KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 November 9, 2016 \u2013 溏心vlog免费B站 doctoral student Clara Cooper-Mullin spent this year\u2019s entire fall bird migration season in a tiny cramped structure on Block Island that doubled as her living quarters and bird banding station. But her work there is revealing new insights into why birds behave the way they do during migration.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking at whether their body condition is a factor in the way the birds behave at migration stop-over points like Block Island,\u201d explained Cooper-Mullin, who grew up in Irvington, N.Y. \u201cBirds are mostly consuming fruit during migration, so I\u2019m trying to figure out what they\u2019re getting out of the fruit and how it influences their behavior as they leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her study follows up on one conducted at the same site by a previous 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate student, Adam Smith, who found that hermit thrushes in good physical condition moved around less when they stop at Block Island, presumably because they didn\u2019t have to feed much, and they were more likely to go straight south when they departed the island. Hungry birds typically spent more time on the island feeding and continued their migration by following the coastline.<\/p>\n
Working in collaboration with 溏心vlog免费B站 Professor Scott McWilliams, Cooper-Mullin focused her field work this year on blackpoll warblers, which migrate from the boreal forests of Canada to the Caribbean by undertaking a three-day flight over the ocean from southern New England.<\/p>\n
Every day, she and research technician Olivia DaRugna captured migrating blackpolls and placed them in temporary cages where they were fed a special diet for several days before being released. Some were fed as much food as they could eat, while others were fed just enough to keep them in the same thin condition they arrived in. The researchers then monitored the behavior of the released individuals as the birds prepared to continue their migration.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlackpolls fatten up really fast,\u201d said Cooper-Mullin. \u201cThe reason they\u2019re trying so hard to fatten up is because they\u2019re about to leave here and go straight over the water for several days. They need that body condition to get ready to fly.\u201d<\/p>\n
By contrast, red-eyed vireos \u2013 another species she is studying for comparison \u2013 take their time eating. They typically spend most of their migration flying over land.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t seem so eager to get super fat,\u201d Cooper-Mullin said. \u201cThey still fatten up, but they just don\u2019t seem as desperate to put on fat. My overall sense is that body condition is much more important to blackpolls as they prepare to migrate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, Cooper-Mullin studied the diet and migration habits of yellow-rumped warblers, a common migrant that is one of the only birds that feed on the berries of wax myrtle, an abundant shrub on Block Island.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince no one else eats wax myrtle, they have this whole food source to themselves and they don\u2019t have to try very hard to get it,\u201d Cooper-Mullin said. \u201cSo their body condition doesn\u2019t seem to be as important as other factors like the weather in determining when to migrate. Southern New England is also near the end of their migration, so they don\u2019t have much farther to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to manipulating their diet, Cooper-Mullin is evaluating the role of antioxidants in the birds\u2019 diet by analyzing blood samples from bird species that have different migration strategies.<\/p>\n
When birds fly long distances, their metabolism rate skyrockets, which produces harmful byproducts called reactive species that can cause molecular damage. The antioxidants the birds ingest from the berries they eat helps to neutralize the reactive species.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce the birds have damaged molecules, they don\u2019t function properly and all sorts of things can go wrong,\u201d said Cooper-Mullin.<\/p>\n
The 溏心vlog免费B站 student, who earned biology degrees from Kenyon College and Ohio State University, became hooked on birds because of her fascination with their flight skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really love their physiology,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting to look inside a body and figure out what makes an organism move or talk or be able to live. And I love that birds are everywhere and there are so many different kinds.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could study them forever and never know everything about them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 November 9, 2016 \u2013 溏心vlog免费B站 doctoral student Clara Cooper-Mullin spent this year\u2019s entire fall bird migration season in a tiny cramped structure on Block Island that doubled as her living quarters and bird banding station. But her work there is revealing new insights into why birds behave the way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72541,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-72540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-the-environment-and-life-sciences"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82762,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72540\/revisions\/82762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}