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Interview Dee Boersma

Jeff Smith

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Graduate Student
jrs2@u.washington.edu

I started in the graduate program here at UW in the fall of 2010 working with Dee Boersma in the Biology Department and Aaron Wirsing in the School of Forest Resources. I grew up in Missoula, Montana where I spent much of my childhood camping, backpacking, fishing and whitewater rafting. I am guessing that much of this time outdoors has pushed me toward my current fascination in field ecology. I graduated from UW in 2006 with a degree in General Biology and a minor in Anthropology. I then volunteered and worked for the Magellanic Penguin Project from August 2006 to April of 2009 spending two full breeding seasons and part of a third at our field site at Punta Tombo, Chubut, Argentina. The remainder of the time not in the field I was in the lab entering and analyzing data and writing reports and papers. In April of 2009 I was offered a position working with Kay Holekamp and the Hyena Research Project in the Masai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya which I did for ten months collecting data on the behavioral ecology of Spotted Hyenas and helping monitor prey populations and general ecosystem health. In February 2010 I left Kenya and returned to Argentina for a two month field season to finish collecting data on a project on molting in penguins. I am currently in the graduate program in the School of Forest Resources.

Interests: 

Research Interests: My research focus for my graduate project is one of both behavioral ecology of Magellanic Penguins and also predation pressure on penguins. I am interested in how differences in the levels of aggression between individual penguins affects things such as reproductive success, lifespan, etc. In 2006 we first sighted a large species of fox in the colony and have subsequently seen a drastic increase in penguin mortalities. In 2009 we began to see signs of puma. Both species were not seen in this area in at least 30 years. I am going to use a technique developed at UC Davis to identify which species of carnivores are killing the penguins using DNA from saliva swabs taken from puncture marks on depredated penguins. I am also intensively monitoring these mortalities to try and determine what contribution they will make to the already declining penguin population.

Publications: 

• Kane, O.J., J.R. Smith, P.D. Boersma, N.J. Parsons, V. Strauss, and C. Villanueva. 2010. Feather disorders in two Spheniscus penguin species. Waterbirds 33(3): 415-421.

• Smith, J.R., O.J. Kane, and P.D. Boersma. Culpeo fox (Lycalopex culpaeus) immigration to Punta Tombo, Argentina. Manuscript in prep.

• Kane, O.J., M.M. Uhart, V. Rago, A.J. Pereda, J.R. Smith, A. Van Buren, and P.D. Boersma. Historical observations of a pox like disease in Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus). Manuscript in prep.