Over two-thirds of all the songbirds that breed in temperate North America migrate long distances to nonbreeding areas in Mexico, Central and South America and the islands of the Caribbean. This grant will continue a long-term research program that is organized around the problems migrants face when they stop over during migration and how migrants contend with those problems along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Specifically, this research will address the importance of the interplay between the energetic state of arriving migrants and habitat availability (size and shape of suitable habitats) on stop-over behavior and the implications of land use change and recent hurricane disturbance on this interplay. Additional studies will consider resource use by arriving migrants, particularly food availability and nutritional requirements. Another important component in stop-over biology in migratory birds is sleep and the fact that most birds migrate at night when they are normally sleeping. How the need for sleep during the day affects the time available for foraging will also be investigated. Finally, the investigators will look at the importance of infections by pathogens, particularly West Nile Virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis, during stop-overs during migration. This information will be critical in developing conservation strategies for migrant birds and will contribute to our understanding of documented population declines among many migrant species over the past quarter century.
