Graduate Exit Seminar - Anna Rose

Plan to join Anna Rose's graduate exit seminar on November 25, 2025, at 10:00 am at the Olentangy Wetlands Research Park, Heffner Classroom 108 or via Zoom. Anna will present, "Impacts of Ticks and Forest Management on Appalachian Breeding Birds"

Abstract: Anna will present her master’s research encompassing 130+ days of early morning field work, 164 Appalachian bird nests, and novel research questions looking at the interactions between native songbirds, ticks, and experimental forest treatments.

Eastern forest bird communities have lost over 17% of their species biomass since the 1970s. Ohio historically has been a stronghold for breeding birds; however, land-use changes and shifting disturbance regimes have altered present forest conditions to the degree that many species are now lacking required habitat characteristics. Informing forest management of today’s forests and how silvicultural treatments impact forest bird communities is essential for deciding how to balance forest productivity with avian conservation. In my first chapter, I seek to improve understanding of the relationships between nesting Appalachian birds (Wood Thrush, Ovenbird, Hooded Warbler, and Red-eyed Vireo) and the presence and abundance of tick species on the landscape. Given vertical stratification of tick questing height, I predicted that nest height and foraging height will correspond to tick loads on adult parents and their nestlings. I assessed tick loads on 141 nestlings and 45 adults of 7 species. In my second chapter, I explored changes in territory density and daily survival rates of Ovenbird and Wood Thrush before and after expanding gap harvests in on experimental forest units. The results from my thesis provide information on the continued impacts of change on the landscape; both in the form of increasing tick abundances and of novel silvicultural techniques for forest climate adaptation on the forest bird community. Study results illuminate how different silvicultural treatments that are designed to allow forests to adapt to climate change can impact bird populations.

Advisor: Dr. Stephen Matthews