Radio-tracking
Tangara icterocephala
near Las
Cruces, Costa Rica
I
am a conservation ecologist, ornithologist, tropical
biologist, and nature photographer
at
Stanford University Center for Conservation Biology. My doctoral
research focused on the causes and consequences of bird extinctions
around the world. I have conducted ornithological fieldwork in Alaska,
Angola, Colorado, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Turkey
and Uganda
to investigate the ecological factors behind the
extinction-proneness of certain groups, such as tropical understory
insectivores. I have an extensive ongoing bird banding and radio
tracking study in Costa Rica to understand the factors behind the
disappearance and survival of tropical
forest bird species in human-dominated landscapes. I have compiled and
continue to analyze a database of all the
world's bird species to understand the distributions and determinants
of avian life history traits and extinction correlates, and to assess
the implications of avian extinctions on
bird-mediated ecosystem processes and services, such as pollination,
seed dispersal, and control of insect outbreaks. In addition to my
empirical research, I am currently conducting community-based
conservation projects in Ethiopia and Turkey, funded by the Christensen
Fund. Our objectives are to integrate conservation education, research,
capacity building and income generation, to increase
the contribution of ecotourism, especially
birdwatching, to community-based conservation in the developing world,
and
to
improve the role of the private sector in the conservation of
biodiversity. My ultimate goal is to prevent extinctions and consequent
collapses of critical ecosystem processes while making sure that human
communities benefit from conservation as much as the wildlife they help
conserve.
