A common theme in the lab is investigating the effects of alternative management practices or larger land use patterns on ecosystems, and we usually choose birds as model organisms that might be effective indicators of the larger ecosystem effect.  Sometimes we take a community approach, but more often we choose one or several species that are representative of the ecosystem, and indeed may be found nowhere else.  Examples include Prothonotary Warbler and Acadian Flycatcher in floodplain forests, Clapper Rail in salt marshes, Louisiana Waterthrush in riparian ecosystems, and Bachmann’s Sparrow and Brown-headed Nuthatch in longleaf pine/wiregrass ecosystems.  The eastern indigo snake is another good example of an indicator species we are studying in the lab.

The advantage of a population approach is that we can often do more detailed work, such as finding and monitoring nests for productivity, mist-netting and color banding for monitoring survival and location of individuals, or radiotelemetry, that allows us to address more complex questions about the effects of land use on birds and other organisms.  These effects are often subtle (e.g., Marshall et al. 2002), requiring the detailed approach.