Achievements

Mark Colwell, Lizzie Feucht, Matt Lau, David Orluck, Sean McAllister, Amber Transou

Wildlife

Mark Colwell and current and former students (Lizzie Feucht, Matt Lau, David Orluck, Sean McAllister, Amber Transou) published a paper in Wader Study, an international journal dedicated to shorebird ecology and conservation. The work summarizes 16 years of monitoring to show that immigration is vital to recent population growth of Snowy Plovers in coastal northern California.

Walt Duffy and Sharon Kahara

Wildlife

"Ecosystems of California" won two 2017 PROSE awards, which are given by the Association of American Publishers. It won the award for environmental science, and the overall award for excellence in physical sciences and mathematics.For more information on AAP 2017 awardees visit:
https://proseawards.com/winners/

Professor Emeritus Rick Botzler, students in the Ecoclub and other collaborators

Wildlife

Professor Emeritus Rick Botzler has been working with local kids aged 4 to 16 to survey for chytrid fungus in Humboldt County frogs. With the Ecoclub kids as first author(s), the research team, which includes ecologist colleagues from the US Forest Service, UC Davis and the Integral Ecology Research Center, has published their findings in the recent issue of the Journal of Wildlife Diseases. A great accomplishment fueled by citizen science.

Shannon Murphy, Daniel Barton

Wildlife

Wildlife graduate student Shannon Murphy won best overall student presentation for her talk "Parental care behaviors in Brandt's cormorant (Phalacrocorax pencillatus): effects on reproductive success and use as indicators of the marine environment" at The Wildlife Society - Western Section meeting in Pomona, California, with co-authors Stephanie Schneider, Richard Golightly, and Daniel Barton.

Yuliana Rowe, Angelica Munoz, Thien Crisanto and Laura Hernandez

Wildlife

Yuliana, Thien, Laura, and Angelica were invited to present independent research at Washington D.C. at the ERN Conference in STEM (Emerging Researcher's National Conference in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in late February. Yuliana Rowe was awarded 2nd place in Ecology, Environment, and Earth Sciences for her presentation on "The effects of climate-induced forest disturbances on spiders in Michigan."

Eric Jennings, Micaela Szykman Gunther

Wildlife

Eric Jennings, past undergraduate in the Department of Wildlife, had his honors thesis published in Northwest Science, coauthored with his mentor, Micaela Gunther. His work examined the "Effects of high temperatures and sun exposure on Sherman trap internal temperatures."

Jeff Black & Will Goldenberg

Wildlife

Natural Born Hustlers, a new series co-produced by the BBC and PBS features research by HSU Wildlife Professor Jeff Black and alumnus Will Goldenberg. Black and Goldenberg are featured in a segment about Steller's jays. For 17 years, Black has led a study into the jay populations on campus and their deceptive behavior. The birds are known to mimic predator sounds like red-shouldered and red-tail hawk calls. Goldenberg, who currently lectures in HSU's film progrma, helped the BBC film the birds in action.

Natural Born Hustlers is a three part series, and begins on Wednesday, Jan., 13 at 8 p.m. on PBS. Check local listings for more information. Episode 2, the Hunger Games, which features the Steller's jays, airs January 20.

More information is available at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/natural-born-hustlers-about/13389/.

T. Luke George

Wildlife

Dr. Luke George, emeritus faculty in Wildlife, along with other authors published an article describing how the disease West Nile Virus is affecting bird populations. "Persistent impacts of West Nile virus on North American bird populations" was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences (PNAS). Read the abstract online at http://www.pnas.org/content/112/46/14290.short.

It is also worth noting that some of the data in the paper came from bird banding operations at the Wright Wildlife Refuge, a small refuge on the edge of Eureka where many HSU students have worked over the years. Numerous graduate students have run bird banding operations there, and they and faculty have trained scores of undergraduates to handle and measure birds using standardized bird netting and monitoring processes. It's one of many sites in a network of field research sites called MAPS (monitoring avian productivity and survivorship).

Mark Colwell

Wildlife

Mark Colwell gave a paper summarizing his research on Snowy Plovers at the 40th meeting of the International Wader Study Group in Iceland.

Mark Colwell, Dana Herman

Wildlife

Dana Herman (now working for the US Fish & Wildlife Service, Sacramento) and Mark Colwell published a paper on Snowy Plover lifetime reproductive success showing that a small proportion of the Humboldt County population contributed disproportionately to population growth. Plovers that bred on gravel substrates of the Eel River produced appreciably more young than those on sandy, ocean-fronting beaches. Their work was featured in the 28 Aug 2015 issue of the eWildlifer (wildlife.org), published by the The Wildlife Society.