Please join us at 7pm next Thursday, November 5th for our monthly meeting where Eric Margeneau, a PhD student at West Virginia University, will talk about his research on habitat suitability of energy rights-of-way for songbird communities in the central Appalachian region. The meeting will be held virtually. To attend, please sign up to receive a zoom link using this form: https://forms.gle/TnyVAfFCMVkwxRAP8. Please see below for more details about the meeting.
The recent proliferation of energy rights-of-way (pipelines and powerlines; ROWs) in the central Appalachian region has prompted agencies to utilize these features to manage and conserve at-risk songbird species. However, little empirical evidence exists regarding best management strategies to enhance habitat surrounding ROWs for the songbird community. We quantified songbird abundance and species richness in response to various cut-back border treatments along abrupt forest edges of ROWs throughout West Virginia to evaluate their potential for managing the forest songbird community.
Eric is originally from Wisconsin and completed his Bachelors of Science at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota. He then continued on to complete his Masters of Science at Alabama A&M University studying the effects of silviculture practices on breeding songbird communities in the upland hardwood forests of northern Alabama. He is currently completing his PhD at West Virginia University studying the effects of young forest management on the avian and woodland salamander communities along gas pipelines, transmission powerlines, and wildlife openings throughout West Virginia. He recently accepted a post-doctoral research position with the US Forest Service in northern Wisconsin to address moose and deer habitat suitability to various silvicultural strategies and evaluate the impacts of moose-deer interactions under multiple climate change scenarios. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, birding, rock climbing, and camping with his new wife, Lydia.