Birds of the Llanos

How are well known tropical birds, such as parrots, coping with climate change? This is what Great Wilderness biologists Karl Berg and Soraya Delgago hope to determine. Working in association with the University of California, Berkeley and Cornell Unverisity, Karl and Soraya are currently on their fifth annual expedition to the Venezuelan Llanos, one of South America's most extensive wetlands. As part of a long-term monitoring bird monitoring program, the Great Wilderness biologists spend the entire nesting season - from June through December - in the field.

The subject of their research is the green-rumped parrotlet Forpus passerinus, a small parrot of grasslands and gallery forest, common to the Llanos of Colombia and Venezuela. The study is now in its 22nd year of data collection for this particular population, making it likely the longest ongoing study of any bird species in continental South America and certainly the most exhaustive study of any parrot species.

What is daily life like? What exactly is being studied? Karl and Soraya together with Venezuelan biologists document over a hundred nest attempts in a season, band hundreds of birds and recapture/resight thousands of birds banded in previous years. The daily routine consists of monitoring the reproduction and demographics of this charismatic bird. They also conduct bi-monthly phenological monitoring of 1 km of food plant transects.

So why this bird in this remote location? Basic parrot biology is poorly known and parrots are the most threatened family of birds on Earth - owing to habitat alteration, illegal pet trafficking and particular attributes of population biology specific to parrots that make them less likely to bounce back from the effects of the above. Studies like this one help determine survivorship of this parrot. Long-term studies such as these are especially important given the uncertain climatic future.

The main focus of recent expeditions is acoustic communication. This year they are conducting audio-video monitoring inside and outside several active nests in order to determine how nestlings develop vocal signatures.

The basic biology of vocal learning is still poorly known in parrots, especially wild parrots. However, this research could also be important for understanding success/failure projects that attempt to introduce captive bred parrots of threatened species into wild populations, a process which requires social integration of naive birds into established populations.

For detailed information on the green rumped parrotlet monitoring program:
Beissinger Lab - University of California, Berkeley