Rachel Villani, M.S.
Degree/Completion Date
December 2009
Thesis Title
Shorebird Use of Rice Fields at Multiple Scales
I was born in Metairie, Louisiana and grew up in the swamp (St. Rose, LA) and later in the woods (Bush, LA) watching birds, riding my bike, and avoiding being inside. In high school I figured out what I wanted to do, which led me to LSU where I majored in Wildlife and Fisheries and graduated in May 2007. After college graduation and a quick family trip to Vegas, I started my master’s work in June 2007 and assumed the title of “shorebird girl.”
During college I had many different jobs (everything from movie theatre manager to stall cleaner at a horse barn), but in 2006 I was hired by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to work at a MAPS bird banding station in Krotz Springs, LA at Sherburne WMA and then stayed on as student worker after that summer to work with the Forestry Section.
I spend almost all of my time keeping up with my research projects (yep, there are two of them). With the time that is left over I get out and spend time with friends on the rare occasion that I’m in Baton Rouge. I also like to travel (I’m an expert at speed tourist-ing), play softball/kickball, watch baseball, and have a good time with good people and good food.
My Research:
More than 3 billion acres of rice are produced each year in the US, and Louisiana alone in 2007 produced almost 370,000 acres, with production concentrated in the southwestern region of the state. Rice is planted in March-May which coincides with spring shorebird migration. Shorebirds use rice fields primarily for foraging, utilizing the mudflats and shallow water areas that rice fields provide in the spring during the planting and early growth stages. Southwestern Louisiana is actually a mosaic of rice fields, row crop fields, crawfish ponds, pastures, and residential/urban areas.
While that may be true now, historically southwestern Louisiana consisted of coastal prairie and associated wetlands. Now virtually all the coastal prairie has been converted to other uses, which is why NRCS has proposed a coastal prairie restoration project through the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). There is concern that the restoration of rice fields to coastal prairie will reduce the amount of currently available shorebird habitat. Through the use of modeling, we have predicted the areas of southwestern Louisiana that should be more suitable for shorebirds based on several factors, and found that most of the predicted suitable habitat falls outside of the proposed coastal prairie restoration area. However the model requires validation and the effects of local and landscape habitat characteristics on shorebird use of these areas needs further evaluation.
