Center for Tropical Research October 2008 Newsletter

Letter from the Director

Dear Friends of CTR,

We face tremendous environmental challenges during this presidential election year. Human activities are altering every ecosystem on our planet and the threat of climate change to biodiversity is becoming more and more apparent. CTR researchers are working to understand these threats, to propose solutions to decision makers, to train a new generation of scientists, and to raise public awareness.

The October 2008 CTR News & Updates feature article by Ryan Harrigan describes the exciting research we have been doing to determine the environmental variables associated with West Nile virus infection rates in Orange County, California. The study examines spatial and temporal patterns of the virus in mosquitoes and birds. Our field report by Karen Kapheim provides a penetrating look into the social behavior of Panamanian sweat bees.

Our team of CTR researchers has made excellent progress this year in our study of avian influenza, helping scientists to better understand disease dynamics. We have received thousands of samples from the organizations and individuals participating in this important work. In addition to collections in North and South America, we have expanded this work to Vietnam and Cameroon.

During this past year, we have made major gains in outreach and fundraising activities for our conservation, training, and research work in Ecuador. Presentations by CTR Latin America Director Jordan Karubian have been drawing large audiences with the help of his outstanding video on the Chocó rainforest.

We have received substantial new grant support this year from federal and state agencies and private foundations. During this year, CTR researchers have carried out field research in West Africa, North, South, and Central America, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Caribbean.

We appreciate your support and welcome contributions to future issues of CTR’s News & Updates.

Best Wishes,
Thomas B. Smith, Ph.D.

Feature Article

Ecological Factors Influencing the Distribution and Transmission of West Nile Virus in Orange County, California
by Ryan Harrigan , Ph.D., Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for Tropical Research, Institute of the Environment, UCLA

Field Report

Natural Selection and Social Behavior in Panamanian Sweat Bees
by Karen Kapheim, Graduate Student, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Center for Tropical Research, Institute of the Environment, UCLA

Updates

Ecuador Project Highlights

Dr. Karubian recently received grants from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the study of migratory birds and from the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund for our community-oriented conservation work in Ecuador. Carol Coote and Sarah and Alex Graves hosted a successful fundraising event on behalf of the Ecuador Project on June 8, and we would like to thank all of the event committee members and everyone who made donations to the project. We hope to see you at our next event, to be held on Sunday, October 19, from 4-6 pm, at the William Turner Gallery in Bergamont Station, in Santa Monica, California (click here for event flyer).

Avian Influenza Project Update

Thanks to the monumental efforts of many volunteer bird banders from the Institute for Bird Populations and the Landbird Monitoring Network of the Americas, over 30,000 cloacal swabs and feather samples have been collected for the North America Avian Influenza Project. In addition, more than 5,000 cloacal and tracheal samples from Africa, 1,500 cloacal tracheal samples from Vietnam, and 5,000 cloacal samples from South America have been collected by researchers affiliated with CTR. Out of the several thousand samples already processed, 2-11% tested positive for the presence of avian influenza. The subtypes have not yet been determined. Rates varied between locations and seasons.

Great progress has also been made in the collaborative study of the transmission of avian strains of influenza between birds and humans. As part of this study, staff researchers from CTR and the UCLA School of Public Health sampled blood from nearly 200 people at the 2008 American Ornithologists’ Union meeting held in Portland, Oregon. These samples, from people with varied exposure to birds, will be tested for immune reactivity to antigens of different subtypes of influenza.

CTR Graduate Students Receive Ph.D.s

Alex Kirschel received his Ph.D. from the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Summer 2008 for his thesis on “How ecology shapes bird song in tropical rainforests: the importance of song in generating biodiversity and structuring communities.” In Fall 2008, he accepted a position as a postdoctoral scholar in the UCLA laboratory of Professor Charles Taylor where he will continue his work in bioacoustics.

Erin Marnocha received her Ph.D. from the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Summer 2008 for her thesis entitled “Evolutionary change in human-altered habitats: morphological shifts, differential selection, and environmental drivers of phenotypic plasticity in the lizard Anolis sagrei.” She is now Project Manager for Once Upon a Watershed, a watershed education and restoration program based in Ojai, California.

Amy Rogers received her Ph.D. from the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Summer 2008. Her dissertation was entitled “Regeneration pattern and process in tropical secondary forest: how recruitment dynamics limit succession.” She will be continuing her conservation work in Ecuador’s northwest Esmeraldas Province as a full-time Research Fellow for the Pinchot Institute for Conservation. Her work is directed at implementing an integrated conservation management plan in the Mache-Chindul Ecological Reserve, one of three remaining expanses of Chocó coastal rainforest in Ecuador.

CTR Welcomes Two New Researchers; CTR Researchers Receive New Appointments

Renata Durães recently received her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-St Louis and joined the research team at CTR. She will be working with CTR Latin America Director Jordan Karubian on research, training, and educational projects in the Chocó rainforests of Ecuador and on fundraising efforts in the U.S.

Elena Berg, who was a postdoctoral scholar at CTR from 2004-2006, has returned for Fall 2008 to conduct research on the population genetic structure of the Southern California population of Tricolored Blackbirds, listed as a “California Species of Special Concern.” This project is funded by Audubon California, by the Sea & Sage, the Pomona Valley, and the Los Angeles chapters of the Audubon Society, and by the California Department of Fish and Game.

Thomas Dietsch, who has been a postdoctoral scholar at CTR since 2005, was appointed to the position of Assistant Researcher at the UCLA Institute of the Environment.

Jordan Karubian, who has been an Assistant Researcher at the Institute of the Environment since 2004, was appointed to the position of Associate Researcher.

Field Research Trips

Wolfgang Buermann and Jaime Chaves traveled to the Galapagos Islands for six weeks in July and August to study phylogeographic associations between Yellow Warbler populations on different islands. They studied genetic, morphologic, plumage, and song variation.

Thomas Dietsch completed field research in the Red River Delta region of northern Vietnam in April 2008 where he worked on a project monitoring wild birds for avian influenza. This research was made possible through support provided by the Office of Health, Infectious Disease and Nutrition, the Bureau for Global Health, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. On September 29, he began fieldwork on a new project in Cameroon. He will be placing 20 GPS satellite transmitters on hornbills to track their long-distance movements and habitat use. Previously, using standard radio telemetry, CTR researchers found that hornbills moved hundreds of kilometers outside of a protected forest reserve during fruit lean times. This work is a collaborative project between CTR, Dr. Martin Wikelski of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, and Dr. David Wilcox of Princeton University. The hornbill project is funded by the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund and the National Geographic Society.

Hilton Oyamaguchi began a three-month field season in Brazil in September where he will be conducting research for his dissertation project, “Exploring the mechanisms of diversification in frogs in the Amazon rainforest.” He is examining the role of ecology resulting in divergence in vocalization and morphology traits in frog species in the transition area between the Amazon rainforest and the Brazilian Cerrado. He recently spent two weeks at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. and the American Museum of Natural History in New York measuring specimens from different populations in this transition zone to help determine his target species.

Raul Sedano is spending six months in Latin America studying evolutionary processes and investigating the distribution of Neotropical birds in the Northern Andes of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. He will also collect bioclimatic and paleoecological data to model spatial shifts in habitat suitability that will provide a historical baseline to evaluate how climate change is affecting avian species in the Neotropics.

Awards, Presentations, and Appointments

CTR Director Tom Smith, along with six CTR graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, attended the AOU/COS/SCO 2008 Meeting sponsored by the American Ornithologists’ Union, the Cooper Ornithological Society and the Society of Canadian Ornithologists/Société des Ornithologistes du Canada. At the meeting, held in Portland, Oregon from August 4-9, Allison Alvarado gave a talk on “Genetic and phenotypic variation across a migratory divide in the Hermit Thrush, Catharus guttatus.” Emily Curd gave a talk on the “Effects of avian migration and anthropogenic change on the distribution and transmission risks of avian influenza.” Ryan Harrigan gave a talk on “Ecological and anthropogenic factors influencing the distribution and transmission of West Nile virus in vector and host populations.” Alex Kirschel gave a talk on “Patterns of phenotypic evolution in two related African barbets.” Henri Thomassen gave a talk on “Facing climate change: a framework for including adaptive variation in conservation prioritization.” Tom Smith gave a talk on “Evolutionary consequences of human disturbance in a rainforest bird.”

Allison Alvarado received a Lida Scott Brown Conference Travel Award from the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology to attend the American Ornithologists’ Union Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon, August 4-8, 2008. She also received a Lida Scott Brown Research Award for the 2008-09 academic year.

Wolfgang Buermann, Tom Smith, and Henri Thomassen attended the 2008 NASA Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop in Adelphi, Maryland held April 28-May 2. Tom Smith gave a presentation at the Biodiversity and Ecological Forecasting Team Meeting on “Quantifying patterns of biodiversity in a changing climate.” Wolfgang Buermann presented a poster on “An analysis of the distribution and prevalence of malaria blood parasites in the Olive Sunbird across West African landscapes.” Henri Thomassen presented a poster on “Conserving adaptive variation: a new direction in conservation prioritization.”

Jaime Chaves received a Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research in May 2008 to investigate different genetic mechanisms and molecular pathways that determine how hummingbird bills are formed in this taxonomic group characterized by dramatic bill shapes. He received the Explorers Club Exploration Fund Award in June 2008 to complete laboratory work for his study on the role of the Andes in hummingbird speciation. He also received a Lida Scott Brown Fellowship for the 2008-09 academic year from the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Thomas Dietsch gave a presentation on “Evaluating avian influenza reservoirs and transmission pathways between wild and domestic birds” at the Surveillance for Avian Influenza in Wild Birds training workshop for the Vietnam Department of Animal Health. The workshop, conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was held April 7-8, 2008 in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Alex Kirschel received a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant in April 2008. In June 2008, he received the Otto H. Scherbaum Award and a Lida Scott Brown Fellowship from the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Erin Marnocha received a Holmes O. Miller Fellowship for Summer 2008 from the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She also received a Conference Travel Award from the department to attend the Society for Conservation Biology 2008 Annual Meeting, held in Chattanooga, Tennessee July 13-17, where she gave a a talk entitled “Anthropogenic habitat alteration drives natural selection in an island lizard.”

Kevin Njabo attended the 12th Pan-African Ornithological Congress in Cape Town, South Africa from September 7-12, where he gave a talk on “A new vector for avian malaria in Cameroon.” At the Congress, he was elected to the Pan-African Ornithological Congress Committee (PAOCC) and will serve from 2008 to 2016.

Hilton Oyamaguchi received a Doctoral Student Research Grant from the UCLA Latin American Institute in June 2008 for his proposed study on the diversification of frogs in the Amazon rainforest.

Raul Sedano received a Lida Scott Brown Fellowship for Summer 2008 and a Lida Scott Brown Research Grant from the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Ben Wang received a Vavra grant for Summer 2008 from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Grants

National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Centers for Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS)
Avian Influenza Surveillance and Capacity Building in Central Africa. Center for Rapid Influenza Surveillance and Research (CRISAR) Research Grant (2008-2012)
National Science Foundation/National Institutes of Health/Fogarty International Center
Avian Influenza Surveillance and Capacity Building in Central Africa (2008-2009). Supplement to: Effects of Deforestation on the Prevalence of Blood-Borne Pathogens in African Rainforest Birds
National Science Foundation
Research Experience for Undergraduates (2008). Supplement to: Effects of Deforestation on the Prevalence of Blood-Borne Pathogens in African Rainforest Birds
Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund
Umbrellabird Conservation in the Chocó (2008-2009)
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Migratory Bird Conservation Act Program
A Multidisciplinary Approach to Conserving Neotropical Migrants in the Ecuadorian Chocó (2008-2010)
Environmental Protection Agency
The Role of Avian Host Dynamics and Anthropogenic Stressors on the Transmission of West Nile Virus and the Implications for Human Health and Biodiversity (2008-2011)
Conservation, Food, and Health Foundation
Conservation Training and Education in the Ecuadorian Chocó (2008)
National Geographic Society
Long-distance Movements and Resource Use by Ceratogymna Hornbills in Central Africa (2008-2009)
The Rufford Small Grants Foundation
Approaches to Correlating Vectors and Diseases in the Rainforests of Cameroon Using Molecular Genetics and Remote Sensing (2008)

Donors

We would like to thank everyone who has contributed to CTR and to the Ecuador Project this year. We would like to give special thanks to donors Margery Nicolson, John Karubian, the Rosenthal Family Foundation, Teens Beyond Boundaries, Marvin Jubas, and Ivan Samuels for their leadership gifts to the Ecuador Project.

Check out our other newsletters at the CTR Newsletter Archive.