Erica  Tauzer,   '10 9
   Major: Biology
   Hometown: Gladstone, MI

Sponsor(s): Dean McCurdy
Support: FURSCA-Robson Family Fellowship

Abstract: 
The coast of Suriname supports millions of overwintering shorebirds that travel there from breeding sites in North America. In December 2008, we collected macroinvertebrates that serve as key prey items of shorebirds from three intertidal mudflats in Suriname. Using sampling techniques developed for our project, we collected 13-15 core samples from the waist-deep mud along transects established perpendicular to the shoreline at each site. Full processing of samples will not take place until the summer of 2009, but we identified two common species of tanaid crustaceans, Halmyrapseudes spaansi and Discapseudes surinamensis (each >1000 / m2). The relative abundance of these two species appears to be the reverse from what was reported by other researchers who studied mudflats in Suriname in the 1970s and 80s, a result which may be explained by the mesh size of sieves used to retain crustaceans during sampling. We also identified a nematode of the Genus Skrjabinoclava within a tanaid crustacean, suggesting that parasites might be transmitted by shorebirds between North and South America. A variety of conservation issues facing shorebirds will be discussed, including factors in Suriname that might be contribute to declines in shorebird populations.

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