Montana Field Assistant Positions 2009

Growing up in Colorado I spent a lot of time in the mountains looking at wildflowers and searching for wildlife. It was my curiosity about nature that led me to study organismal biology at the University of Northern Colorado, where I earned a Bachelor’s degree in 2007. While at UNC I was involved with a rattlesnake behavior and venom biochemistry research group, where I assisted in behavior studies, rattlesnake venom extraction, and venom analysis. I also conducted a study on the courting behavior of Elk during the rut in Rocky Mountain National Park. As an undergraduate, most of my time was spent studying reptiles and mammals, but my real interest lies in birds. In the summer of 2006, I participated in a tropical ecology course that took me to Ecuador and the Galapagos. During my short stay in the Amazon I conducted a small-scale observational study on the lekking behavior of Golden-headed Manakins. It was there, in the rainforest, that I realized how much I enjoyed asking questions and doing fieldwork to answer those questions. As a graduate student at the University of Montana, I will be looking at the reproductive success and habitat use of songbirds in aspen stands. Aspen is a critical habitat of great conservation and management concern, especially in the western United States. I plan to identify the habitat structure and the landscape-scale context of preferred songbird breeding habitats in aspen stands of varying conditions around Western Montana. Currently, I am choosing field sites and designing the study, which will begin in the summer of 2009.