Current Graduate Student Research
Breeding duck productivity in prairie Canada
Ph.D. student Grant Rhodes is using UAVs equipped with visual cameras, thermal imaging cameras, and VHF receivers to study several aspects of duck breeding ecology, with a focus on Blue-winged Teal brood movements and survival. This is the first study in North America to leverage drone-based VHF tracking technology to study avian ecology.
Canvasback brood movements and survival
M.S. student Rich Cain is using UAVs equipped with visual and thermal imaging cameras to study Canvasback brood ecology in Minnedosa, Manitoba, adding new insight into a breeding ecology dataset going back to 1961.
Shorebird movement ecology
Ph.D. student Kirsti Carr is using a combination of tracking technologies--PTT and GPS transmitters along with automated radio telemetry data--to study local and global movement ecology of Long-billed Dowitchers and Dunlin as it relates to habitat conditions in the Central Valley of California.
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck breeding and movement
M.S. student Katie Miranda (LSU) is using geolocators to study the migration of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks in Louisiana, and continuing to build on a 5-year nesting dataset of this rapidly expanding waterfowl species.
Effects of hunting disturbance on habitat use of Northern Pintail
M.S. student Emily Ferraro (LSU, co-advised) is using a grid of acoustic recording units to monitor hunting disturbance, concurrent with monitoring movements of Northern Pintail via GPS telemetry in the rice country of southwest Louisiana.
Habitat selection of Northern Pintail in southwest Louisiana
M.S. student Aiden Gehrke (LSU, co-advised) is tracking Northern Pintail in southwest Louisiana while collecting near real-time habitat selection information as it relates to land-cover type and water management regime.
