Invited Speakers

Dr Marc Bélisle, Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke

Bio : Marc Bélisle obtained his PhD in forestry sciences from Université Laval in 2000 before conducting postdoctoral studies at U of Alberta and U of Helsinki, Finland. A professor at U de Sherbrooke since 2003, he held the Canada Research Chair in Spatial and Landscape Ecology between 2004 and 2009. While a leading figure in landscape functional connectivity research, he switched his focus to quantifying the influence of agricultural practices on birds, bumblebees, and soon to come, dragonflies.

Suite à l’obtention de son doctorat en sciences forestières à l’Université Laval en 2000, Marc Bélisle entreprend des études postdoctorales à l’U de l’Alberta et l’U d’Helsinki, Finlande. Professeur à l’U de Sherbrooke depuis 2003, il y fut le titulaire de la Chaire de recherche du Canada en écologie spatiale et en écologie du paysage entre 2004 et 2009. Chef de file de la recherche sur la connectivité fonctionnelle des paysages, son attention se porte aujourd’hui à quantifier l’influence des pratiques agricoles sur les oiseaux, les bourdons, et bientôt, les libellules.

Title : Direct and indirect impacts of pesticides on aerial insectivores: a 16-year large-scale study with results difficult to swallows

Summary : Aerial insectivores have been showing steep population declines in several parts of their distribution ranges over the last 50 years, and this in both North America and Europe. Although several putative causes have been put forward to explain such declines, the increasing use of pesticides, notably in agriculture, has been singled out as one of the most likely key culprit. Pesticides could indeed be responsible for a reduction in flying insects, the main prey of this otherwise eclectic bird guild. Moreover, pesticides could directly arm birds through toxicological effects. Assessing the indirect (trophic) and direct (toxicological) effects of pesticides on aerial insectivores is however problematic for many reasons, most of them methodological. It is hence of no surprise that researchers have so far been constrained to simply infer the potential impacts of pesticides by linking the amount of different agricultural land covers to the ecological responses of swallows and their allies. I will present a longitudinal study specifically designed to address both the direct and indirect effects of agricultural practices, including pesticide use, on the breeding ecology of Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) in southern Québec. After monitoring the activities and performance of swallows breeding within a network of 400 nest boxes equally distributed among 40 farms across a 10,200-km² gradient of agricultural intensification since 2004, my collaborators and I can now provide evidence that intensive agricultural practices indeed lead to pesticide-contaminated food supplies and lower prey (diptera) availability, especially under rainy conditions. Spatiotemporal patterns of fledging success and number of fledglings further suggest that adults can compensate for some negative effects related to intensive agriculture, but fail to do so under stressful meteorological conditions. It may thus be the accumulation of stressors, directly or indirectly caused or exacerbated by anthropogenic activities, that may take its toll on aerial insectivores.

Name : Dr. Kira Delmore, Texas A&M University

Bio : Kira began her scientific career at Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario where she worked with Dr. Raleigh Robertson to study the behavioural ecology of Tree swallows. She shifted study systems and topics for her Masters at the University of Calgary, working in a hybrid zone between two species of brown lemurs in Madagascar. She continued studying hybridization in her PhD at the University of British Columbia with Dr. Darren Irwin but returned to birds, using a songbird hybrid zone to test a long-held hypothesis that differences in seasonal migration help maintain songbird diversity. During her PhD Kira started studying the genetic basis of migration; she extended this work significantly during her Postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology where she worked with Dr. Miriam Liedvogel to study the molecular basis of migration using wild and captive birds. Kira now holds an Assistant Professorship at Texas A&M University where she is studying a broader set of behaviours using a variety of different molecular techniques while maintaining her roots in hybridization and the origins of diversity.

Title : Studying speciation using hybrid zones and focusing on migration

Summary : Hybrid zones and young species complexes provide the perfect setting to study the origins of phenotypic variation, its genetic basis and contribution to population divergence. We use two well-known study systems to answer these questions, the European blackcap and Swainson’s thrush, and focus on a phenotypic trait that has fascinated researchers for decades: seasonal migration. The blackcap is a single species that comprises several migratory phenotypes (resident, short medium and long distance migrants that orient SW, SE or NW). Results from next-generation sequencing data suggest this variation arose recently from a migratory ancestry and that rapid evolution of migration within this species is facilitated by standing genetic variation. The Swainson’s thrush comprises two subspecies groups that breed adjacent to one another in western North America but take different migratory routes. Tracking data from hybrid thrushes between these two subspecies groups shows these birds take intermediate routes and results from niche modeling suggest these routes are inferior suggesting differences in migration are helping maintain subspecies boundaries in this species. Admixture mapping has highlighted a single genomic region associated with variation in the migratory routes of thrushes and data from long read technologies are revealing additional details about the genomic architecture of this trait. We discuss our results in the broader context of complex behavioural traits – these traits are understudied in the literature on adaptive traits and they could serve as potent extrinsic barriers to gene flow even after interbreeding has occurred.

Name : Dr. Elizabeth Gow, Liber Ero Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Guelph

Bio : Dr. Elizabeth Gow is currently a Liber Ero Fellow in Conservation Biology at the University of Guelph where she is developing conservation solutions that help birds, cats and people by developing strong collaborations with multiple stakeholders (e.g. veterinarians, shelter workers, environmental NGOs, and cat owners). Her current research aims to understand what cats do when nobody is looking. She is using trail cameras to assess where cats are most likely to be found and the potential impact of cats on birds through the use of custom designed cameras attached to the collars of cats. More broadly, Dr. Gow’s research aims to understand where, when and how migratory bird populations are declining. She uses innovative tracking devices and technologies to follow birds, and bird predators, as they move between habitats sometimes 1000’s of km across international borders. Dr. Gow completed a BHSc (Bachelor of Health Sciences; Major: Kinesiology and Health Sciences; Minor: Biology) and MSc in Biology at York University under the guidance of Dr. Bridget Stutchbury. She completed her PhD in 2014 at the University of Saskatchewan under the mentorship of Dr. Karen Wiebe. She previously held a Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of British Columbia (supervisor: Dr. Peter Arcese) and a NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Guelph (supervisor: Dr. Ryan Norris).

Title : Studying speciation using hybrid zones and focusing on migration

Summary : Over the past 40–50 years, the populations of many previously common migratory bird species have declined at alarming rates. Tracking birds throughout the year, using miniaturized tracking devices, provides one way in which to identify regions and time periods within the annual cycle that could be responsible for population declines. I will demonstrate how tracking has changed over the past 10 years. In the early stages of tracking migratory birds, asking simple questions such as where do individuals go, what routes do they take and how fast do they travel, provided novel insight into the life of migratory birds. Now, with further advances in technology we are able to answer complex questions about how such patterns vary across broad geographic ranges. We can then use this information to provide a greater understanding of what may be causing bird declines and predict how birds may be able to adapt to changing environments. Using 12 breeding populations of tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor), spanning their geographic range, I demonstrate how migratory networks allow us to assess areas of importance, key flyways and nodes. I further show how populations and individuals time their annual events and move between nodes, and specifically show how the geographic location of breeding causes a domino effect of future timing events across the annual cycle (e.g. departure from the breeding grounds, timing of moult and overwinter arrival). Finally, I will show how migratory networks can be used to help predict how migration and overwintering events may affect reproductive success, which can vary with sex and geographic location.