Maureen Durkin Defends M.S. Thesis

Maureen presents her M.S. capstone seminar.

As the Fall semester came to a close, the Cohen lab celebrated the successful defense of Maureen Durkin's M.S. Thesis, "Impacts of Anthropogenic Disturbance on Breeding Snowy Plovers (Charadrius nivosus) in the Florida Panhandle."    Maureen's thesis work, spanning 120 miles of Florida coastline, compared behavioral and demographic responses of breeding snowy plovers to potential disturbance sources among several sites with varying amounts of recreational use.   She found that birds at lower disturbance sites tended to react to humans at longer distances than birds at higher disturbance sites, and that humans evoked responses from further away than natural predators and competitors but that snowy plovers were most sensitive to dogs.    Much of the current protection effort is focused on nests, but Maureen showed that plovers with broods were highly sensitive to potential disturbance.  Although there was not a clear link between behavioral response to disturbance and reproductive success, she found that proximity to roadways influenced nest survival. 

Maureen is continuing on for her Ph.D. at SUNY-ESF, where she is focused on estimating wildlife road mortality and understanding population limiting factors for snowy plovers in Florida.  Congratulations, Maureen!

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