Dark-eyed Juncos: Adaptations to the Urban Environment
"Dark-eyed Juncos: Adaptations to the Urban Environment" will be presented by Ellie Diamant and Samuel Bressler.
Ellie Diamant is a behavioral ecologist and evolutionary biologist interested in the interaction between human-caused environmental change and wildlife response, particularly birds in the built environment. She is currently a Zuckerman Postdoctoral Scholar at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Previously she conducted her doctoral research at UCLA with Pamela Yeh. She explored how populations respond to multiple stressor interactions, with an emphasis on the pattern and process of behavioral and morphological adaptation in an urbanizing songbird, the Dark-eyed Junco, across Southern California cities.
Sam Bressler is a Biological Consultant with LSA Associates, Inc. specializing in the birds of Southern California. He is also a long-time volunteer and former board member of Sea and Sage Audubon Society and compiles the organization's Puente-Chino Hills Christmas Bird Count.
Dark-eyed Juncos are a model species to study urban adaptation and response in California. Diamant and Bressler will discuss their six years of research into how juncos are being shaped by the urban environment and the patterns and processes underlying their adaptation to the urban environment . Dark -eyed Juncos exhibit differences and similarities in morphological evolution across Southern California , potentially in relation to behavioral innovation. Behaviorally, urban juncos have lower fearfulness across cities and nivel nesting behavior. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to explore how these behaviors are shaped by human activity, demonstrating key insights on behavioral adaptations to city living.
