MBF Seminar Series
KUSHLAN CHAIR CANDIDATE
Mark Hauber
Hunter College, CUNY
Living in
crowds: tracking reproductive and foraging
strategies in colonial seabirds
Colonial seabirds perform some of the most complex
biological tasks: they return from trans-oceanic
migration to land within feet of their natal nest
site, they accurately recognize mates and young
amongst hundreds or thousands of nests of mostly
hostile neighbors, and they successfully locate and
feed on unpredictable prey distributed across a
habitat with few or no permanent landmarks. Using a
combination of remote tracking, biochemical sampling,
and behavioral survey methods, this work focuses on
native seabirds managed actively for long-term
conservation targets across the New Zealand
archipelago, identifying both the proximate bases of
highly-reliable recognition mechanisms, and the
evolutionary consequences of the inevitable errors
generated by complex biological systems.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7,
2013
12noon
RSMAS
campus, S/A 103
