R. William Mannan
My graduate students and I currently are working on a variety of subjects, but the focus is on habitat quality and population dynamics of birds in the urban environments of Tucson, Arizona. Urban landscapes often provide abundant resources for birds, and appear to provide high quality habitat. However, sources of mortality associated either directly or indirectly with people (e.g., disease, electrocution, window strikes, depredation by domestic cats) have the potential to negatively affect urban populations of birds. Long-term monitoring of productivity and survival is one way to evaluate the influence of urban-related sources of mortality, and I currently have on-going, long-term projects on two species, Cooper's hawks, and Harris' hawks. Future projects likely will be associated with some aspect of the ecology of these species, or with the influence of urban settings on birds in general.
