Sekercioglu, C. H., Ehrlich, P. R., Daily, G. C., Aygen, D., Goehring, D. & Sandí, R. 2002
Disappearance of insectivorous birds from tropical forest fragments
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99: 263-267
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Sekercioglu, C. H. 2002 
Effects of forestry practices on vegetation structure and the
bird community of Kibale National Park, Uganda
Biological Conservation 107: 229-240
pdf

Sekercioglu, C. H. 2002
Impacts of birdwatching on human and avian communities
Environmental Conservation 29: 282-289
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Goehring, D. M., Daily, G. C. & Sekercioglu, C. H. 2002
Distribution of ground-dwelling arthropods in tropical countryside habitats
Journal of Insect Conservation 6: 83–91
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Sekercioglu, C. H. 1999
Megapodes: A fascinating incubation strategy
Harvard Journal of Undergraduate Sciences 5: 77-83
pdf

 

COMPLETED MANUSCRIPTS

Assessing avian diversity in Lake Barrine National Park, Toohey’s creek
vegetation corridor and Gadgarra state forest in Queensland, Australia

We conducted mistnetting and avian censuses in Gadgarra State forest, in the 400-ha rainforest fragment in Lake Barrine National Park and in plots along Toohey’s Creek connecting Lake Barrine National Park and Gadgarra state forest, to examine differences between the avian communities. The Gadgarra forest, including the regrowth composed of Acacia sp., was found to be significantly more diverse than the sites along Toohey’s Creek vegetation corridor. The rainforest fragment in Lake Barrine National Park is intermediate in diversity between the Gadgarra forest and the canopy-lacking sites in the vegetation corridor. Even though the vegetation of Lake Barrine National Park is more disturbed compared to that of the Gadgarra forest, the fact that the avian diversity of this small fragment is close to that of the Gadgarra forest, and that the fragment harbored all but one of the rainforest endemic bird taxa found in the Gadgarra forest provides support for the maintenance and the improvement of the incipient corridor linking this fragment to the large tract of rainforest.
  

Differential foraging of American kestrels Falco sparverius
in relation to the presence of man-made perches

In order to assess the influence of man-made perches on the foraging of American kestrels (Falco sparverius), we conducted observations of the foraging behavior of two pairs of kestrels near Gothic, Colorado. One pair had phone wires in its home range whereas the other pair did not. The birds whose foraging range included the phone wires made extensive use of them for perching and looking for prey. They spent significantly more time hawking to capture prey than the other pair, which spent significantly more time hovering and swooping. We found perching and hawking to be a significantly more successful foraging method then hovering and swooping, success measured by comparing the number of prey captured per attempt for each pair. This is an uncommon example of human modification of natural habitat resulting in a significant positive ecological change for a raptor species, in this case by introducing an energetically low-cost and high-success method of hunting. This may account for the range expansion of the American kestrel in the 20th century.
 

The effects of disturbance on the insect diversity of montane meadows

In order to compare the insect communities of meadows with different disturbance regimes, I randomly sweep-netted four hundred insect individuals in each of four sites representing meadows around Gothic, Colorado that are relatively undisturbed, disturbed by grazing (overgrazed and infrequently grazed) and disturbed by avalanches. I compared the diversity of insect orders, families and morpho-species between sites. The overgrazed site had significantly lower species, family and order diversity and higher dominance than the other sites. The infrequently-grazed site had the highest diversity levels, followed by the avalanche-prone site and the undisturbed site. It appears that diversity was maximized in meadows with intermediate disturbance regimes.