North American Migratory Bird Species - 1359 Words

North American migratory bird species that forage on air-borne insects, known as aerial insectivores are experiencing widespread regional declines in population, but the cause remains poorly understood (Paquette et al., 2014). Climate change as well pesticides which both cause changes in the abundance of insect prey can be a possible cause (). Agricultural and farming intensification in addition to other land use developments on the birds over-wintering habitat may also be a contributing factor to aerial insectivore decline (Fraser et al., 2012). For example,), have shown that numerous environmental pressures have rapidly decreased the population of many insect species. This has led to a steep decline in aerial foraging bird populations.†¦show more content†¦To begin with, in order to understand mechanisms that influence avian population changes biologists often seek to explore similar characteristics such as biological and ecological similarities that occur across entire â €˜guilds’. A guild in this sense, is a grouping of species sharing a common life-history or an ecological trait such as a shared niche. There are numerous guilds that could be classified according to factors such as comparable habitat and food varieties, reproduction and clutch size, as well as migration and nesting strategies used by the species in question. The guild of ‘aerial insectivores’- consist of birds that feed exclusively on flying insects. These insects include flies, mayflies, moths, butterflies, grasshoppers, crickets, beetles and other insects Aerial insectivores in other words, are classified as a dietary guild because of their similarities in allocating food resources. The guild of aerial insectivores consist of flycatchers, nighthawks, martins, swifts, swallows, and whip-poor-wills As this research essay is constrained in its nature it is thus impractical to spotlight the entire guild of aerial insectivores. In this research essay rather, I will be focusing on one particular species of aerial insectivore: Chrodeiles minor, otherwise known as common nighthawk, a species that consists of nine subspecies that inhabit Canada (as well as the United Sates) during the breeding season from May to