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Current Research
The current focus of my research is on colonial nesting
seabirds and island ecology. I am also interested in the application of G.I.S.
and remote-sensing technology to landscape ecology and conservation. At present
the bulk of my field research centers around Great Duck Island in eastern Maine.
This island supports one of the largest colonies of Leach's Storm Petrels in the
continental United States, it may also be the largest breeding colony of Black
Guillemots in the Lower 48. At present my students and I are looking at habitat
utilization by Herring and Black-backed Gulls, Guillemots, and Petrels. In
addition we are examining territoriality and foraging behaviours by gulls and
chick survival/mortality in relation to parental investment. We are in the
process of completing comprehensive G.I.S. based mapping of Great Duck Island,
which includes habitat parameters, nesting locations, shoreline structure, etc.
In addition to work at Great Duck I am interested in the intersection between Natural History and Human History in relation to long-term ecological processes. Each Summer teams of students and I visit a variety of islands in the Gulf of Maine, talking with residents and examining the effects of present and past land-use practices on the configuration of island landscapes. I am particularly interested in the effects of human influences -both in terms of active management and incidental use- on our ideas of wilderness, and appropriate strategies for conserving biodiversity.