Progress 01/15/17 to 05/14/17

Outputs
Target Audience: Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project supported a postdoctoral researcher. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been disseminated mainly through publications and a presentation at an national conference. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? During the grant extension from January 2017 to May 2017, the project supported a post-doc, Dr. Clair Curry, who completed two publications and is currently nearing completion of a third. This final publication is a culminaiton of our survey work with grassland birds and evaluates several methods of predicting habitat suitability using STEM models that are fit at different spatial scales. This work was presented at the 2017 American Ornithological Society Meeting in Lansing Michigan, and we currently have a manuscript in draft form that we plan to submit in about a month

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2017 Citation: Curry, C.M. and M.A. Patten. Constraints on song variation across a temporally complex hybrid zone. In review at Behavioral Ecology.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Curry, C.M., B. Antze, M.H. Warrington, P. Des Brisay, P. Rosa, and N. Koper. 2017. Ability to alter song in two grassland songbirds exposed to simulated anthropogenic noise is not related to pre-existing variability. Bioacoustics
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2017 Citation: Curry, C.M.*, J.D. Ross, A. J. Contina, and E.S. Bridge. 2017. Testing prediction accuracy and climate change estimation with spatially explicit models for grassland birds. 2017 American Ornithology: East Lansing, MI, USA. (Oral presentation.)

Progress 01/15/13 to 05/14/17

Outputs
Target Audience:Our research targets wildlife biologists, applied ecologists, land managers, NGOs with a conservation interest,and public officials and staffers with concerns relatingto wildlife conservation. Changes/Problems:The lack of continued biofuel development in our stateand the degradation of existing biofuel production sites during the funding period was a serious impediment to much of the research we originally proposed. As a result we shifted our focus toward an integrative study of how grassland birds interact with their landscapes. Although still in preparation, the culmination of this work will help us understand and predict how grassland birds fit into agricultural landscapes, and it will provide guidelines for the level of data-resolution needed to make determinations about suitable grassland bird habitat. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The project has advanced training and professional development of undergraduates, graduate students, and post-docs, largly thorugh direct salary support, but also by providing training and research opportunities. Our field work, which took place over the course of three summers employed two graduate students and 14 undergraduates/post-undergraduates as field technicians. Our field technicians have recieved valueable experience and training as part of their participation in our field research. In particular, they have acquired skills relating to systematic ecological survey techniques and basic field ornithology (i.e. capturing, handling, marking, and tracking birds). The graduate students employed as field technicians and some of the other employees were able to execute exploratory research that has aided them in pursuing their graduate degrees. The vast majority of the field technicians have gone on to graduate school at other institutions or have otherwise remained employed in scientific fields. Three of the technicians later became graduate students at the University of Oklahoma: Kayleigh Stumph (masters student working with co-PI Kelly); 2) William Oakley (PhD Student working with PI Bridge); and 3) Heather LePage (masters student working with PI Bridge). Among the other field technicians are Jessica Hightower, who is currently a PhD student in Interdisciplinary Ecology at the University of Florida, Jeff Tibbits, a technician at the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation Fisheries Research Lab, and Randy Soto, who is now an environmental impact specialist at the Oklahoma Biological Survey. An additional graduate student, Phillip Stepanian, was employed from 2012 to 2015 develop tools for biological interpretations of weather radar data. This student produced a radar simulator that could generate radar output based on a simulated bird population. He also helped to generate the first applications of dual-pol radar products for bird research, which has imparted to the stuent considerable standing in the radar ornithology community. The student graduated in 2015, and Dr. Stepanian and is now a research associate at Rothstam Research in the UK. The project helped to advance three post-docs on their career paths. Dr. Jeremy Ross, who served as a post-doc on the project from 2012 to 2015 was hired as Director of the Sutton Avian Research Center. University budget cuts recently lead to OU severing its ties with the Sutton Center, but Jeremy was retained by the University, and is now a tenure track professor in the Oklahoma Biological Survey. When Dr. Ross left his post-doc position, we replaced him with a recent PhD graduate from the University, Dr. Andrea Contina. Dr Contina led the 2015 field season, and generated several research manuscripts from his dissertation while employed by the project. Dr. Contina continues to work on projects supported by the grant , but he is currently employed as a postdoctoral coordinator of an experimental graduate program funded by the National Research Traineeship Program at the National Science Foundation. Finally, starting in September 2016, the project supported Dr. Clair Curry as a post-doc. During her brief time on the project, Dr. Curry combined and organized all of our survey data, completed two publications, and is currently nearing completion of a third. This final publication is a culminaiton of our survey work with grassland birds and evaluates several methods of predicting habitat suitability using STEM models that are fit at different spatial scales. This work was presented at the 2017 American Ornithological Society Meeting in Lansing Michigan, and we currently have a manuscript in draft form that we plan to submit in about a month Dr. Curry is still a postdoc at the University of Oklahoma. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? We have disseminated results from this project mainly through journal articles (see products). There are also two book chapters attributable to the project which will appear inAeroecology(in press). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Integration of Agent-based Modeling and Animal Tracking Perhaps the mode innovating and ambitious aspect of our our proposed research was our plan to develop agent-based models based on tracking data collected from a relatively small number of animals equipped with tracking devices. Our plan was to use this model to scale the behavior of individuals up to the population level so that we could make detailed inferences about how the populations would respond to land-cover and climate change. This effort fell short of our goals in many respects, primarily because we did not obtain the tracking data we had hoped for. However, we were able to carry out our goal of integrating tracking data and agent-based modeling by using tracking data Painted Buntings that was collection prior to the funding period. Dr. Jeremy Ross, a post-doc employed by the project from 2012 to 2014 developed an agent-based modeling framework for bird migration using the Agent Analyst plug-in for ArcGIS. We used this model to assess migration paths of Painted Buntings and to test the idea that fall migration routes are driven primarily by seasonal patterns of primary productivity across the landscape. We found that a simple index of primary productivity based on the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) could serve as a predictor of unknown migration routes among molt-migrant songbirds in the central and western United States. Or more precisely, we found that actual migration tracks matched up well with tracks from agents (i.e., virtual birds) that followed migration routes that maximized their exposure to primary productivity. These findings are published in Behavioral Ecology and are also part of a book chapter (see products). The journal article presents our modeling framework and explore its applications using tracking data from real birds all of which originated at their breeding grounds in Oklahoma. The book chapter expands on this analysis by applying the model to virtual birds that originate from locations throughout the range of Painted Buntings. This work provides a predictive snapshot of Painted Bunting migration that agrees with existing information. We are currently working to test this hypothesis using more tracking data and population genetics. Grassland Bird Surveys A major goal of our proposed work was to survey grassland bird species across all reasonable habitat types to assess the viability of biofuel crops (particularly switcgrass) as bird habitat. Although we sought out fuel crops whenever possible, there were too few biofuel crops to make a realistic assessment of their suitability as habitat. Drops in fuel costs and a dislike of ethanol-enriched fuel likely prevented the proliferation of fuel crops that we and many others anticipated in Oklahoma.In particular our surveys lackedswitchgrass crops, which were rare to the point of non-existent during our survey efforts. The switchgrass plots we planned to survey prior to the grant period were found to be neglected and not representative of an active birofuel production effort. The switchgrass plots that we were able to assess were small, and notably lacking in avian diversity. However, our wide ranging and intensive bird surveys were able to give us insights into the prospects for grassland birds in the region and advance efforts to model grassland bird populations. In particular we evaluated the tradeoff between the accuracy of STEM models and the scale of habitat data that goes into them. We also used these models to assess responses of key grassland bird species to climate change. The results of this work was presented at the 2017 American Ornithological Society meeting, and we are currently finishing a manuscript for publication. Advances in Radar Aeroecology Although were were not able to achieve the full integration of radar and tracking data as we originally proposed (largly due to our lack of radar data), we were able to make significant progress in the area of radar-based inferences about bird migration. Dr. Phillip Stepanian, who was supported by project funds as a graduate student from 2012 to 2015, was a key member of a collaborative working to employ new radar data derived from the recent NEXRAD dual-polarimetry upgrade to generate new insights into quantifying and characterizing birds during migratory flights. A key discovery was that the correlation coefficient (a measure derived from comparison of vertical and horizontal radio waves reflected from aerial targets) could serve as an indication of the orientation of birds aloft. Hence, this data product along with the collective radial velocity of airborn objects around a radar could indicate the degree to which birds had to orient themselves away from their direction of flight to compensate for crosswinds. In other words, close alignment of radial velocity and correlation coefficient data would indicate little or no crosswind compensation by migrating birds, whereas differences in these products would denote poor migration conditions and poor efficiency for migrants. This finding represents a new breakthrough in our capacity to use radar data to make inferences about animals aloft.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2017 Citation: Curry, C.M. and M.A. Patten. Constraints on song variation across a temporally complex hybrid zone. In review at Behavioral Ecology.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Curry, C.M., B. Antze, M.H. Warrington, P. Des Brisay, P. Rosa, and N. Koper. 2017. Ability to alter song in two grassland songbirds exposed to simulated anthropogenic noise is not related to pre-existing variability. Bioacoustics
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2017 Citation: Curry, C.M.*, J.D. Ross, A. J. Contina, and E.S. Bridge. 2017. Testing prediction accuracy and climate change estimation with spatially explicit models for grassland birds. 2017 American Ornithology: East Lansing, MI, USA. (Oral presentation.)

Progress 01/15/16 to 01/14/17

Outputs
Target Audience:Our research targets wildlife biologists, applied ecologists, land managers, NGOs with a conservation interest,and public officials and staffers with concerns relatingto wildlife conservation. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project provided support for two postdocs. They are both still employed as postdocs at the University of Oklahoma. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been disseminated via publications and presentations at scientific conferences. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Continue publishing results from our data collection.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? From January 2016 to January 2017 the project supported two post-doc who both completed resarch that they had begun previously. Dr. Andrea Contina (funded from January to July)completed a series of papers derived from genetic samples collected over the course of the grant period. Dr. Clair Curry (funded from September to December) completed a publication on the effects of oil rig noise on grassland birds. Dr Curry also initiated analyses of the grassland bird surveys that were conducted previously as part of our work.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Warrington, M.H., B. Antze, C.M. Curry, and N. Koper. Noise from four types of extractive energy infrastructure affects song features in Savannah Sparrows. Condor: Ornithological Applications.

Progress 01/15/15 to 01/14/16

Outputs
Target Audience: The target audience is primarily conservation biologists, land managers, and governmental officials involved in agricultural allocations in the great plains; however, our work would also be of interest to evolutionary biologists, and terrestrial ecologists. ? Changes/Problems: As was mentioned in our previous reports, we have had limited success in evaluating the potential for switchgrass to sustain grassland bird populations. We are constrained by the fact that very few siwtchgrass fields exist in the state of Oklahoma, and several of the plots that do exist are not well maintained and are therefore not representative of an activity managed biofuel production effort. Our efforts to expand the scope of our operations to include surveys at switchgrass plots in the states surrounding Oklahoma were not successful as they were too far for us to access regularly Another problem is that we had high failure rates for our geolocators. There was a systemtic issue with these devices and only two of the several dozen we deployed were recovered with useable data. The others appeared to malfunction at the time of deployment. Although we are not sure as to the cause of this failure we are moving forward with a different geolocator design in the future. Finally, personnel turnover has delayed some of our activities. In terms of career development, it was good to support Dr. Ross's transition from post-doc, to NGO director, and eventually to tenure track professor. However, losing the project post-doc after his second year did have an adverse effect on the momentum of the project. In hiring Dr. Contina asa replacement for Dr. Ross, we were able to make some progress toward our project goals, but we still have not carried out our final synthesis of all the field data we have collected. Therefore, we requested (and were granted)a no-cost extension that would extend the the funding period until May of 2017. We have also recruited a third post-doc to replace Dr. Contina. Dr. Claire Curry will join our group in September of 2016. Dr. Curry is currently working as a post doc atthe University of Manitoba's Natural Resources Institute, where she focuses on the effects of oil and gas infrastructure ongrassland songbirds. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The project has aided many students and several post-graduates in the pursuit of their carreer goals. Most notably, Dr. Phillip Stepanian, who was supported by project funds from 2012 to 2015, graduated and is now a research associate at Rothstam Research in the UK.The project also provided support for many temporary field technicians who have since gone on to pursue graduate degrees in STEM fields. Among these graduate assistants are: 1)Kayleigh Stumph, who is currently a mastersstudent working with co-PI Kelly at the University of Oklahoma; 2) William Oakley, who is currently a PhDStudent working the PI Bridge; 3) Heather LePage, who is a masters student working with PI Bridge. The project also helped to advance post-docs on their career paths.Dr. Jeremy Ross, who served as a post-doc on the project from 2012 to 2015 was hired as Director of the Sutton Avian Research Center. University budget cuts recently lead to OU severing its ties with the Sutton Center, but Jeremy was retained by the University, and is now a tenure track professor in the Oklahoma Biological Survey. When Dr. Ross left his post-doc position, wereplaced hime with a recent PhDgraduate from the University, Dr. Andrea Contina. Dr. Continaoccupied this position for only about one year, but he was very productive in terms of manuscripts (see products) and in compiling survey data from previous field seasons. Dr. Contina has recently accepted a different long-term post-doctoral position at the University of Oklahoma, but we intend to continue working with him as we analyze and publish the remainder of the data we collected over the course of the funding period. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have disseminated results from this project mainly through journal articles (see products). There are also two book chapters attributable to the project which will appear in Aeroecology, which will likely come out in the winter of 2016/17. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? The main goal remaining for our project is a synthesis of all our tracking and survey data.During the final year of the project we plan to hire a third post-doc who will concentrate her efforts onanalysis and publication of the survey and tracking data collected during the first three years of the funding period. We have already enlisted a qualified individual, Clair Curry to fill this position. Clare is currently a post-doc at theUniversity of Manitoba's Natural Resources Institute, where she studies the effects ofoil and gas infrastructureon grassland birds. Claire's predecessor, Dr. Andrea Contina, has initiated a niche-modeling analysis of our tracking data. Claire has agreed to step in and take over this task during a brief (8-month) post-doctoral appointment that will last until the end of our no-cost extension period (May 14, 2017).

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? This account of our accomplishments during 2015 is very similar to our previous report. The accomplishments for 2015 were largely initated late in the previous reporting period, and 2015 witnessed their culmination (e.g. papers in review achieved publication status). As of the beginning of 2016, We have completed all field work planned for the project, which included extensive surveys of grasslands, agricultural fields, grazing areas, and other potential habitats for grassland birds across the state of Oklahoma. Missing from our surveys are switchgrass cropswhich were rare to the point of non-existent during our survey efforts. The switchgrass plots we planned to survey prior to the grant period were found to be neglected and not representative of an active biofuel production effort. The switchgrass plots that we were able to assess were small, but notably lacking in avian biodiversity. We were able to make great strides in the area of agent based modeling (ABM)as applied to migratory birds. Dr. Jeremy Ross, a post-doc employed by the project from 2012 to 2014 developed an ABM framework for bird migration using the Agent Analyst plug-in for ArcGIS. We used this model to asses migration paths of Painted Buntings and to test the idea that fall migration routes are driven primarily by seasonal patterns of primary productivity across the landscape. We found that a simple index of primary productivity based on the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) could serve as a predictor of unknown migration routes among molt-migrant songbirds in the central and western United States. Or more precisely, we found that actual migration tracks matched up well with tracks from agents (i.e., virtual birds) that followed migration routes that maximized their exposure to primary productivity. In a recentpublication in Behavioral Ecology (see products)we present this modeling framework and explore its applications using tracking data from real birds all of which originated at their breeding grounds in Oklahoma. In a forthcoming book chapter we expand on this analysis by applying the model to virtual birds that originate from locations throughout the range of Painted Buntings. This second paper provides a predictive snapshot of Painted Bunting migration that agrees with existing information. However, we hope to test these predictions with future tracking work. We have also made significant progress in area of radar-based inferences about bird migration. Dr. Phillip Stepanian, who was supported by project funds as a graduate student from 2012 to 2015, was a key member of a collaborative working to employ new radar data derived from the recent NEXRAD dual-polarimetryupgrade to generate new insights into quantifying and characterizing birds during migratory flights. A key discovery was that the correlation coefficient (a measure derived from comparison of vertical and horizontal radio waves reflected from aerial targets) could serve as an indication of the orientation of birds aloft. Hence, this data product along with the collective radial velocity of airborn objects around a radar could indicate the degree to which birds had to orient themselves away from their direction of flight to compensate for crosswinds. In other words, close alignment ofradial velocity and correlation coefficient data would indicate little or no crosswind compensation by migrating birds, whereas differences in these products would denote poor migration conditions and poor efficiency for migrants. This finding represents a new breakthrough in our capacity to use radar data to make inferences about animals aloft. This analysis tool was used in a paper co-authored by Stepanian (see Horton et al. 2015 in products) that examined bird orientation and winds aloft on a regional scale and found that birds employ an adaptive strategy during migration.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Ross JD, Kelly JF, Bridge ES, Engel MH, Reinking DL, Boyle WA. 2015. Pallid bands in feathers and associated stable isotope signatures reveal effects of severe weather stressors on fledgling sparrows. PeerJ 3: e814.
• Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2016 Citation: Ross JD, Bridge ES, Prosser D, Takekawa JY. in press. The aerosphere as a network connector of organisms and their diseases in Chilson PB, Kelly JF, Liechti F, Frick W, F., eds. Aeroecology. New York: Springer.
• Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Stepanian PM. 2015. Radar Polarimetry For Biological Applications. PhD. Dissertation, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Stepanian PM, Horton KG. 2015. Extracting Migrant Flight Orientation Profiles Using Polarimetric Radar. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 53: 6518-6528.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Horton KG, Stepanian PM, Wainwright C, Tegeler A. 2015. Influence of atmospheric properties on detection of wood-warbler nocturnal flight calls. International Journal of Biometeorology 59: 1385-1394.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Horton KG, Van Doren BM, Stepanian PM, Hochachka WM, Farnsworth A, Kelly JF. 2015. Nocturnally migrating songbirds drift when they can and compensate when they must. Scientific Reports 6: 1-8.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Contina A, Bridge ES, Kelly JF. 2016. Exploring novel candidate genes from the Mouse Genome Informatics Database: Potential implications for avian migration. Integrative Zoology 11: 175181.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Contina A, Harrigan RJ, Pollinger JP, Bridge ES, Kelly JF, Smith TB. 2016. Genome-wide identification and characterization of simple sequence repeats in the Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris) for population and forensic analyses. Conservation Genetics Resources.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Bridge ES, Ross JD, Contina AJ, Kelly JF. 2016. Do Molt-Migrant Songbirds Optimize Migration Routes Based on Primary Productivity? Animal Behaviour 27: 784-792.
• Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2016 Citation: Bridge ES, Ross JD, Contina AJ, Kelly JF. in press. Using agent based models to scale from individuals to populations. in Chilson PB, Frick WF, Kelly JF, Liechti F, eds. Aeroecology. New York: Springer.

Progress 01/15/14 to 01/14/15

Outputs
Target Audience: The target audience is primarily conservation biologists, land managers, and governmental officials involved in agricultural allocations in the great plains; however, our work would also be of interest to evolutionary biologists, and terrestrial ecologists. Changes/Problems: As was mentioned in our previous report, we have had limited success in evaluating the potential for switchgrass to sustain grassland bird populations. We are constrained by the fact that very few siwtchgrass fields exist in the state of Oklahoma, and several of the plots that do exist are not well maintained and are therefore not representative of an activitly managed biofuel production effort. Our efforts to expand the scope of our operations to include surveys at switchgrass plots in the states surrounding Oklahoma were not successful as they were too far for us to access regularly Another problem is that we had high failure rates for our geolocators. There was a sytemtic issue with these devices and only two of the several dozen we deployed were recovered with useable data. The others appeared to malfunction at the time of deployment. Although we are not sure as to the cause of this failure we are moving forward with a different geolocator design in the future. Finally, personnel turnover has delayed some of our activities. In terms of carreer development, it was good to support Dr. Ross's transition from post-doc, to NGO director, and eventually to tenure track professor. However, losing the project post-doc after his second year did have an adverse effect on the momentum of the project. In hiring Dr Contina asa replacement for Dr. Ross, we were able to make some progress toward our project goals, but we still have not carried out our final synthesis of all the field data we have collected. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The project has aided many students and several post-graduates in the pursuit of their career goals. Most notably, Dr. Phillip Stepanian, who was supported by project funds from 2012 to 2015, graduated and is now a research associate at Rothstam Research in the UK.The project also provided support for many temporary field technicians. Among them was Jessica Hightower,who is currently aPhD student in Interdisciplinary Ecology at the University of Florida. Also among them was Randy Soto who was subsequently hired by the Oklahoma Biological Survey as an environmental impact specialist. Finally, the project helped to advance post-docs on their career paths.Dr. Jeremy Ross, who served as a post-doc on the project from 2012 to 2015 was hired as Director of the Sutton Avian Research Center. University budget cuts recently lead to OU severing its ties with the Sutton Center, but Jeremy was retained by the University, and is now a tenure track professor in the Oklahoma Biological Survey. When Dr. Ross left his post-doc position, wereplaced him with a recent PhDgraduate from the University, Dr. Andrea Contina. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? We have disseminated results from this project mainly through journal articles (see products). There are also two book chapters attributable to the project which will appear in Aeroecology, which will likely come out in the winter of 2016/17. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? The main goal remaining for our project is a synthesis of all our tracking and survey data.We have sufficient funding to retain a post-doctoral researcher until May of 2017. Hence, we intend to request a no-cost extension that will allow Dr. Contina to work with the data we have collected and publish the results.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? As of the beginning of 2015, we have completed most of our field work, including extensive surveys of grasslands, agricultural fields, grazing areas, and other potential habitats for grassland birds across the state of Oklahoma. Missing from our surveys are switchgrass crops,which were rare to the point of non-existent during our survey efforts. The switchgrass plots we planned to survey prior to the grant period were found to be neglected and not representative of an active birofuel production effort. The switchgrass plots that we were able to assess were small, but notably lacking in avian biodiversity. A highlight of the 2014 field season was a study of habitat structure and territory defense by Cassin's Sparrow in western Oklahoma. Our previous work with this species in 2013 indicated relatively low site fidelity. We reasoned that Cassin's Sparrows made use of habitats that were somewhat ephemeral with regard to vegetative structure (i.e. drought sensitive plants). Therefore, we evaluated vegetative structure in conjunction with territory defense in male Cassin's Sparrows and identified some key characteristics that appear to be important for this declining songbird species. These data have yet to undergo a formal analysis and drafting in manuscript form. We were able to make great strides in the area of agent based modeling (ABM)as applied to migratory birds. Dr. Jeremy Ross, a post-doc employed by the project from 2012 to 2014 developed an ABM framework for bird migration using the Agent Analyst plug-in for ArcGIS. We used this model to asses migration paths of Painted Buntings and to test the idea that fall migration routes are driven primarily by seasonal patterns of primary productivity aross the landscape. We found that a simple index of primary productivity based on the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) could serve as a predictor of unknown migration routes among molt-migrant songbirds in the central and western United States. Or more precisely, we found that actual migration tracks matched up well with tracks from agents (i.e., virtual birds) that followed migration routes that maximized their exposure to primary productivity. We have submitted these findings in manuscript form to Behavioral Ecology (see products). This paper presents our modeling framework and explore its applications using tracking data from real birds all of which originated at their breeding grounds in Oklahoma. In a forthcoming book chapter (see products) we expand on this analysis by applying the model to virtual birds that originate from locations throughout the range of Painted Buntings. This book chapter provides a predictive snapshot of Painted Bunting migration that agrees with existing information. However, we hope to test these predictions with future tracking work. We have also made significant progress in area of radar-based inferences about bird migration. Dr. Phillip Stepanian, who was supported by project funds as a graduate student from 2012 to 2015, was a key member of a collaborative working to employ new radar data derived from the recent NEXRAD dual-polarimetryupgrade to generate new insights into quantifying and characterizing birds during migratory flights. A key discovery was that the correlation coefficient (a measure derived from comparison of vertical and horizontal radio waves reflected from aerial targets) could serve as an indication of the orientation of birds aloft. Hence, this data product along with the collective radial velocity of airborn objects around a radar could indicate the degree to which birds had to orient themselves away from their direction of flight to compensate for crosswinds. In other words, close alignment ofradial velocity and correlation coefficient data would indicate little or no crosswind compensation by migrating birds, whereas differences in these products would denote poor migration conditions and poor efficiency for migrants. This finding represents a new breakthrough in our capacity to use radar data to make inferences about animals aloft.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Stepanian PM, Horton KG. 2015. Extracting Migrant Flight Orientation Profiles Using Polarimetric Radar. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 53: 6518-6528.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Ross JD, Bridge ES, Rozmarynowycz MJ, Bingman VP. 2014. Individual variation in migratory path and behavior among Eastern Lark Sparrows. Animal Migration 2: 29-33.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Stepanian PM, Chilson PB, Kelly JF. 2014. An introduction to radar image processing in ecology. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 5: 730-738.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Ross JD, Bouzat JL. 2014. Genetic and morphometric diversity in the Lark Sparrow (Chondestes grammacus) suggest discontinuous clinal variation across major breeding regions associated with previously characterized subspecies. Auk 131: 298-313.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Ross JD, Kelly JF, Bridge ES, Engel MH, Reinking DL, Boyle WA. 2015. Pallid bands in feathers and associated stable isotope signatures reveal effects of severe weather stressors on fledgling sparrows. PeerJ 3: e814.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Contina A, Harrigan RJ, Pollinger JP, Bridge ES, Kelly JF, Smith TB. 2016. Genome-wide identification and characterization of simple sequence repeats in the Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris) for population and forensic analyses. Conservation Genetics Resources; Microsatellite records vol. 8, issue 1, doi:10.1007/s12686-016-0522-2.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Bridge ES, Ross JD, Contina AJ, Kelly JF. 2016. Do Molt-Migrant Songbirds Optimize Migration Routes Based on Primary Productivity? Animal Behaviour 27: 784-792.
• Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2016 Citation: Bridge ES, Ross JD, Contina AJ, Kelly JF. in press. Using agent based models to scale from individuals to populations. in Chilson PB, Frick WF, Kelly JF, Liechti F, eds. Aeroecology. New York: Springer.
• Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2016 Citation: Ross JD, Bridge ES, Prosser D, Takekawa JY. in press. The aerosphere as a network connector of organisms and their diseases in Chilson PB, Kelly JF, Liechti F, Frick W, F., eds. Aeroecology. New York: Springer.

Progress 01/15/13 to 01/14/14

Outputs
Target Audience: The target audience is primarily conservation biologists, land managers, and governmental officials involved in agricultural allocations in the great plains; however, our work would also be of interest to evolutionary biologists, and terrestrial ecologists. Changes/Problems: Although we do not consider them major problems, we encountered two unexpected difficulties. First, we have had limited success in evaluating the potential for switchgrass to sustain grassland bird populations. We are constrained by the fact that very few siwtchgrass fields exist in the state of Oklahoma, and several of the plots that do exist are not well maintained and are therefore not representative of an activitly managed biofuel production effort. To address this problem, we will expand the scope of our operations to include surveys at switchgrass plots in the states surrounding Oklahoma and we will make extensive use of published accounts of how grassland birds exploit switchgrass.Second, The Bird Banding Lab (BBL) did not give us permission to deploy geolocation dataloggers on Cassin's Sparrows, one of our targeted grassland bird species. The reason for this exclusion from our permit was poor documentation of expected return rates for this species in the literature, and the BBL contended that we might be burdening birds with tracking devices when there was little chance of recovering the data loggers after the migration cycle. We negotiated a plan during which we would monitor returns of banded birds in the spring of 2014, and if we see a return rate of 25% or higher then we will deploy geolocators that same year. Hence, tracking data for this species will be delayed by one year, but we anticipate having these data before the end of the funding period. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? We have advanced training and professional development of undergraduates, graduate students, and a post-doc by supporting them with project funds. Our 2013 field season employed two graduate students and two undergraduates as field technicians. In addition we have provided a full time stipend for a post-doc (Jeremy Ross) and a half-time research assistantship for a graduate student (Philip Stepanian) since February 2013 (with the exception of one month during which the post-doc was paid from another grant account). Our field technicians have recieved valueable experience and training as part of their participation in our field research. In particular, they have acquired skills relating to systematic ecological survey techniques and basic field ornithology (i.e. capturing, handling, marking, and tracking birds). The graduate students employed as field technicians were able to execute exploratory research during the summer of 2013 that has aided them in pursuing their graduate degrees. The graduate student and post-doc under long-term employment have been able to further their careers as scientists through publication of journal articles and by attending professional conferences (see publications). Both of these individuals are working on components of the project that will impart unique and valuable skills as ecological modelers, thus positioning them as desirable candidates for employment in either the public or private sector. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Publications and professional conferences. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? We are currently preparing for our second field season, which will be a considerably more intensive effort than the first. We will hire six field assistants and get further assistance from an undergraduate volunteer. During this field season we hope to recover at least 25% of the geolocation dataloggers deployed last summer and deploy an additional 200-300 units on our targeted species. We will use the data aquired during the summer of 2014 to extend our modeling framework to include the five targeted grassland bird species. This effort during year two should accomplish most of our project goals.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We have begun to establish our agent-based modeling framework based on data collected prior to USDA funding. We have been able to generate simple movement models that simulate migratory movements of Painted Bundings across a real world landscape. The virtual birds were programmed to respond only to a few key landscape variables (primary productivity and a generalized bird density index) and were constrained only by potential flight distance. Although this framework is extremely simple it has yeilded realistic representations of actual migration behavior when compared with migration tracks of real Painted Buntings equipped with geolocation data loggers. At this point in time we have have insufficient data from the grassland species targeted for the current project to generate meaningful agent-based models. We will begin to construct more sophisticated models using data fromt the target species after the completion of our second field season (this summer) and recovery of tracking devices deployed last year.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Ross, JD and JL Bouzat. 2014. Genetic and morphometric diversity in the Lark Sparrow (Chondestes grammacus) suggest discontinuous clinal variation across major breeding regions associated with previously characterized subspecies. The Auk: Ornithological Advances 131(3):TBD (July 2014)
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2014 Citation: Ross, JD, ES Bridge, MJ Rozmarynowycz, and VP Bingman. In review. Individual variation in migratory path and behavior among Eastern Lark Sparrows. Animal Migration
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2014 Citation: Stepanian P., P. Chilson, and J. Kelly. In review. An Introduction to Radar Image Processing in Ecology. Methods in Ecology and Evolution
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Stepanian, P., J. Kelly, and P. Chilson. Biological Scatterers as Indicators of Boundary Layer Structure. AMS 36th Conference on Radar Meteorology, Breckenridge, CO, USA, September 16-20, 2013
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Ross, J. D., E. S. Bridge, M. J. Rozmarynowycz, V. P. Bingman. Mixed migration strategies in the Eastern Lark Sparrow. Annual meeting of the American Ornithologists Union and the Cooper Ornithological Society, Chicago, IL, 14-17 August, 2013
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Ross, J. D. Using Agent-based Models to Simulate Grassland Bird Responses to Landscape Change. Annual Meeting of the Oklahoma Ornithological Society, Broken Arrow, OK, October 19, 2013.
• Type: Websites Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Ross, J, D., E. S. Bridge, J. F. Kelly. "Optimizing Grassland Bird Conservation in an Era of Biofuel Production." http://animalmigration.org/grassland_bird/index.html