Courtney Robichaud, intern extraordinaire, presented yesterday at the IAGLR (International Association for Great Lakes Research) 2014 meeting in Hamilton. Her talk profiled research into the impact that European Common Reed, also known as "Phrag," is having on bird communities in Long Point, ON. This region is a World Biosphere Reserve, a provincially significant wetland as well as an Internationally Important Bird Area. The marshes in Long Point represent 70% of the wetlands on the north shore of Lake Erie and the greatest concentration of marsh habitat on the Great Lakes. Invasive species conflict with dozens of at risk and endangered species in the region. Courtney's work is helping us understand how Phrag is changing bird communities.
She presented as part of a whole session on Phrag, co-chaired by Rebecca Rooney and Janice Gilbert. The abstracts from all the talks in this session, including Courtney's, can be found here: http://iaglr.org/conference/downloads/2014_abstracts.pdf