Native Bird HabitatJaime Coon

Jaime J. Coon and Scott Nelson are PhD candidates at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They are collaborating on a project titled, “Exploring the impacts of an invasive grass on grassland bird habitat selection, behavior, and fitness.” Jaime’s research combines ecological and sociological data to understand how productive grasslands can be restored to support avian biodiversity in the context of invasive plant management. Her role in this collaborative project is exploring how invasive tall fescue affects the food resources available to breeding birds at multiple spatial scales. Scott’s research focuses on understanding how the structure and composition of vegetation in tallgrass prairies influences the habitat preferences and reproductive success of grassland birds. This study investigates how invasions of the exotic tall fescue grass into grasslands affects vegetation cover and food supplies for breeding grassland birds. His main role in the project is to quantify avian habitat selection and reproductive success (e.g. nest survival, fledgling production, offspring condition).