It’s a calculation any human parent can relate to – how much time and effort must be devoted each day to care for a child, while at the same time ensuring enough energy remains for the parent’s own self-care.

University of Northern British Columbia Ecosystem Science and Management Professor Dr. Russ Dawson is examining that universal dynamic, but using birds as his subject.

Dawson received a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Discovery Grant for $200,000 to look at how avian parents allocate resources to maximize lifetime reproductive output, and how environmental constraints influence these strategies.

“Using tree swallows, a species of small songbird, we will test how variable conditions and demands influence parental decisions regarding investment in offspring versus self-maintenance, how the sexes resolve conflicts over optimal levels of parental care, and the consequences of these decisions for offspring performance,” Dawson says.

The project will also examine how early-life conditions can impact adult reproductive performance and how it might even affect future generations of tree swallows.

“Using long-term data, we will test how natal conditions of individuals influence lifetime reproductive success and adult phenotype, and whether they are transgenerational and carry over to influence the performance of subsequent generations,” Dawson says.

Tree swallows and other birds that eat flying insects are known as aerial insectivores and their populations are in steep decline across North America. Part of the research in this project will also look at what role microplastics may be playing as the number of birds continues to fall.

“We will assess whether microplastics are transferred within food webs, and their effects on higher trophic level organisms such as insectivorous birds,” Dawson says. “This research will clarify the degree to which insectivorous birds are exposed to microplastics, and may help identify possible causes of population declines in this group of birds.”

As major resource extraction projects continue around the region, Dawson says UNBC is well situated to host his research.

“Birds are an excellent indicator of environmental degradation, and my past and future work on birds to understand the basic reproductive biology of these organisms is a critical step in developing strategies to mitigate impacts of resource development on wildlife,” Dawson says. “UNBC is one of Canada’s premier small, research-intensive universities, and this research program prepares students that participate in it in areas of high relevance to our region, province and beyond.”

The project, titled Reproductive Effort and Success in Birds, will fund one post-doctoral fellow at UNBC, along with two doctoral students, two master’s students and one undergraduate thesis student. Also, there will be opportunities for students to gain knowledge and experience working as undergraduate research interns over the next five summers.