Myles ’24 Tracks Threats to Alaska Shorebirds in Levitt Research Project

John Myles ’24 has now spent two summers in Utqiagvik, Alaska, a small metropolis in northern Alaska with a dense and distinctive shorebird inhabitants. As a part of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service analysis workforce, he looked for shorebird nests, monitored chick hatches, and tagged grownup birds. The info he collected went right into a 19-year-old database that seeks to trace the breeding ecology of those birds and determine threats that exist all through their annual cycle.

However in conducting this research, Myles suspects that the researchers could have led threats to the birds’ properties.

Final 12 months, Myles and different researchers noticed an elevated focus of predators close to the shorebird research plot. Specifically, they famous the Pomarine Jaeger. These predatory birds, identified for stealing eggs and chicks, have been seen nesting across the research plot and looking inside it. A common speculation started to kind among the many researchers: the jaegers and different predators had realized to observe people to the shorebird nests.

“It was onerous watching all these nests that I used to be monitoring get attacked by jaegers nearly instantly after I discovered them,” Myles mentioned. “I turned intrigued by the best way that the jaegers appear to cue into human habits on the research plot.

Impressed by his expertise final 12 months, Myles returned to Utqiagvik this summer time with a brand new mission. Along with taking part within the shorebird ecology analysis, he carried out his personal Levitt Heart-funded venture titled “Predator-prey relationships and the affect of people on shorebird nest survival.” The venture, developed with the assistance of his advisor and Affiliate Professor of Biology Andrea Townsend, sought to find out if predators are certainly looking disproportionately on the research plot and in relation to human exercise. 

Outcomes from this analysis may have an effect on how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service interprets previous and future knowledge on the shorebird populations. By figuring out the position people play in native predator-prey relationships, researchers can extra precisely assess the standard of the datasets and higher estimate Arctic shorebird inhabitants developments. This data may ultimately inform laws and species safety, Myles mentioned.

“That’s notably invaluable as a result of the Arctic is such a susceptible ecosystem in the intervening time attributable to local weather change,” he mentioned. “If we’re monitoring these species over time, we wish to guarantee that we are able to present any results of local weather change precisely with out our human presence artificially altering the info.”

To conduct the analysis, Myles bought his fingers “bloodied and battered” as he connected GPS tags to the jaegers. He then used the trackers to find out how the jaegers moved in relation to human researchers who carry related GPS displays.

Along with tagging jaegers, Myles additionally tagged arctic foxes and dunlins for statement. The arctic foxes, just like the jaegers, preyed on shorebirds, however whereas jaegers doubtless adopted people to the nests by sight, the foxes doubtless adopted a human scent path. Dunlins, a typical shorebird inside the research plot, occupied many of those nests. The info Myles collects from the dunlins will play a key position in understanding the predator-prey relationships.

“Ive been interested by learning birds my complete life,” Myles mentioned. “Having spent a lot time these previous summers watching arctic shorebirds on the bottom and seeing how they behave, I’ve developed a very nice appreciation for them specifically.”

Myles has left Alaska and is now working to compile the info. He hopes to publish his findings in a analysis paper and proceed learning birds sooner or later.