The University of Alaska Foundation announced March 4 that Danielle Gerik, a graduate student in fisheries and ocean sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is the recipient of the 2016 Angus Gavin Memorial Migratory Bird Research Grant.
The award is provided to support research on bird species found either permanently or seasonally in Alaska or its coastal waters, including their biology, general ecology and habitat relationships. Gerik received the $12,046 award for her research proposal entitled “Investigation of Shorebird Diet using Genetic Analyses of Feces from Captive fed and Wild-caught Adults and Young.”
Gerik’s study will help document the prey eaten by shorebirds, prey availability and the timing of the breeding season to find the impact of shorebird growth and survival. The study will help researchers and natural resource managers understand how the timing of key ecological events can impact wildlife abundance. The study will also complement the U.S. Geological Survey’s Changing Arctic Ecosystem Initiative, which projects habitat change and potential species’ responses in order to better manage natural resources in the Arctic.
