Photo © Jeannie Lieb

Dissertation Uses NestWatch Data

Congratulations to Murry Burgess for recently completing a doctoral dissertation entitled “The role of natural and artificial photoperiod on songbird physiology and development” at North Carolina State University. Murry utilized 58,192 nest records from NestWatch spanning from 2000–2019 to examine the influence of natural day length on Eastern Bluebird clutch sizes. The effects of artificial light at night on Barn Swallow nestling development were also investigated in a field study as part of Dr. Burgess’ dissertation.

The full study is available here, and includes some suggestions for how artificial light at night can be reduced.