Past Brown Bags

An estimated 100 million to 1 billion bird deaths occur worldwide annually as a result of window strikes, a mortality rate second only to habitat destruction. Numerous cities have documented large numbers of both daytime and nighttime collisions with windows on glassy buildings. No study has ever measured the magnitude of this occurrence in Portland, and our urban landscape is undergoing rapid changes, with new architecture trending toward taller, glassier structures. An increasing body of research has begun to identify building designs that reduce incidence of bird collisions, and experts suggest incorporation of these designs into LEED certification standards. Portland is poised to join a growing list of cities that require implementation of wildlife friendly building design in the planning process.

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) constructs projects to ensure a safe and efficient transportation infrastructure. Typically, projects consist of road improvements, new road construction, bridge upgrades, bridge replacements, and new bridge construction. Although avoiding and minimizing impacts to natural resources are integral to ODOT's design considerations, some projects result in impacts to jurisdictional waters of the U.S. and State. Pursuant to environmental permit requirements, ODOT implements mitigation for a wide range of impacts. The overall mitigation goal is to replace the wetland or waters functions that are lost or impaired due to project construction. In the spring of 2009, the ODOT Wetlands Program pursued a strategic learning opportunity by evaluating the post-monitoring period conditions of 29 "legacy" mitigation sites ranging from 8 to 17 years since mitigation construction.

In 2006, the City of Gresham incorporated into its biodiversity surveys an annual survey of aquatic amphibian and turtle species in an effort to understand which species utilize Gresham's aquatic habitats and to inform our management of these areas. Of the 189 known public and privately owned wetlands, ponds, and swales in Gresham, 138 (73.0%) were surveyed for egg masses and larvae in each of two survey seasons. In addition, each site was surveyed for basking turtles on 4 separate occasions each summer.

Environmental restoration projects are often designed and implemented without an integrated, process-based framework for successful project delivery. Much of the available research on ecological restoration is so narrowly focused that results are difficult to apply to actual projects. The recently published Sediment Source Control Handbook was developed through a collaborative effort over the past 6 years by a consortium of ski areas, regulatory personnel, researchers and restoration practitioners to address this disconnect between research and implementation.

Northern pygmy-owls (Glaucidium gnoma) are anecdotally considered habitat
generalists, and to date only a single study has yielded clues about their
habitat use and home range size. A multitude of unsupported, secondary
sources persistently avow that Northern pygmy-owls avoid unbroken, dense
forest, are associated with forest edges and open forests, and may indeed
benefit from logging. We investigate whether Northern pygmy-owls select
nest-site habitat non-randomly, and discuss preliminary findings on more
than thirty nest-site characteristics. In the spring of 2007 and 2008,

Climate variability has significant influence on water quality through changes in the amount of runoff and pollutant concentration. The impact of climate variability on water quality is not well understood, particularly in urban streams. We analyzed the effects of hydroclimatic variability on water temperature and dissolved oxygen in streams of the Portland metro area. Multiple regression models were used to explain the variations in water quality as a function of flow and air temperature. The residuals of air temperature were used to control the correlation between flow and air temperature.

Increases in population and density often result in private development types that stress city ecologies. However, there is tremendous potential for designers in collaboration with the environmental science community to engage in private development projects that support the needs and aspirations of people while providing habitat for nonhuman species. Such ecologically-minded approaches redefine "sustainable urban development." Portland is poised for robust economic growth and the preservation of an outdoors-oriented quality of life.

Natural area managers must balance public access and habitat protection. The very attributes that make a site attractive to the public may be deleteriously affected by excessive public use. This balancing act is often performed in the absence of data that would help managers identify whether, and to what extent, habitat use by wildlife is affected by public use. We sought to determine whether habitat use by songbirds inhabiting riparian forests differed in areas with and without public trails. We conducted avian surveys with a standard point count protocol in 2006 and 2007.

A controversial issue in managing urbanizing watersheds is determining the scale at which conservation measures should be implemented. While increasingly studies suggest that both watershed and riparian land cover have an impact on aquatic conditions, few investigation shave examined the effect of upland vegetation fragmentation on aquatic condition. This study presents empirical evidence about the interactions between riparian and upland vegetation patterns as they affect the instream biological condition of 51 nested watersheds in the Puget Sound lowland.