By Richard B. Primack
“It is well to find your employment and amusement in simple and homely things. These wear best and yield the most.” Henry David Thoreau in his Journal.
Boston University sent out a graphic tweet on X letting the public know about our recent article on using newly-digitized records to evaluate large-scale patterns of wildlife health. It is striking how years of work presented in a lengthy article can be condensed down to a few sentences.
Here is a link to the X post: LINK
By Richard B. Primack and Isabel Garon
"How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?" Henry David Thoreau in Walden.
If you live anywhere in Massachusetts and want to learn about birds, the Brookline Bird Club (BBC) is the place to go. The BBC hosts a rich program of bird-related activities, including birding field trips in the Boston area and throughout New England, lectures on birding in exotic locations, workshops on bird identification, and presentations about gardening to attract birds.
Photo: Blue-winged Warbler calling. Photo courtesy of Christopher Ciccone.
The BBC accepts members from anywhere in the region. Young people are especially encouraged to join, with some having gone on to professional careers related to birds and conservation. As club member Neil Calabro emphasizes, “The BBC is important in getting the next generation of birders going, which is important for conservation and generally keeping people connected to nature.”
The BBC maintains an active website where you can learn about field trips and other club activities, sign up for membership, and view many photographs of birds taken by club members.
See a longer version of the article in the Brookline News.
By Richard B. Primack
“May I go to my slumbers as expecting to arise to a new & more perfect day.” Henry David Thoreau in his Journal.
From mid-September into October, bumblebees sleep overnight on the flower heads of our New England aster plants. In the morning, the bees are often damp from dew and remain motionless until warmed by the sun.
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| Photo 1: Many bumblebees sleep overnight on aster flowers. |
If the day is cold and rainy, bees may stay all day on the flowers without moving. These bees are likely males that have permanently left their nest, and possibly female workers too cold to return home.
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| Photo 2: In the morning, bees are motionless and damp. |
When the sun comes out and the air gets warmer, bees return to their activity, energetically flying from flower to flower until the sun sets and the air becomes cold again.
Video: When the sun comes out, bees resume their speedy foraging activities.
By Richard B. Primack
“I hear an owl hoot. How glad I am to hear him rather than the most eloquent man of the age.” Henry David Thoreau in his Journal.
A new study of 674,320 recently digitized records from 94 wildlife rehabilitation (rehab) centers in the U.S. and Canada revealed that most wildlife injury and sickness cases were caused by human activities such as vehicle accidents, fishing-related incidents, and window or building collisions. Further, some extreme weather events linked to climate change, such as storms and floods, were followed by higher rates of admittance to wildlife rehab centers.
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| Figure 1. Map of locations in the U.S. and Canada where study animals were found (blue dots) before being brought to wildlife rehab centers (red dots) (© Miller et al. 2023, Biological Conservation). |
This study is the first to use digitized rehab records to form a comprehensive picture of the threats impacting over 1,000 animal species. Until recently, most wildlife rehab records existed only on paper forms, which made them inaccessible to researchers.
The study identified wildlife threats by region and for iconic and endangered species. For example, vehicle collisions were the most common cause of admission for Great horned owls; Bald eagles were most-commonly detected with lead poisoning.
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| Photo 1. Great horned owls, like this patient at the Wildlife Center of Virginia, are frequently affected by vehicle collisions and other human disturbances (© Wildlife Center of Virginia). |
On average, only about one-third of animals brought into rehab centers are eventually released back into the wild, though this number varies greatly among species (e.g., 68% of Brown pelicans are released, but only 20% of Bald eagles).
Policy changes that can help protect wildlife from threats include building additional wildlife road crossings; improving regulations relating to fishing, hunting, and pesticide use; and incorporating wildlife into local disaster management plans.
Full article can be found at: LINK
By Richard B. Primack
“What do we have to do with petty rumbling news? We have our own great affairs.” Henry David Thoreau in his Correspondence.
Three recent news articles highlighted our research:
Budburst, a national citizen science project, featured our research program in their September 2023 newsletter. The article (reproduced below) highlighted our innovative use of Henry David Thoreau’s phenology records combined with modern observations to demonstrate the ecological effects of climate change.
Meet Dr. Richard Primack, Professor of plant ecology at Boston University.
Dr. Primack’s work combines historical records, like those of the famous writer Henry David Thoreau during the 1850s, with more recent observations of phenology to detect the fingerprints of climate change on plants and birds. He also loves to explore new ways to study phenology, like by using museum specimens, photographs, old diaries, and branch clippings.
Much of Dr. Primack’s research takes place in Concord, Massachusetts, where his team is building on the phenological observations of hundreds of bird and plant species made by Thoreau, other local naturalists, and citizen scientists over the past 170 years. He and his team also study phenology at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University in Boston, a botanical garden with hundreds of species of trees from around the world growing in one place. Dr. Primack collaborates with colleagues in Japan, South Korea, China, Japan, and Denmark, countries that have long traditions of recording phenology.
Dr. Primack’s research has revealed that climate change is likely disrupting ecological relationships between birds and plants, and between forest trees and the wildflowers that grow on the forest floor. Forest trees, for example, are leafing out earlier relative to wildflowers in the northeastern US, shading forest floors earlier in the spring and leaving wildflowers with less sunlight to help them grow. In addition, the spring arrival times of birds is changing more slowly in response to climate change than the phenology of plants, with likely negative consequences for birds.
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| Photo 1: Richard Primack monitoring fall phenology. |
BU Today had a short article on our research on pollinators and pollinator gardens in Newton being carried out by undergrads Selby Vaughn and Katia Landauer. One major finding was that there were always mixtures of honeybees, native bees, and other insects on common native and cultivated plants, suggesting that honeybees and native bees can coexist in a suburban landscape.
See the article here: LINK
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| Photo 2: Richard Primack and Selby Vaughn monitoring a pollinator garden. |
The Boston Globe interviewed Richard for an article on the effects of the current warm and wet autumn on the fall foliage colors expected for New England. One prediction is that the fall foliage season will be somewhat later than usual, but the colors should be vibrant.
See the article here: LINK
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| Photo 3: New England is known for its beautiful fall foliage. |
