News from Scientists at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
Monday, July 7, 2003
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Washington Post Spotlight On June 26, Ken Ringle of the
Washington Post interviewed Barnett Rattner of the USGS Patuxent
Wildlife Research Center about the breeding wading bird colony at
Ft. Carroll in Baltimore Harbor, and the potential conflict between
preserving this historic site, which was built by Robert E. Lee
prior to the Civil War, and the damage being done by trees that were
planted in the Fort in which the birds are nesting. Contact Barnett Rattner, Laurel, MD 301-497-5671 Visit by Assistant
Secretary of Water and Science At
the end of June, Paul M. Young, USGS Liaison to the Assistant
Secretary, Water and Science, visited Patuxent to learn more about
amphibians, endangered
species, and constructed or renovated wetlands. Two FWS employees,
currently on detail to the Assistant Secretary's office or to USGS
accompanied Dr. Young. All
three are participating in the management development program.
Contact BH Powell, Laurel, MD, 301-497-5782
Contribution
from the past About 30 years ago
Daniel Higman had been an employee here working under the direction of
Fran Uhler. At
that time he was asked to survey the vegetation in the power line
right-of-way. Power
companies have historically clear cut (typically via bush hog) their
power line rights-of-way which requires cyclical maintenance to
prevent tall growing plant species from contacting the wires. The outcome of Daniel Higman's work has resulted in the
establishment of a low-growing plant community under the wires which
provide shrub habitat for migratory songbirds, and reduced
the right-of-way maintenance cost to the power company.
Mr. Higman’s contribution gives us an historic record of
the native plant species in that area for any studies in the future.
Contact BH Powell,Laurel, MD, 301-497-5782 Peurach provides hair identification to the National Zoo On July 8, 2003,
Suzanne Peurach, Museum Specialist at the PWRC Smithsonian Field
Station (National Museum of Natural History), was asked to identify
mammal hairs recovered from a mesh enclosure at the National
Zoological Park following the death of a Bald Eagle on Independence
Day. Hair samples were
compared to museum voucher specimens of carnivores known from the
area and were identified as Red Fox, Vulpes vulpes. The identification of evidence found in the area may be
useful to the Zoo in their investigation into what caused the death
of this animal. Contact Suzanne C. Peurach,
Washington, DC, 202-357-1865
Ms. Amanda Little recently received funding from the Society of Wetland Scientists for her Ph.D. work on wetlands: "Vegetation changes in response to beaver inhabitation and anthropogenic activity in the wetlands of Acadia National Park". Ms. Little is studying for her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is supported by the Survey's Human Resources Initiative Program. Contact Glenn Guntenspergen , Laurel, MD 218-720-4307 |
Presentation on shrews at meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists, Lubbock, Texas, June 21-25, 2003 Neal Woodman
presented information on a new, small-eared Shrew from Colombia and
its implications for the evolution of the genus Cryptotis.
Woodman and Timm, 1993 previously comprised a limited number
of specimens from the Central and Eastern Cordilleras of Colombia. Recent collecting in the Central Cordillera and review of
older collections from the Eastern Cordillera yielded additional
specimens that permitted re-evaluation of the two geographically
isolated populations of these small-eared shrews and recognition of
the eastern population as a separate species.
The discovery of this new species is of interest, in part,
because all known specimens were collected prior to 1925.
Morphological study of this shrew confirms the distinctions
between South American species belonging to the “Cryptotis
nigrescens-group” and the “Cryptotis thomasi-group.”
One implication of this work is that ancestors of the two
groups of species colonized the Andes separately and subsequently
diversified, rather than the single colonization event previously
hypothesized. Contact Neal Woodman, Washington,
DC, 202-786-2492 Synthesis of scientific knowledge and management needs for invasive coastal wetland plants Patuxent scientist
Dr. Glenn Guntenspergen is co-editor of two new publications that
resulted from a Technical Forum and Workshop on Phragmites australis,
an invasive plant of coastal and interior wetlands of the United
States, which was supported by the U.S.G.S. Eastern Regional Office
State Partnership Program. Phragmites australis: A sheep in wolf’s
clothing – Proceedings from the Technical Forum and Workshop 6-9
January 2002 at Cumberland County College, Vine land N.J. (M. P.
Weinstein, J.R. Keough, G.R. Guntenspergen, and S.Y. Litvin, eds.)
New Jersey Sea Grant Publication #NJSG-03-516 and Estuaries Volume
26 (2B) 2003, Special Issue on Phragmites australis ( M.P.
Weinstein, J.R. Keough, G.R. Guntenspergen, and S.Y. Litvin, Guest
Editors) are joint collaborations between the Patuxent Wildlife
Research Center, New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium, and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, Mid-Continent Ecology Division,
National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory. The
workshop and publications take a fragmented body of knowledge on
Phragmites and provides a national perspective in new
multidisciplinary research to better understand the ecology of
Phragmites australis and its ecosystem level effects on the
functions of coastal wetlands. Contact Glenn
Guntenspergen , Laurel, MD 218-720-4307 Annotated Checklist of Georgia Birds Giff Beaton, Paul
W. Sykes, Jr., and John W. Parrish, Jr. assisted by Bruce Hallett
and William P. Blakeslee. 2003.
Fifth Edition. Occasional
Publ. No. 14, Georgia Ornithological Society ( http://www.gos.org
).
Paper cover, 153 pp. plus 3 pages for notes. This edition of the checklist includes 446 species, of which
407 are on the Regular Species List, 8 on the Provisional, and 31 on
the Hypothetical. This
new publication has been greatly expanded and much revised over the
previous checklist (GOS Occasional Publ. No. 10, 1986, 48 pp., 6x9
inches) to a 7½x10½-inch format with an extensive Literature Cited
section added, 22 species added to the Regular List, 2 to the
Provisional List, and 9 to the Hypothetical List.
Each species account is much more comprehensive over all
previous editions of the checklist.
Among some of the new features are citations for sources of
most information used, high counts of individuals for each species
on the Regular List, extreme dates of occurrence within
physiographic regions, a list of abbreviations and acronyms, and for
each species the highest form of verifiable documentation given with
its repository institution with a catalog number.
This checklist is helpful for anyone working with birds in
the Southeastern United States or birding in that region. Contact Paul Sykes, Atlanta, GA, 706-542-1237 |
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