JUNE 25,
2019
by Karen
M. Bourque, Vermont
Center for Ecostudies
In
September of 2017, hurricanes Irma and Maria delivered a devastating one-two
punch to Puerto Rico, causing significant defoliation of the island's forests.
While the detrimental effects of these storms on human populations was
well-documented, little was known about how the island's bird populations were
affected - until now. A new paper published in PLOS
ONE by Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE) and colleagues
compares occupancy of birds in forested areas across Puerto Rico during a
winter before (2015) and shortly after (2018) the passage of these hurricanes.
Using dynamic community models analyzed within a Bayesian framework, the
authors find significant changes in species detectability, with some species
becoming more readily detected after the storms and others becoming more
difficult to detect.
In 2015,
VCE biologists Chris Rimmer and John Lloyd (now of American Wind Wildlife
Institute), along with José Salguero-Faría of Sociedad Ornitológica
Puertorriqueña, conducted geographically extensive surveys across Puerto Rico
to study the winter distribution of Bicknell's Thrush (Catharus bicknelli).
Although focused on locating Bicknell's, the team recorded all avian species
detected during its 211 point count surveys, for general insight into the
assemblage of forest birds present on Puerto Rico during winter. Unbeknownst to
the researchers then, their cross-species data would prove invaluable to assess
the impacts of catastrophic weather on the island's birds.
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