NSF Award
2430150
The project will build a tool for land managers that will help them conserve grassland birds. North American grasslands once spanned more than 500 million acres. Grasslands are rapidly vanishing, along with the organisms that inhabit them. Grassland birds play a critical role in ecosystem health by dispersing seeds and consuming pests that damage crops and spread disease. However, grassland birds are declining faster than any other group of birds in North America, and their loss poses a threat to these important ecosystem services. One challenge with taking conservation actions to promote the recovery of grassland birds is that they migrate between distinct geographic regions each year. These migrations make it difficult to understand the factors causing population declines. To address this challenge, the project will collect data on migratory patterns, genetic health, and reproductive output of declining grassland bird populations. These data will be used to identify conservation actions that will benefit grassland bird populations, with the goal of restoring grassland bird populations across North America. In addition to building a conservation tool, the researchers will organize workshops for land managers. The project will also provide research internships for undergraduate students through Colorado State University’s MURALS First Year Scholars Academy program.<br/><br/>Since 1970, over seventy-five percent of grassland birds have declined with some species nearing threatened and endangered status. While conservation efforts aimed at reversing population declines in grassland birds are urgently needed, such efforts are currently hindered by critical gaps in our understanding of the migratory connections and demographic vital rates of populations throughout their full annual cycle. The goal of the proposed work is to develop a user-friendly tool that will aid wildlife habitat biologists in prioritizing management actions such as grassland restoration, brush management, and prescribed grazing. Specifically, the proposed research will combine data on migratory connections, genetic variation, and demographic vital rates collected across the breeding and nonbreeding grounds of three declining grassland bird species into a genomically-informed, full annual cycle, Integrated Population Model that will allow decision makers to assess which conservation measures will best promote species recovery within their jurisdiction. Furthermore, the proposed work will evaluate the effectiveness of resulting conservation recommendations by leveraging ongoing monitoring efforts.<br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by the Divisions of Environmental Biology and Integrative Organismal Systems through the Partnership to Advance Conservation Science and Practice Program.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
