Students join elite science conference
Poster and research presentations from a half-dozen College of the Atlantic students highlight the 2025 Waterbird Society and Pacific Seabird Group Joint Meeting.
“The Waterbird Society conference attracts top researchers from around the world, with the majority of accepted presentations coming from graduate students and established professionals,” said Autumn Pauly ’26. “Our acceptance as undergraduate students is incredibly rare and a testament to the strength of our research and the support we’ve received from the College of the Atlantic.”
Kaiti Hall ’25, Pauly, and Marina Schnell ’25 presented research talks on their work, and papers by Lydia Burnet ’25, Hannah Gaudet ’25, and Haysie Maurer ’25 were included in the poster gallery.
Although both societies hold annual meetings, a joint meeting such as this is almost unprecedented, and is considered one of the most prestigious and competitive gatherings in the field of waterbird and seabird research. The conference was held in San Jose, Costa Rica.
The majority of the research presented and displayed in poster form was conducted at the college’s island field stations, which include the Alice Eno Field Research Station on Great Duck Island and the Edward McCormick Blair Marine Research Station on Mount Desert Rock. On Great Duck Island, the majority of research focuses on seabird nesting habits and coastal ecology, while on Mount Desert Rock the focus is largely on marine mammal research and oceanography. These stations provide students with hands-on opportunities for fieldwork, independent research, and long-term ecological monitoring in unique island ecosystems.
COA W.H. Drury Professor of Ecology and Natural History John Anderson has been instrumental in leading research initiatives on the college’s island field stations, focusing on seabird nesting habits and coastal ecology.
“College of the Atlantic has always emphasized a hands-on, ‘learning by doing’ approach to education, and these students exemplify the power of that approach” Anderson said. “The really exciting thing that I have seen over these past few years is the growing collaboration between the field stations, and the depth and sophistication of the work done by the students. They are operating at the level of graduate students, while at the same time maintaining both a sly sense of humor and a focus on the broad interdisciplinary questions that human ecology addresses so well.”
The research presented by Hall, Pauly, and Schnell focuses on avian ecology and disease dynamics. The three joined forces for two presentations, which included “As the Gull Flies: Movement Patterns of Herring Gulls in Coastal Maine,” and “Flu Here or Flew There? A Survey of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in Gull Colonies in the Northeastern United States,” which were conducted on islands owned by Acadia National Park in addition to Great Duck Island and Mount Desert Rock. Grant support from Friends of Acadia has allowed the students to monitor seabirds on islands in and around Acadia National Park for the past two summers, where they’ve been able to deploy GPS tags and take samples for avian influenza. These data have been used in the studies and presentations.
Pauly’s solo work selected for the event was a project entitled “Search for Distinction: Investigating sexual dimorphism of the Leach’s Storm-Petrel.”
Burnet, Gaudet, and Maurer were invited to display posters of their research at the conference.
Gaudet’s work, “Forest or Ferns?” analyzed habitat characteristics influencing burrow distribution of Leach’s storm petrels, investigating the influence of substrate type, vegetation composition and cover, and other variables on colony-level patterns of burrow occupancy and distribution.
Burnet’s “Artificial Appetite” investigated microplastic ingestion in Herring and Black-backed gull chicks on Great Duck Island, analyzing the type and size of plastic particles in regurgitate and guano samples to identify pollution sources in the Gulf of Maine.
In “Not Down the Gull(et): Gull/Eider Interactions in a Mixed Species Colony,” Maurer studied the frequency of predation events of common eider chicks by herring and great black-backed gulls, and their effects on the fledgling success and population of the island’s common eiders.
The joint conference attracted leading ornithologists, marine biologists, conservationists, and researchers from around the world. The gathering provided a platform for professionals to share their latest findings, engage in collaborative discussions, and advance the study and conservation of waterbirds and seabirds.
The Pacific Seabird Group and Waterbird Society have each held meeting annually since the early 1970s. Previous joint meetings occurred in 1988, 1994, 2005, and 2017.