Susannah Lerman

Picture of First Last
OEB Ph.D. Candidate
B.S., University of Delaware, 1994
M.S., Antioch New England Graduate School, 2005
Faculty Advisor: Paige Warren, Environmental Conservation
slerman@cns.umass.edu

Research Interests

Impacts of urbanization on bird community structure

As our world becomes increasingly urbanized, understanding how to conserve biodiversity while creating landscapes

compatible with humans is one of the century's greatest conservation challenges. The broad goal of my research is to evaluate the conservation value of residential landscapes for preserving native bird communities. I am investigating if different landscape designs have the potential to alleviate urbanization pressures on avian biodiversity, and how landscape features influence native bird distribution. My research is part of the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research site (CAP LTER), one of two urban research sites sponsored by the National Science Foundation. I focus on the patterns of bird distributions within residential yards and the mechanisms driving these patterns.

I use a multivariate approach to identify the factors having the greatest influence on structuring urban bird communities. I explore the relationships among landscape features, the degree of urbanization and socioeconomic factors with the bird community in residential yards. Socioeconomic factor s have largely been ignored in urban ecology studies even though decisions for different landscaping designs are driven by socioeconomic factors such as a landowner's ethnicity, education and income. By including these variables, my research has highlighted environmental inequities between social classes.

My research also addresses the mechanisms behind urban bird patterns of high densities but low diversity. Using Optimal Foraging Theory as a framework, I conduct foraging experiments within different landscape designs in residential yards. I test how predation risk, competition and elevated resources structure urban bird communities by measuring Giving Up Densities.