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Description

Hummingbirds act as important pollinator species in many Western Hemisphere ecosystems. In urban environments, artificial feeders have become an important food resource and may affect hummingbird behaviors that provide important ecosystem services such as pollination. Over the past four years, hummingbirds have been observed and video recorded at feeders on the campus of LMU in order to evaluate how the presence of artificial feeders affect hummingbird behavior and distribution. Additionally, observations are now being recorded at a second Burbank, CA study site where hummingbirds have been consistently fed for the last 40 years and adjacent feeders often attract as many as one hundred birds at the same time. This present study, in part, serves to update and summarize observations from the LMU campus from various independent research projects. We plan to compare basic hummingbird behaviors on the LMU study site with the Burbank location by comparing behaviors and interactions of hummingbirds visiting feeders of varied levels of activity through the analysis of video footage and acoustic recordings. This investigation aims to enrich the understanding of the broader impacts artificial hummingbird feeders may have within the urban environment.

Publication Date

2017

Potential Impacts of Artificial Feeders on Hummingbird Behavior

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