Otter, Ken - University of Northern British Columbia

研究领域

My main area of research is animal behaviour, particularly in avian reproductive behaviour and communication. My work with chickadees assesses the impact of habitat disturbance and urbanization on the normal breeding and communication behaviours of animals, and most recently the potential for this to result in inter-species hybridization. Starting in 2013, much of this work is focusing a joint research project that Dr. Matt Reudink (Thompson Rivers University) and I have been establishing in the parks and woods around Kamloops, BC with a focus on mountain chickadees. Since 2005, I have also been working with industry, the Canadian Wildlife Service and faculty at UNBC to assess migratory movement patterns of birds around wind farms and airports, and we are extending this work to other areas of bird tracking. Most of my students work in our lab - the Avian Behaviour & Conservation Research Lab, more colloquially referred to as the "Bird Cave". This name came from the fact that we use to be housed in a windowless room in the basement that was rather cavernous. We have since moved to a lab with windows out of the basement, but the name (and logo) has stuck. The work in the lab follows a general theme of determining how habitat alteration impacts the condition, communication and, ultimately, reproduction of birds. The research started off looking at the impacts of settling in poor habitat in black-capped chickadees, and has branched into looking at similar issues in owls (Western Screech and Northern Saw-whet) and white-throated sparrows (work being done with Scott Ramsay at Wilfrid Laurier University). Work on chickadees is branching out to look at effects of urban development, as well as interspecific interactions and hybridization. The most recent focus is looking at the impact of wind farm construction on altering bird migration patterns and landscape use (for breeding or for migratory stop-overs). We are also beginning to address these same issues of spatial movement and collision risk of birds at airports, as well as developing new techniques to track birds across forest gaps. So despite the logo, we haven't started on wrens yet (I just like this drawing and we figured Troglodytes troglodytes was a good species for a 'bird cave'). Graduate students (MSc and PhD) in my lab are part of the Natural Resources and Environmental Studies Graduate Program (NRES) and postdocs would be able to apply to work within the NRES Institute. If you are interested in working in the lab, please contact me about current opportunities and funding potential.

近期论文

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LaZerte, S., Otter, K.A., & Slabbekoorn, H. 2017. Mountain chickadees adjust songs, calls and chorus composition with increasing ambient and experimental noise. Urban Ecosystems. (in press) Accepted Jan 2017 Hahn, A.H., Guillette, L.M, Hoeschele, M., Otter, K.A, Ratcliffe, L.M., & Sturdy, C.B. 2017. Discrimination of male black-capped chickadee songs: Relationship between acoustic preference and performance accuracy. Animal Behaviour (in press) Accepted Jan 2017. Snell, C.L., LaZerte, S.E., Reudink, M.W. & Otter, K.A. 2016. Sympatric song variant in mountain chickadees Poecile gambeli does not reduce aggression from black-capped chickadees Poecile atricapillus. European Journal of Ecology. 2(1): x-x, doi: 10.1515/eje-2016-0006 Zimmerman, H.D., Ramsay, S.M., Mesias, V., Mora, M., Murray, B. & Otter, K.A. 2016. Evolution in white-throated sparrow song: regional variation through shift in terminal strophe type and length. Behaviour 153: 1839–1861. [Chosen as COVER PHOTO for issue] LaZerte, S.E., Slabbekoorn, H. & Otter, K.A. 2016. Learning to cope: vocal adjustment to urban noise is correlated with prior experience in black-capped chickadees. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. 283: 20161058. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.1058 Adams, R.V., LaZerte, S.E., Otter, K.A. & Burg, T.M. 2016. Influence of landscape features on the microgeographic genetic structure of a resident songbird. Heredity. 24 February 2016; doi:10.1038/hdy.2016.12 Hahn, A.H., Hoeschele, M., Guillette, L.M., Hoang, J., McMillan, N., Congdon, J.V., Campbell, K.A., Mennill, D.J., Otter, K.A., Grava, T., Ratcliffe, L.M., & Sturdy, C.B. 2016. Black-capped chickadees categorize songs based on geographic information. Animal Behaviour 112: 93–104. LaZerte, S.E., Slabbekoorn, H., & Otter, K.A. 2015. Sounds of the city: The effects of noise on communication in mountain and black-capped chickadees. Natural Resources & Environmental Studies Institute Research Extension Notes 10. University of Northern British Columbia. LaZerte, S.E., Otter, K.A. & Slabbekoorn, H. 2015. Improving urban acoustics: Urban noise is more detrimental than urban habitat to transmission of chickadee vocalizations. Bioacoustics DOI: 10.1080/09524622.2015.1060531 (published online 25 Aug 2015) Ramsay, S.M. & Otter, K.A. 2015. Geographic variation in white-throated sparrow song may arise through epiphenomena selection. Journal of Ornithology 156:763–773. Kennedy, L. & Otter, K.A. 2015. Grass management regimes to mitigate bird-aircraft collisions; reducing grasshopper availability and subsequently American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) activity at airports. Human–Wildlife Interactions 9: 58–66 Otter, K.A., Hartley, M.I., d’Entremont, M., Johnston, N.N., Walsh, D, Bradley, J., Willie M., & Pomeroy, A.C. 2014. Avian Movement at the Dokie 1 Wind Energy Project 2008-2012: analysis of potential conflict between wind development and avian migration in the northern Rocky Mountains. Natural Resources & Environmental Studies Institute (NRESi) Technical Report #1. University of Northern British Columbia. Prince George, B.C., Canada. (35 pages) Johnston, N.N., Bradley, J.E. & Otter, K.A. 2014. Increased flight altitudes may suggest turbine avoidance by migrating golden eagles at a Rocky mountain wind installation. Plos ONE 9(3): e93030 Ainslie, B., Alexander, N., Johnston, N., Bradley, J., Pomeroy, A.C., Jackson, P.L., & Otter, K.A. 2014. Predicting spatial patterns of eagle migration using a mesoscale atmospheric model: a case study associated with a mountain-ridge wind development. International Journal of Biometeorology. 58: 17-30 Johnston, N.N., Bradley, J.E., Pomeroy, A.C. & Otter, K.A. 2013. Flight paths of migrating Golden Eagles and the risk associated with wind energy development in the Rocky Mountains. Avian Conservation & Ecology 8(2): 12. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ACE-00608-080212 Grava, T., Fairhurst G.D., Avey M.T., Grava A., Bradley J., Avis J.L., Bortolotti G.R, Sturdy C.B. & Otter K.A. 2013. Habitat quality affects early physiology and subsequent neuromotor development of juvenile black-capped chickadees. Plos ONE 8: e71852 (10 pages) Grava, T., Grava A. & Otter K.A. 2013. Habitat-induced changes in song consistency affect perception of social status in male chickadees. Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology. 67:1699-1707 Hahn, A.H., Guillet, L.M., Hoeschele, M., Mennill, D.J., Otter, K.A., Grava, T., Ratcliffe, L.M. & Sturdy, C.B. 2013. Dominance and geographic information contained within black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) song. Behaviour. 150: 1601-1622. DOI:10.1163/1568539X-00003111. (Article was highlighted with the coverphoto for this issue of the journal) Grava, A., Otter, K.A Grava, T., & LaZerte, S. 2013. Character displacement in dawn chorusing behaviour of sympatric mountain and black-capped chickadees. Animal Behaviour 86: 177-187 Grava, A., Grava, T., & Otter, K.A. 2012. Differential response to interspecific and intraspecific signals amongst chickadees. Ethology 118: 711–720. Grava, A., Grava, T, Didier, R., Lait, L., Koran, E., Dosso, J., Burg, T. & Otter, K.A. 2012. Interspecific dominance relationships and hybridization between black-capped and mountain chickadees. Behavioural Ecology 23: 566-572. Grava, T. Grava, A & Otter, K.A. 2012. Vocal performance varies with habitat quality in the black-capped chickadee. Behaviour 149 : 35–50. Otter, K.A., Murray, B.W., Holschuh, C.I. & Fort, K.T. 2011. Rare insights into intraspecific brood parasitism and apparent quasi-parasitism in black-capped chickadees. Animal Biodiversity & Conservation 34: 23-29 Thomas, P.J., Labrosse, A.K, Pomeroy, A.C. & Otter, K.A. 2011. Effects of weather on avian migration at proposed ridgeline wind energy sites. Journal of Wildlife Management. 75: 805-815 Lambrechts, M., Adriaensen, F., Ardia, D. R., Artemyev, A. V., Atiénzar, F., Bańbura, J., Barba, E., Bouvier, J.-C., Camprodon, J., Cooper, C. B., Dawson, R. D., Eens, M., Eeva, T., Faivre, B., Garamszegi, L. Z., Goodenough, A., Gosler, A., Grégoire, A., Griffith, S. C., Johnson, L. S., Kania, W., Keišs, O., Llambias, P. E., Mainwaring, M. C., Mänd, R., Massa, B., Mazgajski, T. D., Møller, A.P., Moreno, J., Naef-Daenzer, B., Nilsson, J.-Å., Norte, A. C., Otter, K. A., Park, C. R., Perrins, C. M., Pinowski, J., Porkert, J., Potti, J., Remes, V., Richner, H., Shiao, M.-T., Silverin, B., Slagsvold, T., Smith, H. G., Sorace, A., Stenning, M. J., Stewart, I., Thompson, C. F., Török, J., van Noordwijk, A. J., & Ziane, N. 2010. The design of artificial nestboxes for the study of secondary hole-nesting birds: a review of methodological inconsistencies and potential biases. Acta Ornithologica 45:1-26.