Eleanor MacDonald,

Thesis:

Examining the effects of songbird nest boxes on ecosystem services and avian community composition in Napa Valley vineyards

Eleanor is investigating how the addition of nest boxes affects bird communities and whether this has any top-down effect on insects in Napa Valley winegrape vineyards. Her project focuses on winegrape vineyards that lie along gradients of local habitat and landscape complexity and will also address how local habitat and landscape composition influence bird communities. She will examine avian point counts and insect sampling conducted for two seasons on 20 vineyards, 10 with existing nest boxes and 10 with nest boxes added between field seasons. Eleanor is interested in how land use influences biological communities and how promoting native species in agricultural landscapes could benefit both biodiversity and farm productivity alike. This research has the potential to offer deeper insights for management decisions concerning pest control by investigating the potential benefits of attracting more insect-eating birds to agricultural landscapes.