About This Project

Canada warblers are now considered threatened in Canada and a species of special conservation concern in most parts of its US breeding range because of their high rates of decline. Understanding the role of reproductive performance across its North American breeding range is critical to implementing an effective and integrated conservation plan for the species. This project implements a rapid assessment of breeding success across the species' entire breeding range through a broad collaboration.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

I have been studying the Canada warbler for 15 consecutive years and initiated this rapid assessment of breeding success technique after being invited to participate in a working conference in Ottawa, Ontario sponsored by the Canada Warbler International Conservation Initiative in March 2015. The technique was spawned by a discussion of the need for an efficient method to assess breeding performance of this declining species across its entire breeding range through a coordinated collaborative effort. Bird banding stations, ongoing census work and in-depth population studies all play important roles in increasing our understanding of this

long-distance migrant warbler, but more efficient high information yield methods are needed to determine possible source and sink populations.

What is the significance of this project?

This method estimates density, fledging success, habitat structure, age
composition and interannual return rates at five sites across the species' entire breeding range: Northwest Territories, Manitoba, Quebec, New Hampshire and North Carolina. This collaboration will occur over several years and will yieldinformation of value in measuring fitness throughout the range that may contribute to the species' decline. Preliminary data from the last two breeding seasons shows the importance of dense shrub and understory layers and higher reproductive success of older birds. Combined with multi-year data on changes in density of pairs and habitat structure, these data will offer a robust analysis of breeding success critical to an evolving international conservation plan.

What are the goals of the project?

1) Measure breeding success throughout the breeding range

2) Connect these measures of success with key habitat features, demographic data, and interannual return rates to model source/sink population dynamics

3) Identify critical habitat within and across geographic areas vital to continued breeding success of the species

4) Identify habitat features that may become a vital part of management opportunities throughout the breeding range and with geographically explicit relevance

5) Implement a sustained international collaboration that will become an ongoing effort informing an evolving conservation plan

6) Ultimately, save this species from extinction and extirpation