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Stopover Biology Of Migratory Landbirds In A Heavily Urbanized Landscape, The New York Metropolitan Area, Chad L. Seewagen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Migration routes of many Nearctic-Neotropical landbirds pass through the most urbanized regions of North America. Migrants use urban habitat fragments as stopover sites and commonly occur in cities at exceptional density. Yet, knowledge of migrant stopover biology and refueling opportunities in such places is severely limited. This dissertation examined several aspects of migrant stopover biology in the New York metropolitan area to gain a more holistic understanding of how migratory landbirds utilize urban stopover sites, and ultimately to assess the quality of urban habitats as stopover sites. I first generated morphometric predictive models using salvaged bird specimens to allow me …