Mono Basin Riparian
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As water returns to Mono Lake’s tributary streams after decades of diversions, land managers and conservation groups are faced with the challenge of restoring these systems to a state of health and functionality as productive habitat for wildlife populations. To effectively carry out this task, managers require feedback on the effects of their efforts on wildlife populations.
We conduct long-term, community level monitoring of riparian birds to investigate the effects of restoration on these populations. This effort consists of a standardized multi-level bird monitoring and research program. By combining multiple techniques, we will identify long-term, community level patterns in riparian-breeding bird survivorship, productivity, species richness diversity, abundance, and density on Mono Lake’s recovering tributary streams.
In collaboration with graduate researchers, we also conduct more focused investigations on individual species populations and demographics, both to provide more acute information on species of conservation concern and to determine the factors and processes that drive community and population level patterns.
The information we gain from these efforts is made accessible to land managers, so that they can make effective decisions. |
Project Contact: Sacha Heath
Funding: BLM, CDFG, Eastern Sierra Audubon Society, Inyo National Forest, Mono Basin Bird Chautauqua Research Grant, Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve, Mono Lake Committee, Mono Market, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act, North American Fund for Environmental Cooperation, PRBO Bird-a-thon Participants, USFS Region 5 Partners in Flight
Mono Basin Willow Flycatcher Project
Project description coming soon!
Project Contact: Chris McCreedy
Lower Owens River Project
 
In 1891, as part of the Death Valley Expedition, A.K. Fisher explored the Lower Owens River and recorded the bird life the Expedition observed there. The lush riparian vegetation of the Lower Owens provided habitat for a host of riparian associated and obligate bird species. Since 1911, a 62-mile stretch of the Lower Owens River has been diverted almost entirely to the Los Angles Aqueduct, desiccating much of the once productive habitat.
As mitigation for groundwater pumping in the Owens Valley, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is charged with re-watering and restoring this 62-mile stretch of the Lower Owens River with the goal to establish a “healthy, functioning Lower Owens riverine / riparian ecosystem” and to maintain a diverse natural habitat consistent with the needs of specified “habitat indicator species”. These efforts began in earnest in January of 2006.
Anticipating the re-watering and restoration activities, PRBO began gathering baseline riparian breeding bird data within the Lower Owens River Project (LORP) area in 1999. In 2002, we randomly selected and implemented additional study sites (173 points total) along the entire stretch of the LORP to monitor the effects of re-watering and restoration on riparian breeding bird populations and to determine bird relationships with existing and recovering vegetation. We intend to monitor the changes in bird populations and habitat choices over at least a 10-year period after re-watering and restoration, and provide this information to restoration and land management efforts.
Project Contact: Sacha Heath
Funding: Audubon California, DMARLOU Foundation, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, White Mountain Research Station.
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Bird Monitoring and Visitor Education in Montane Meadow and Riparian Habitats of Devils Postpile National Monument |
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Devils Postpile National Monument is located on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada range as it lies at the headwaters of the San Joaquin River. In 2002, PRBO initiated a banding, point count, and visitor education program at meadow and riparian habitats of the Monument. We are determining bird species diversity, richness, abundance and indices of productivity and survivorship in riparian and meadow habitats of the Monument, providing recommendations for riparian and meadow habitat management and restoration, and have interpreted our methods and results at our banding station to over 1,200 visitors since 2002.
Project Contact: Sacha Heath
Funding: Devils Postpile National Monument, Sierra
Nevada Inventory and Monitoring Network, National
Park Service Small Parks Grants |
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Songbird use of Greater Sage-grouse Population Management Units in the Bodie Hills and Long Valley, California
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In 2004, we began investigations of sagebrush bird populations in the Bodie Hills and Long Valley, California. Project objectives are to assess the richness, diversity, abundance, distribution and habitat relationships of sagebrush nesting songbirds within the Bodie Hills and Long Valley Greater Sage-grouse Population Management Units (PMU’s).
PMU’s are management areas designated to manage and protect the Greater Sage-grouse, a species recently found not warranted for Federal Endangered listing, but for which future habitat management and conservation will be required to deter further decline and subsequent listing of the species.
Our intention is to inform managers of the importance of this habitat for the entire breeding bird community, to potentially monitor the effects of sage-grouse habitat management on other bird species, and to investigate potential correlates of habitat use by sage-grouse with that of other bird species.
Project Contact: Sacha Heath
Funding: BLM, CDFG, DMARLOU Foundation |
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Virginia Creek Lodgepole Pine Removal / Aspen Restoration Project |
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The Bureau of Land Management removed Lodgepole Pine (Pinus contorta) from a 1ha plot on Virginia Creek, Mono County, California in fall of 2004 in order to improve Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) regeneration and test the ecological soundness of pine removal methods. PRBO spatially mapped bird territories and performed area search census at the treatment site and at one control site before and after treatment. Other sites will be treated in future years, and PRBO will gather baseline and post treatment breeding bird data at those sites as well.
Project Contact: Sacha Heath
Funding: Bureau of Land Management |
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PRBO is assessing bird responses to riparian and upland restoration and habitat enhancement projects on Adobe Valley LLC property managed by Greenbridges LLC in Adobe Valley, California.
A majority of Adobe Valley LLC lands have been placed under the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Wetland Reserve Program with the goal of restoring the riparian, wetland and upland habitats of the historic ranch site. A primary goal of Adobe Valley LLC and Greenbridges LLC is to protect and restore Adobe Valley lands while also generating an economic return for the land owners and investors (for example land swaps, Brown Trout fisheries, managed grazing leases).
PRBO completed two years of baseline data collection in 2005. Restoration is slated to begin in 2006. PRBO will continue to conduct all-bird monitoring after restoration work has been completed, and for the long-term. PRBO is also actively working with NRCS, the landowners, and Agrarian Research in restoration and land management design and implementation
Project Contact: Sacha Heath Funding: Adobe Valley LLC, Greenbridges LLC, NRCS
Management of Piñon Woodlands in the Southwestern Great Basin: Evaluating the Effects of Thinning Treatments
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A new project in 2005, PRBO is working with the Bureau of Land Management Bishop Field Office (BLM) and United States Geological Service (USGS) to investigate the effects of piñon pine thinning treatments on songbirds that utilize both sagebrush and piñon pine habitats.
USGS and BLM will compare the effects of cut-chip-mulch, and cut-buck-scatter treatments on plant density, cover, and diversity, and seedbank density and diversity during baseline and post-treatment years. PRBO will investigate the effects of this mosaic of thinning treatments on breeding bird species diversity, richness, abundance and productivity during the baseline and post-treatment years.
Project Contact: Sacha Heath
Funding: BLM, USGS, Joint Fire Sciences
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Golondrinas de las Americas
Founded by Dr. David Winkler of Cornell University, Golondrinas de las Americas is a collaborative effort to study the breeding ecology of migratory and resident Tachycineta swallows on various temporal and spatial scales across the entire Western Hemisphere. This large-scale collaborative effort will advance our understanding of (1) avian responses to global climate change, (2) differences between tropical and temperate ecosystems, and (3) temperate-tropical life history differences in birds. PRBO runs Golondrinas sites in the Central Valley and on the coast. Lee Vining Canyon is our Eastern Sierra site.
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Eastern Sierra Education Project |
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In 2002, PRBO implemented an outreach and education project designed to complement PRBO's ongoing songbird monitoring, research and conservation activities in the Eastern Sierra Nevada. Goals include providing educational opportunities for local students and the general public (e.g. in-class visits and field trips to mist-netting and banding stations), promoting citizen science opportunities in the community by recruiting and engaging individuals in volunteer opportunities (e.g. Fall Mono Lake Shorebird and Waterbird Census and Christmas Bird Count), increasing public awareness about birds and bird conservation, highlighting the importance of birds and habitat and ways individuals can help protect songbirds, participating in organizing local bird festival (Mono Basin Bird Chautauqua), publishing non-technical summaries of PRBO’s research results, and interpreting PRBO’s monitoring and research projects.
Project Contact: Sacha Heath
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Funding: BLM, Devils Postpile National Monument,
Park Service Small Parks Grants, USFS Region 5 |
Inyo National Forest, National
Partners in Flight, |
Ecology of California Gulls at Mono Lake
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See Wetlands Ecology Divisions project
description.
Project Contact: Sacha Heath, Dave Shuford
Funding: In 2006 – Mono Lake Committee,
Anonymous Donor, Dorothy Hunt
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Recent publication on Mono Lake's California Gull colony:
Wrege, P. H., Shuford, W. D., Winkler, D. W., and Jellison, R. 2006. Annual variation in numbers of breeding California Gulls at Mono Lake, California: the importance of natal philopatry and local regional conditions. Condor 108:82–96.
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