What's the goal and why is this important?

Objectives and questions:

1. Document movement ecology for migration stopover behavior and habitat.

     a. Use tracks to identify key stopover habitats critical for migration. Stopover will be defined based on biological and            analytical reasoning.

          Q1: Where are stopover sites?

           Q2: How conserved are stopover sites? (consistent use, shared by multiple individuals)

           Q2: What is the estimated size of stopover ranges?

     b. Characterize landcover/habitat types.

          Q1: How are habitats utilized?

          Q2: Identify backyards that are being utilized and what is their composition?

Importance: With many hummingbird species in decline, we need more data to characterize habitats used by hummingbirds throughout the annual cycle, but especially during migration. These data are critical for focused conservation efforts and educating the public about how they too can support the creation of stopover habitat.

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2. Determine territoriality of breeding and winter ranges.

     a. Use local movement data to understand if and how hummingbirds hold and maintain territories in both their                      breeding and wintering ranges.

          Q1: What is the estimated size of these territories?

          Q2: How does intra- and inter- species interactions affect territoriality at a site?

Importance: We need to understand how species interact with each other and how they hold territories and if so, how large these territories are. This will give us an indication of the carrying capacity of these populations and how much habitat is required to conserve for stable populations.

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3. Assess individual- and population level migration decision making when faced with large-ecological barriers such as desserts or the Gulf.

     a. Only limited information exists on how species, such as RTHU, deal with the ecological barrier that is the Gulf. We              propose to use the tracks to identify key strategies when dealing with these kinds of decisions with the goal of                  untangling individual-decision making versus environmental effects and genetic control of migration strategies. Our          aim is to answer the following questions that will lay the foundation to then answer some more of these complex              questions.

          Q1: Do different populations undergo similar or dissimilar strategies for dealing with these barriers?

          Q2: How does weather influence individual behavior and migratory strategies?

          Q3: How conserved are migration strategies at the individual level? (by tracking the same bird over multiple                              seasons we can measure this)

Importance: Ultimately, we need to answer these basic fundamental migration questions in order to identify key coastal habitats that are the most critical for us to conserve to maintain stable populations. 

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4. Collaborate with the Bird Genoscape Project to create hummingbird genoscapes for focal species and species of      highest conservation concern.

     a. This in conjunction with the tracking data, will allow us to elucidate migratory connectivity patterns.

          Q1: Do hummingbirds exhibit migratory connectivity patterns and if so, to what degree (i.e. does where you breed                    dictate where you winter)?

Importance: We need to understand how different populations of the same species might be experiencing vastly different scenarios in terms of their local population status. It is possible that while some populations are experiencing drastic declines, others may not be and understanding what makes those populations different will allow us to better conserve the declining populations.