ecology 11(1): 3-12.

Simon, N.P.P., Diamond, A.W. and Schwab, F.E. Do northern forest bird communities show more ecological plasticity than southern forest bird communities in eastern Canada? Ecoscience. In Press.