![]() The Rosser Family Education Endowed Scholarship will offer two scholarship awards to Gulf Coast State College students majoring in Education or Early Education. The scholarships were created by a gift from the Rosser Family. This information will reduce uncertainty around the response of high priority bird species to prescribed fire and aid future management decisions.The Foundation received a $200,000 gift from the Rosser Family with $120,000 of the gift creating six new scholarship opportunities in Education, Fire Science, and License Practical Nursing. This project will also identify potential trade-offs or synergies from prescribed fire applications in high marsh ecosystems. This process will involve determining the mechanism of bird response to fire through plants and invertebrates, characterizing the appropriate fire return interval in high marsh, and determining if weather affecting prescribed fire has changed in frequency over time.Įxpected Outcome: This project will create computer models of co-occurrence, distribution, and abundance of black rail, yellow rail, and mottled duck. Identify prescribed fire practices that support black and yellow rail and mottled duck populations through an adaptive management process.Determine if seasonal weather patterns have changed over time in such a way that they would limit potential prescribed fire practices that could be implemented in high marshes.This will be accomplished through on the ground surveys throughout the year, and by analyzing feather samples from individual birds to determine what they are eating which will allow us to estimate the relative proportion of resident versus migratory black rails. Determine the distribution and abundance of black and yellow rails and mottled ducks in high marsh habitats across the five Gulf states during the breeding and wintering seasons.Create high resolution up to date maps of high marsh habitats across the five Gulf States. ![]() ![]() The framework will inform decision-making by helping researchers and resource managers test predictions and improve our understanding of how these birds of concern interact with high marsh ecosystems and prescribed fire. What the team is doing : This project monitors black rail, yellow rail, and mottled duck responses to prescribed fire application using an adaptive management framework. This project will address specific information needs of resource managers and conservation organizations like determining the distribution and habitat use of yellow rails, black rails, and mottled ducks during breeding and nonbreeding seasons, and understanding how prescribed fire practices influence that distribution and abundance in high marsh habitats. ![]() This lack of understanding limits natural resource managers’ ability to manage and conserve the biodiversity of the Gulf Coast. Natural resource managers are tasked with conserving all three bird species, yet we know very little about their response to fire in high marsh wetlands. Mottled ducks are of high conservation concern as the only species of duck which spends its entire year along the Gulf Coast. Why it matters: Black rail and yellow rail are identified as birds of conservation concern (migrating nongame birds that are likely candidates for Endangered Species Act listing without additional conservation actions). Research Area: Multispecies, weather and climateĪward Period: This project began in September 2019 and will end in August 2024. T echnical Monitors: John Tirpak ( and Kevin Kalasz ( Program Officer/Science Program Liaison: Frank Parker ( ) Fournier (lead investigator, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, ), Mark Woodrey (lead investigator, Mississippi State University), Kristine Evans (Mississippi State University), John Andrew Nyman (Louisiana State University Agricultural Center), Robert Rohli (Louisiana State University), Warren Conway (Texas Tech University), Michelle Meyers (United States Geological Survey), Jim Lyons (United States Geological Survey), Robert Cooper (University of Georgia), Erik Johnson (National Audubon Society), Jim Cox (Tall Timbers Research Station), and Chris Butler (University of Central Oklahoma)Ĭollaborators: William Vermillion (Gulf Coast Joint Venture/US Fish and Wildlife Service), Joe Lancaster (Gulf Coast Joint Venture/Ducks Unlimited), Michael Brasher (Ducks Unlimited), Amy Schwarzer (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission), Ron Bielefeld (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission), Eric Soehren (AL Department of Conservation and Natural Resources), Jennifer Wilson (US Fish and Wildlife Service), Jena Moon (US Fish and Wildlife Service)
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