Population Dynamics of Montane Invertebrates and Birds

Uploaded by vmc on 02/12/2023

Tags: Climate Change  

Attachments: Slide18.jpeg (208KB) Hill.srt (35KB)

This was presented by Jason Hill as a part of a series of contributed talks from the 2022 FEMC Annual Conference. To learn more about the conference, visit: https://www.uvm.edu/femc/cooperative/conference/2022. Invertebrates perform essential, irreplaceable ecological functions and services, but invertebrate populations are likely experiencing precipitous declines worldwide and shifting to higher elevations and latitudes in response to climate change. These changes may be most pronounced in forested montane environments, where temperatures are warming at a rate of 2-5x the global background rate. This reshuffling of the invertebrate community will ultimately result in pronounced changes to metrics of forest health by altering existing stressors on trees (e.g., herbivory and disease transmission) and influencing avian communities that rely on these invertebrates for food during their breeding season. In June of 2022, we launched an effort to understand how the abundance of montane bird species relates to the local abundance and diversity of invertebrates. We conducted sampling for invertebrates using pitfall and window traps at four dozen montane locations across Vermont and New Hampshire, and collected nearly 5000 invertebrates, which we identified to taxonomic order. In addition, community scientists simultaneously conducted point counts at these same locations to record the abundance of 10 montane bird species through the Mountain Birdwatch program. We'll share insight from the field season about the challenges of conducting invertebrate sampling at remote locations, and examine the relationships between local bird and invertebrate populations.