Please join Yolo Audubon’s virtual Members’ Meeting on Nov. 17 when Dr. John Eadie will take us “backstage” to provide a look at his work with the glamourous wood duck.
Biologists have studied the charismatic wood duck for well over a century. What more could possibly be learned? As it turns out, quite a bit. New technology is revealing a rich and complex social underworld that is proving to be quite astonishing.
Dr. Eadie and his research team are employing automatic logging devices (passive integrated transponders, or PIT tags) that record every nest site a particular female visits, as well as population-wide genetic analyses of all breeding females and their offspring to follow the breeding behavior and entire life histories of wood ducks on several sites in California. The researchers are focusing on a particularly curious nesting behavior whereby females lay eggs in the nests of other females in the same population (termed conspecific brood parasitism or CBP).
Females in a wide variety of bird species lay their eggs in the nests of other conspecifics but despite its widespread occurrence the factors that promote parasitic nesting behavior remain poorly understood, in part because the sneaky parasitic females are rarely identified, but also because the information needed to assess the possible benefits of this behavior are often lacking. Are these females friends or foe? Does this behavior add or detract from the survival of females and their young, or the sustainability of the population? Our studies are providing some new insights and, in some cases, surprising us with the wide range of behavioral interactions among females in this enigmatic species of cavity-nesting duck.
SPEAKER BIO
Dr. John Eadie is a Professor and the Dennis G. Raveling Waterfowl Chair in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, University of California Davis. He received his PhD degree in 1989 from the University of British Columbia Department of Zoology. He joined UC Davis in 1995. His research interests include the ecology, conservation and management of waterfowl and wetlands. His current work focuses on the management and conservation of wetland habitats, breeding waterfowl (mallards and wood ducks) in California, and linking ecological theory to wildlife management and conservation.
DETAILS ON JOINING THIS ZOOM MEETING
You must register (no cost) in advance for this meeting. You do not need to be a member of Yolo Audubon to attend this meeting.
An account with Zoom is NOT necessary to join a meeting. Zoom limits the number of participants to 100. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Registrants will receive email updates about this online event, as well as periodic email updates about Yolo Audubon’s conservation work and how you can help birds. (You can unsubscribe at any time.)
During the presentation, you will be able to ask questions via Zoom’s chat feature for the Q&A afterwards.