February 10, 2022 What the Breeding Bird Survey tells us about birds and fracking in Appalachia

7 PM via Zoom

Sadie Walker & Ben Blankenship, Hendrix College

The oil and gas fracking boom of the last two decades has altered landscapes in the US through habitat conversion and fragmentation. Sadie and Ben’s study uses data from the Breeding Bird Survey to examine how bird populations are responding to these habitat changes. They will share their findings and consider the future of bird communities near oil and gas development.

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Ben Blankenship is a senior double major in Biology and French at Hendrix College. His primary interests are conservation science, ecology, and the study of evolutionary processes. Following graduation, Ben plans to attend graduate school and work towards a better understanding of human impacts on ecosystems.

Sadie Walker is a senior Health Science major at Hendrix College. Her primary areas of study are biology and chemistry, but she is also drawn to ecology. After graduating from Hendrix, she plans to attend graduate school to study genetics and forensic science. In addition to this research, both Ben and Sadie spent the summer of 2021 studying the impact of deer decomposition on prairie plant and insect communities, as well as banding birds for the Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship Program under the guidance of Dr. Maureen McClung, Associate Professor of Biology at Hendrix.