Monitor Lizard bombarded by a Kingfisher

EBL Biologist Zia Crytser documented this interesting interaction on Rota between a Monitor Lizard (Veranus indicus) and a Kingfisher.

New EBL Members this Summer!

The EBL team is excited to welcome 5 members to the team this summer!

Jerilyn Calaor is a PhD student at Iowa State University (ISU) who is currently studying food web dynamics on the Mariana Islands.

Adelynn-Renee Roces is an undergraduate student with Northern Arizona University. She enjoys being out in nature and is interested in working in plant ecology.

Joanna Scott finished her BS with University of Guam and is pursuing her interest with conservation of Guam's flora and fauna by working with EBL.

Jillian Kurovski is an undergraduate student with ISU. Her passion is working with arthropods and she is working on spider diversity in the Marianas.

Juan-Carlos Mungaray recently finished his BS with ISU and will be working with Mariana fruit bats on Rota. He is excited about the opportunity to further his skills in vertebrate ecology.

Field Observation by Ann Marie Gawel

Field Observation by EBL PhD candidate Ann Marie Gawel: I found Aglaia that seemed to be nice and ripe on Guam... until I found this little insect inside.

#30earthmonthheroes: Posting about Heroes of the Envirnonment

This past month EBL and others have been posting about heroes of the environment. These post can be found on the EBL Facebook page and on the twitter handle #30earthmonthheroes

https://www.facebook.com/ebl.project/

Tree Growing Around a Deer Skull... interesting find by the EBL Crew

The EBL team spends much of its time out in the field collecting data and once in a while we come across strange and unique findings. EBL'ers Martin Kastner and Zia Crytser came across one of these findings just the other day. It is a deer skull stuck in a tree and the tree has grown around it. Any ideas about how this happened? (Photo taken by Zia)

New Member of the EBL Team! Welcome Moneka!

The EBL team has a new member on the crew! Moneka De Oro is a proud daughter of the Marianas. Her academic, professional, and community endeavors have been grounded in protection of the natural environment and promotion of Chamoru culture. She has a BA in Anthropology and is currently completing her masters thesis in Micronesian Studies from the University of Guam. She served as an RET with EBL in 2017 and the EBL team is excited to have her back assisting in research!

EBL Project has a New Publication in The Royal Society B!

The EBL Project has a new publication discussing how animal movement drives variation in seed dispersal distance across entire communities. 
Click here to read the publication. 

The EBL Project hosted a National Geographic reporting writer and the finished product has been published!

In November 2018 the Ecology of Bird Loss Project hosted a reporting writer for National Geographic, Alexandra Ossola, on Guam. During the host period she attended the MTCC conference, went on a Brown Treesnake night search, attended a DOD sponsored field trip to active restoration sites, interviewed multiple stake holders on Guam, and interviewed EBL's PI Haldre Rogers (who is quoted in the article). Below is the link to the finished product in National Geographic.

Guam's ecological fate is in the hands of the U.S. military

New Publication in Micronesica!

Check out this new publication in Micronesica! During the 2017 field season, we caught 3 brown treesnakes (BTS) that had consumed our fledgling Såli. When we analyzed the physical traits of these snakes, we found that they were all large individuals in very good body condition, suggesting that young Såli (and birds in general) may be a particularly rich meal for snakes that are used to eating smaller meals of geckos and skinks. In 2018, we caught 12 more BTS and saw the exact same pattern. In addition, we found that snakes that had recently eaten fledglings hunkered down in hollow trees for 4-6 days at a time, presumably to digest their food. These results echo those from a recent study by Siers et al. (2018), and provide important additional information about snake behavior and activity cycles – snakes that are full after a large meal are less detectable and harder to catch. This research (Wagner et al. 2018) was a collaborative effort between our entire 2017 field crew and is now available here: (http://micronesica.org/sites/default/files/wagneretal2018.pdf)!

References:

Siers, S. R., A. A. Yackel Adams, & R. N. Reed (2018). Behavioral differences following ingestion of large meals and consequences for management of a harmful invasive snake: A field experiment. Ecology and Evolution 8: 10075-10093.

Wagner, C., C. Tappe, M. Kastner, O. Jaramillo, N. Van Ee, J. Savidge, & H.S. Pollock (2018). First recorded predation of fledgling Micronesian starlings (Aplonis opaca) by brown treesnakes (Boiga irregularis) on Guam. Micronesica 6: 1-7.  

Bird Skull Mystery

While taking measurements at roost sites recently, there was a morbid find under a Calophyllum in an urban area on Andersen Airforce Base. It is generally a popular roost site for starlings, sparrows, and doves, but the birds above in the canopy just make the scene below them at the base of the tree seem more chilling. What looked like a graveyard for nearly 50 birds could have been a cache made by some predator lurking around base of the tree. Let us know what you think could have caused this mass grave.