Fletcher Smith

• Bachelor of Science
• Wildlife Biologist at Georgia Department of Natural Resources

Mercury (Hg) pollution remains a concern to Arctic ecosystems, due to long-range transport from southern industrial regions and melting permafrost and glaciers. The objective of this study was to identify intrinsic, extrinsic, and temporal factors influencing Hg concentrations in Arctic-breeding shorebirds and highlight regions and species at great...

Red Knots use the Southeast United States as a stopover during north and southbound migration and during the winter. We examined northbound red knot migration routes and timing using an automated telemetry network. Our primary goal was to evaluate the relative use of an Atlantic migratory route through Delaware Bay versus an inland route through th...

Mercury (Hg) pollution remains a concern to Arctic ecosystems. The objective of this study was to identify factors influencing Hg concentrations in Arctic-breeding shorebirds and highlight regions and species at greatest risk of Hg exposure. We analyzed 2,478 blood and feather samples from 12 shorebird species breeding at nine sites across the Nort...

Migratory stopover sites are of high conservation concern especially those sites where shorebirds concentrate in large numbers to acquire fat reserves to fuel continued flight to breeding grounds. Many shorebirds use only a few stopover sites during northward migration to Arctic breeding grounds, thus identifying important locations, migration chro...

Background and Methods Shorebirds evolved flexibility in their migration strategies, with demonstrated variation even within the same population. Research in the last decade revealed diverse migration routes for red knots using the Western Atlantic flyway. Red Knots use the Southeast United States (North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida) as...

Bird species that are restricted to tidal marshes during one or all of their life stages are under increasing pressure from sea-level rise. To date, most of the research focused on this group has been conducted during the breeding season despite the fact that more than half of the annual cycle is spent on wintering grounds and the high likelihood t...

Eastern black rails (Laterallus jamaicensis jamaicensis) are among the rarest and least-studied birds in North America and were recently listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Spatial models that predict habitat quality across the subspecies range are therefore needed to inform conservation, recovery, and monitoring efforts for...

Many long-distance migratory birds use habitats that are scattered across continents and confront hazards throughout the annual cycle that may be population-limiting. Identifying where and when populations spend their time is fundamental to effective management. We tracked 34 adult whimbrels (Numenius phaeopus) from two breeding populations (Macken...

Eastern Black Rails (Laterallus jamaicensis jamaicensis) were surveyed during 1990, 2007, 2014 within the Chesapeake Bay region in Maryland and Virginia, USA. A network of point count locations (n = 182) was established and surveyed within tidal salt marshes. Occupancy declined during the study period from 0.84 0.13 ( SE) in 1990 to 0.06 0.02 in 20...

Each year hundreds of millions of birds cross the Atlantic Ocean during the peak of tropical cyclone activity. The extent and consequences of migrant-storm interactions remain unknown. We tracked whimbrels from two populations (Mackenzie Delta; Hudson Bay) to examine overlap between migration routes and storm activity and both the frequency and con...

Migrant shorebirds operate within a series of landscapes and must adjust their daily activities to achieve seasonal time and energy objectives. Night roosts are essential landscape elements that predators provide safety from predators for many shorebird species. What costs migrants incur to use night roosts and how these costs vary across staging s...

The Arctic is entering a new ecological state, with alarming consequences for humanity. Animal-borne sensors offer a window into these changes. Although substantial animal tracking data from the Arctic and subarctic exist, most are difficult to discover and access. Here, we present the new Arctic Animal Movement Archive (AAMA), a growing collection...

The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has initiated a re-envisioned approach for providing decision makers with the best available science and synthesis of that information, called the Species Status Assessment (SSA), for endangered species decision making. The SSA report is a descriptive document that provides decision makers with an assessment...

For most shorebird species, our understanding of the basic limiting factors and when or where they operate during the annual cycle is currently inadequate to either understand ongoing declines or effectively allocate conservation resources for recovery. Whimbrels (Numenius phaeopus) exhibit delayed recruitment and have low fecundity, and population...

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Many Arctic-breeding shorebirds utilize terminal spring staging areas that are strategically positioned within mid-temperate latitudes. Because these staging areas represent final refueling opportunities and have a direct link to the breeding grounds, the condition of birds and their pattern of departure may influence reproductive performance. A si...

The behavioural rhythms of organisms are thought to be under strong selection, influenced by the rhythmicity of the environment. Such behavioural rhythms are well studied in isolated individuals under laboratory conditions, but free-living individuals have to temporally synchronize their activities with those of others, including potential mates, c...

The behavioural rhythms of organisms are thought to be under strong selection, influenced by the rhythmicity of the environment1-4. Such behavioural rhythms are well studied in isolated individuals under laboratory conditions1,5, but free-living individuals have to temporally synchronize their activities with those of others, including potential ma...

Semipalmated Sandpipers (Calidris pusilla) and Lapland Longspurs (Calcarius lapponicus) share similar nesting habitat preferences on small islands in the Mackenzie River Delta, Northwest Territories, Canada. A Semipalmated Sandpiper was observed incubating a mixed clutch of its own eggs with two smaller eggs presumed to be from a Lapland Longspur....

We captured 1,055 Nelson's (Ammodramus nelsoni) and Saltmarsh (Ammodramus caudacutus) sparrows during the winter season (2006-2014) within the outer Coastal Plain of Virginia to determine the composition of subspecies. Birds were captured using mist nets in 24 tidal salt marshes and identified to subspecies using a plumage-based, syntopic key. Cont...

We captured 1,055 Nelson’s (Ammodramus nelsoni) and Saltmarsh (Ammodramus caudacutus) sparrows during the winter season (2006–2014) within the outer Coastal Plain of Virginia to determine the composition of subspecies. Birds were captured using mist nets in 24 tidal salt marshes and identified to subspecies using a plumage-based, syntopic key. Cont...

Nest failure has often been identified as a factor affecting American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus) survivorship. To examine causes of nest failure, small digital cameras were deployed between 6 April and 15 July 2005 on American Oystercatcher nests on Fisherman Island National Wildlife Refuge located in Northampton County, Virginia. Twenty-...

Dendroica virens waynei (Wayne's Warbler) is a unique, disjunct subspecies of Dendroica viren virens (Black-throated Green Warbler) that is restricted to the South Atlantic Coastal Plain from southeastern Virginia to South Carolina. We surveyed a network of 265 fixed-radius plots to examine seasonal occurrence, spatial distribution, and patterns of...

Nelson's and saltmarsh sparrows (Ammodramus nelsoni and A. caudacutus) have recently been recognized as separate species, and because of their limited distributions and the susceptibility of their wetland habitats to climate change, these two new species are of conservation concern. Both species are known to bioaccumulate mercury at breeding sites...

The Coastal Plain Swamp Sparrow (Melospiza georgiana nigrescens) is morphologically distinct, restricted to a narrowly-defined habitat type, and geographically isolated within the mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain. The breeding range has been considered to extend from the Nanticoke River in Maryland north to the Hudson River. We report a previously undocu...