The Potential for Long-term Monitoring and Research of Gyrfalcon and Peregrine Falcon Breeding Populations Using Undergraduate Students: An Apparent Inexhaustible Source of Funding

Abstract

—Climate change has caused many recent and rapid changes in the planet’s ecosystems. Many of the most marked changes have occurred in the Arctic, where ecological consequences of climate change are globally underreported. Predicting and managing for future ecological consequences will likely require establishing long-term baseline and monitoring studies in a pan-Arctic network. Such studies will benefit from integration of research with education. Unfortunately, conducting field work in the Arctic is logistically difficult and securing long-term funding exacerbates this problem. Here we report a means to extend and augment baseline research on Arctic falcons with long-term funding provided by volunteer undergraduate students. We used teams of 6 to 10 undergraduate students from the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point to principally collect non-invasive genetic samples, and to determine occupancy and productivity at historical nest sites of Gyrfalcons (Falco rusticolus) and Peregrine Falcons (F. peregrinus) on long-term study sites on the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, and near Kangerlussuaq, West Greenland, respectively, in four years during 2003–2010. Students received initial, on-site training, and were then responsible for conducting subsequent fieldwork. All field objectives were completed by all student groups, but some exclusive effort by experienced researchers was needed in Alaska. Students prepared a final report that detailed logistics and findings; the descriptions of logistics by students were particularly useful to future undergraduate teams. We discuss several intangibles that likely benefited students involved in these Arctic field courses. This student research required their enrollment in ecology courses and their special course fees, totaling about $121,000 (US dollar) for all four years, covered theirs and the senior author’s travel (to, from, and within study sites), lodging, and food, but not personal camping equipment. TechCLIMATE CHANGE HAS CAUSED many recent and rapid changes in the planet’s ecosystems (Heller and Zavaleta 2009). Many of the most marked changes have occurred in the Arctic where ecological consequences of climate change are globally underreported (Post et al. 2009). Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems harbor all Gyrfalcon and many Peregrine Falcon breeding populations (Booms et al. 2008a, Ratcliffe 1980). These ecosystems are typically regarded as relatively simple systems in which species interactions and environmentorganism dynamics are straightforward and easily understood. Recent research on the effects of climate change in these settings has however, revealed far greater ecological complexity, and the most informative studies documenting the consequences of climate change were those conducted for long enough periods of time to quantify changes from earlier baselines (Post et al. 2009). Predicting and managing for future ecological consequences for Gyrfalcons and Peregrine Falcons will thus likely in part require establishing integrated, long-term baseline and monitoring studies in a pan-arctic network (Post et al. 2009, Heller and Zavaleta 2009). Unfortunately conducting long-term work, especially in remote areas of the Arctic and subArctic that are mostly uninhabited by humans, can be logistically difficult, if not prohibitive. This is particularly true for studying raptors, which typically nest at relatively low densities and in sites that are dangerous for researchers to access or are inaccessible to them, such as cliffs used by Gyrfalcons and Peregrine Falcons (Newton 1979, Ratcliffe 1980, Pagel and Thorstrom 2007). Exacerbating these challenges is that the greatest single problem to conducting long-term research is the difficulty of maintaining funding without interruptions (CluttonBrock and Sheldon 2010). The practice of integrating education and other disciplines with research has been identified as a need in science, but the environmental research literature provides little documentation that such has occurred (Heller and Zavaleta 2009, Gould et al. 2010). Indeed there is an “alarming” bias toward scientists calling largely for ecological data to detect and manage for consequences of climate change; yet successful conservation will likely require integration of science with non-science disciplines and approaches for successful manage374 – ROSENFIELD ET AL. – nical field equipment and some logistical support were provided by collaborators. The senior author readily attracted more student applicants than could be enrolled in any of the four years of research. We recommend the use of mentored undergraduate student coursework as a means to integrate research and education, to procure long-term funding for research and monitoring efforts of nesting Gyrfalcons and Peregrine Falcons in the Arctic, and as a means to educate future biologists about Arctic systems. Received 1 March 2011, accepted 15 April 2011. ROSENFIELD, R. N., T. L. BOOMS, K. K. BURNHAM, B. J. MCCAFFERY, AND R. J. GOODWIN. 2011. The Potential for long-term monitoring and research of Gyrfalcon and Peregrine Falcon breeding populations using undergraduate students: An apparent inexhaustible source of funding. Pages 373–374 in R. T. Watson, T. J. Cade, M. Fuller, G. Hunt, and E. Potapov (Eds.). Gyrfalcons and Ptarmigan in a Changing World, Volume II. The Peregrine Fund, Boise, Idaho, USA. http://dx.doi.org/10.4080/ gpcw.2011.0316