BLM-New Mexico Rio Puerco Field Office, Breeding Bird Studies (CESU)

The proposed action is to undertake the first comprehensive community level screening of avian malaria in New Mexico. The BLM Rio Puerco Field Office lands would be ideal for carrying out this work because of the diverse bird communities of the pinyon-juniper and ponderosa pine forests in the areas adjacent to Cuba, Mt. Taylor, and El Malpais. We will sample as many species of birds as possible on these BLM properties in order to (1) describe the avian communities on the basis of our systematic netting effort; (2) draw blood samples with which we will describe the avian malaria community and host-parasite relationships. We will target resident breeding species because most malaria transmission occurs on the breeding grounds. The planned work would be conducted jointly with a partnering institution within the Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit Network.