Photo © Marie Read

Golondrinas de las Americas is a community of biologists dedicated to studying tree swallows and their tropical nearest relatives from Alaska to Argentina, combining detailed studies of the breeding biology of the birds with standardized sampling of the swallows’ aerial insect prey. This network will allow us to monitor the effects of weather and insect density on avian breeding on both short and long time scales at a hierarchy of spatial scales across the entire Western Hemisphere.

This long-term, correlative monitoring has obvious merit for studies of:

  • global change
  • differences between tropical and temperate ecosystems
  • tropical-temperate life history difference in birds and insects.

We now have sites established in Alaska, New York, Tennessee and Belize, with many other sites and collaborators from Maine to Argentina in various stages of development (map).
A Diversity
of Biologists

We hope to attract a diversity of biologists to this collective, including ornithologists, entomologists, physiologists, and others. Core members of the collective would be committed to maintaining a research site for at least 10 years, and would contribute to the core database maintained at Cornell by gathering a nominal quantity of data in a standardized way on non-experimental nests. On shorter time-horizons we envision a set of detailed standardized observations and experiments conducted at a sub-set of nests at each site across the entire collective.

We know of no other opportunity to test hypotheses and make standardized observations in this way across the entire Western Hemisphere. For most members, the opportunity to take an active part in the design and execution of such experiments, to be conducted at numerous sites in the collective, is likely the greatest attractant to membership.

If you wish to participate in or help us with Golondrinas de las Americas, please contact David Winkler (dww4@cornell.edu) or Peter Wrege (phw2@cornell.edu).
Tachycineta Swallows

Swallows in the genus Tachycineta are particularly suited for comparative studies because they share very similar foraging strategies and are totally dependent on other species for manufacturing the tree holes (or nest boxes) that they require for breeding. Thus they are:

  • uncommonly tenacious and resistant to disturbance
  • excellent subjects for detailed observations and experiments
  • rich sources of educational opportunities with students of a broad range of ages and abilities.
 
Collaborative Projects
Given that we are just getting started with this project, this may seem like putting the cart before the horse, but I‘d like to get some of this out in the open right at the start so that no-one joining us has any misunderstanding of what we have in mind. There are two potential problem areas, I think.

Data ownership: Data submitted to us is the property of the collective. It cannot be used by anyone outside the collective without the advance E-mail approval of all active members of the collective. All members of the collective will be encouraged to use the data from all sites, provided that all members whose data are used are offered full coauthorship in any papers that result. Final and/or published analyses of the data will be made available to the public via the Golondrinas web-site, and these can be used by anyone outside the collective provided that the prescribed acknowledgement is given. We anticipate that many members of Golondrinas will be doing experiments and collecting data that are not appropriate for the larger view provided by the collective. There will be no reason to send such data to the Golondrinas database, and they of course remain the sole property of the member.

Authorship: All members who were responsible for data used in an analysis will be offered authorship on any published paper based on those data. In monitoring papers, the lead author(s) will be the individual(s) who take(s) the initiative in getting the data analyzed and the manuscript submitted for publication. For experimental papers, lead authors will be those who first suggested the idea on the ‘Research Initiatives’ part of this site, and who took the lead in developing protocols and disseminating them to members and getting the results to press. After the lead authors, authors will be listed in descending order according to the amount of data they submitted to the dataset analyzed, with ties being resolved alphabetically. In the (we hope rare!) cases where there is a dispute over the order of authorship, David Winkler will adjudicate a resolution if the authors are unable to do so on their own. If he is forced to do so, he will notify all members of his reasons for arriving at his decision.

--DWW, 3 January 2001
Current Participants

Daniel R. Ardia - Ph.D. Candidate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell. Frequent visitor in Ithaca, and Coordinator of the Fairbanks and Tennessee sites.

Peter Dunn - Professor in the Department of xx at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Co-coordinator of the Saukville Site.

Merideth Bradford Clebsch - Owner/Manager of the Native Gardens native plant nursery. Co-coordinator of the Loudon County Site.

Thomas Gardali - Conservation biologist with PRBO Conservation Science (formerly the Point Reyes Bird Observatory).  Coordinator of the Olema Marsh site.

Sacha Heath - Research biologist with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory. Coordinator of the Lee Vining Site.

Santiago Imberti - Avid naturalist and eco-tourism guide in Argentina who works also for the Glaciares National Park. Coordinator of the Cabo Virgenes Site in Patagonia.

Wes James - Wildlife biologist with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Co-coordinator of the Loudon County Site.

Martín Quiroga - A biologist with strong interests in the ecology and behavior of birds, and a drive to do graduate work in the USA. Coordinator of the Santa Fe Site in Argentina.

David Shutler - Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Acadia University, and overlord of the Wolfville Site.

David Tzul - Naturalist at the Hill Bank Field Station of the Programme for Belize. Coordinator of the Hill Bank Site.

Jan Wasserman - Naturalist and enthusiastic swallow researcher in southern California. Coordinator of the Saticoy Site.

David W. Winkler - Associate Professor and Curator of Birds in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. Co-Coordinator of the Ithaca Site, and of the Golondrinas Program.

Linda Whittingham - Assistant professor in the Department of Biology, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Co-cordinator of the Saukville Site.

Peter H. Wrege is the Senior Research Associate in Wink‘s lab in the Department of E&EB at Cornell. Co-Coordinator, with Wink, of the Ithaca Site, and of the Golondrinas Program.

Noah Hamm is the research assistant in Wink's lab and is currently overseeing the fieldwork at the Ithaca site