In 2022, I began researching how extreme weather events (drought, flooding, high temperatures) impacted Marsh and Sedge Wren food limitation and nest success. We use blood metabolite markers and bird body condition as proxies for satiation and monitor nests throughout the breeding season to track wren pair formation, territory size and quality, and reproductive success. In 2024, we will begin collecting fecal samples to better understand wren diets and how they differ between sites along urbanization and water availability gradients. A nice summary of all marsh bird work written up by Jen Mui can be found here: https://pace.inhs.illinois.edu/research/marsh-birds/ 

In collaboration the Chicago Ornithological Society and Chicago Parks district, lead bander Stephanie Beilke (Audubon Great Lakes), Libby Keyes (Governers State University) and I started the first Chicago-based MAPS banding station this summer in Calumet's Big Marsh. In the next five years we will expand this project to collect fecal, feather, and blood samples from birds to look at diet and signatures of local adaptation to climate change and urbanization. We also plan to use geolocators to see where birds breeding in the marsh overwinter and what habitats they use for stopover during migration.

Cryptic and rare species like rails and bitterns are difficult to detect in the field, leaving us with a poor understanding of their life histories and distributions. Occupancy estimates from environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling may help us improve detection data for multiple species at once. Better detection data can help us understand the timing of rail and bittern migration. I have used degenerate bird primers to detect multiple rail species, and am examining how eDNA detections in Illinois and Michigan compare to playback surveys during breeding and migration. 

Over 85-95% of wetlands in Illinois and Indiana have been lost to development since the 1800s, leading to wetland bird declines. In collaboration with Stephanie Beilke and Sarah Saunders (National Audubon Society), we are investigating the following questions for a suite of wetland species:  (1) Which species can persist in fragmented and highly urbanized wetlands? and (2) What kind of wetlands should we focus on creating to get the most "bang for our buck" in terms of wetland bird conservation?

Mast seeding drives population dynamics of multiple species in oak woodlands. In 2016 I established an annual acorn count in northern Illinois to understand how oak masting events affect woodpecker and owl populations. I'm also interested in how food availability impacts breeding success in declining Red-headed Woodpeckers, and whether oak masts influence interspecific competition between jays and woodpeckers.