Every few years, researchers studying birds in Alaska gather for a small conference to share ideas and report on their findings. This year, the Alaska Bird Conference was held in Cordova, a sleepy fishing town tucked away in a remote arm of Prince William Sound. Noteworthy talks included a report on the recent mass die-off of common murres and subsequent near total breeding failure throughout the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea, and new evidence supporting a virus as the likely source of a deadly outbreak of beak deformities effecting black-capped chickadees and hundreds of other bird species across Alaska. My main reason for attending, aside from these talks and presenting the work I'm doing with Point Blue on Cassin's auklets, was to get away from the interior for a week and see the ocean again.
science
Calculating Growth /
Figure 1. Noosa's predicted growth (blue line) as a function of her age. Polynomial equation derived from actual weight measurements (orange points) from 6 different vet visits throughout her development.
The most popular question we get from people who meet our dog Noosa for the first time is, "She's huge for a puppy! How big will she get?". Since Noosa's is a mix of many different breeds, specifically Maremma, Saint Bernard, Newfoundland, Great Pyrenees, and Bernese Mountain Dog (see family photos below), we can't just look at examples of other dogs to gauge her final adult size. There's no doubt she'll be big, but just how remains a bit of a mystery? One way to estimate this is to use a model based on her observed weights to predict how much she might weigh in the future. A simple approach is to fit the observed values with a polynomial equation (Fig. 1), which doesn't perform well for ages less than 20 days old (negative weights), but fits the rest of the data pretty well. Another method would be to use more complex equations with additional terms, such as Von Bertalanffy model or some other growth equation. Either way, based on a simple polynomial fit, it looks like she will likely max out at just over 80 pounds; which is what we would expect based on her parental recipe.
The mom
The dad (right)
NPRB 2016 Photography Contest /
The North Pacific Research Board (NPRB) consists of a group of advisory panels aimed at identifying and supporting research geared towards fisheries management and ecosystem health in Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands, Bering Sea, and Arctic Ocean. They offer competitive graduate student awards of up to $25,000 for projects related to issues in these areas. NPRB also puts out an annual calendar showcasing photographs of field work and wildlife from marine environments throughout Alaska and Russia. Although I didn't receive the cash prize, my photo of a tufted puffin from St. Paul Island did made the honorable mention list. Visit www.nprb.org/nprb/annual-photo-contest/ to see the winning entries.
Pacific Seabird Group /
This past February, I presented some preliminary results of my thesis work at the 43rd annual Pacific Seabird Group meeting on Oahu, Hawaii. I ran a series of logistic regression models in R to test the probability of second brooding in Cassin's auklets against a set of environmental and biological variables. I found that increased June upwelling strength, older female parents, and early lay dates best explained the variation in double brooding rates on Southeast Farallon Island. The poster I presented took home first place in the graduate student paper category.