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This page describes my interests and the work going on in my lab.  Use the links to get more information.

I'm interested in the ecology and conservation of birds.  Here are brief descriptions of some ongoing and recently-completed projects.

Winter ecology of Henslow's Sparrows.  We're examining how grassland management affects wintering Henslow's Sparrows in Louisiana and Mississippi.  We've shown that sparrow abundance is tightly linked to growing-season burning, with abundance declining to near zero in most savannas after more than three years without burning (go to the Reprints section for a paper on this, based on Cathy Bechtoldt's thesis).  We've also studied seed availability, diet preference (see Reprints), and winter condition of birds to unravel more of the details of this elusive bird's winter ecology.  Go to the Students section for theses by Jenny DiMiceli, Erik Johnson, and Laura Palasz.  Graduate student Matt Brooks is now working on this project - see the great Henslow's page.

Effects of forest fragmentation on Amazonian birds.  For about 17 years I've been studying birds in experimentally-isolated rainforest fragments in Amazonian Brazil.  This work will continue over the next few years as we continue our long-term mist net sampling and add whole-community surveys.   Our current research is funded by the National Science Foundation through an LTREB grant.  See the Brazil data page for more information on how the long-term data can be shared.

Graduate student Erik Johnson is working on this project.  Our work has led to productive collaborations with many other researchers; see reprints.  We also have a bunch of photographs from our fieldwork in 2007.

Bird communities in swamp forests.  Wetlands that were historically dominated by baldcypress and tupelo gum are disappearing in Louisiana.  We've studied these forests surrounding Lake Maurepas, an area that includes a few remnants of old or regenerating forest, large areas of partially degraded forest with little regeneration, and some areas that were formerly forested that have degraded to open marsh.  Work by former graduate student Jason Zoller showed little difference in the bird communities between regenerating and partially degraded marsh, but much lower abundance of breeding migrants in the open marsh.  Graduate student David Fox continued this work, and also looked at the effects of herbivory by forest tent caterpillars on tree growth for his MS thesis (available under Students).  Dave also coordinated data collection for a study of the effects on birds and alligators of a freshwater diversion into the Lake Maurepas system.

Radar identification of stopover habitat for trans-gulf migrants.  We studied habitat selection by migrants passing through the western Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas system in the spring and fall.  NEXRAD radar shows us where birds lift off at dusk to continue migration.  From this, we are quantifying their distribution in the landscape and stopover habitat preferences.  Jason Zoller worked on this project.  See our final report and a summary.

The images below show liftoff of migrants at dusk on the 5th of May 2004.

Disclaimer: The statements included on this webpage are those of Phil Stouffer only. Any statement or opinions included in these pages are not those of the LSU Agricultural Center, Louisiana State University, the LSU Board of Supervisors or the School of Renewable Natural Resources.  In fact, the aforementioned do not recommend bicycling without a helmet.