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Jeffrey Spendelow, Ph.D.

Jeff Spendelow is an Scientist Emeritus at the Eastern Ecological Science Center in Laurel, MD

From 1982-1984 he worked as a Wildlife Biologist/Ecologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) National  Coastal Ecosystems Team in Slidell, LA after receiving his Ph.D. (1980) and B.S. (1972) degrees in Biology from Yale University. In 2008 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union, and he has been a Life Member of the AOU and several other ornithological societies since the 1970s. He has been the Director of PWRC’s Cooperative Roseate Tern Metapopulation Project (the CRTMP) ever since organizing it in 1987, and is the USGS member and Chair of the Technical Working Group of the USFWS’s Recovery Team for the endangered NW Atlantic breeding population of Roseate Terns. 

Science and Products

Filter Total Items: 63

Residency, recruitment, and stopover duration of hatch-year Roseate Terns (Sterna dougallii) during the pre-migratory staging period

Avian migratory stopover and staging sites represent important energetic bottlenecks and may influence population dynamics as much as breeding or wintering periods. Roseate terns (Sterna dougallii) are an ideal species to examine staging demography because >70% of the entire endangered northwest Atlantic population stages at accessible locations around Cape Cod, MA before southward migration. We q
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Begging behavior as an honest signal of need and parent-offspring association during the post-fledging dependency period

Honest signaling mechanisms can function to appropriate care to hungry offspring and avoid misdirected care of unrelated offspring. Begging, the behavior by which offspring solicit food and parental care, may be an honest signaling mechanism for need, as well as association of parents and offspring. Roseate terns (Sterna dougallii) exhibit prolonged parental care during the post-breeding staging p
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Evaluating response distances to develop buffer zones for staging terns

Buffer zones, calculated by flight‐initiation distance (FID), are often used to reduce anthropogenic disturbances to wildlife, but FID can vary significantly across life‐history stages. We examined the behavioral effect of potential natural (gulls and shorebirds) and anthropogenic (pedestrians) disturbance sources to staging roseate (Sterna dougallii) and common tern (S. hirundo) flocks from July
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Species Management Research Program, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Eastern Ecological Science Center

Post-spring migration colony-site prospecting by Roseate Terns (Sterna dougallii)

We recorded banded Roseate Terns (Sterna dougallii) and unbanded individuals mated to banded individuals in May and the first third of June in 2001 and 2002 to quantify post spring migration prospecting by this species at Falkner Island, Connecticut, USA. In 2001, more than one quarter: 34/125 (27.2%) of those observed by 19 May and 38/150 (25.3%) of those observed by 25 May did not remain at this
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Bird Banding Laboratory

Rapid departure of Roseate Terns (Sterna dougallii) following large-scale nest failure

Nest failure of most pairs of Roseate Terns (Sterna dougallii) at Falkner Island, Connecticut, in 2002-2003 (due mainly to predation by Black-crowned Night-herons [Nycticorax nycticorax]) was followed by the rapid departure of many of the failed individuals in both years. Nine failed pairs (16.7%) stayed while 40 (74.1%) of 54 unsuccessful pairs left within 2 d following nest failure in 2002, and
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Species Management Research Program, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Eastern Ecological Science Center

Rapid 3-week transition from migration to incubation in a female Roseate Tern (Sterna dougallii)

A female Roseate Tern that staged in Puerto Rico on 10 May 2008 on its migration north was first observed in the nesting area at Bird Island, Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts on 21 May. It was incubating a complete clutch of two eggs by 1 June and likely had initiated laying within 20 days of having been in Puerto Rico.
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Species Management Research Program, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Bird Banding Laboratory

First evidence that paired Roseate Terns may travel together during spring migration

A mated pair of colorbanded Roseate Terns from the Northwest Atlantic Ocean breeding population was photographed on 12 May 2010 while staging near Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. This represents the first evidence that mated pairs of this species may travel together during their northward spring migration
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Bird Banding Laboratory

Using optimal transport theory to estimate transition probabilities in metapopulation dynamics

This work considers the estimation of transition probabilities associated with populations moving among multiple spatial locations based on numbers of individuals at each location at two points in time. The problem is generally underdetermined as there exists an extremely large number of ways in which individuals can move from one set of locations to another. A unique solution therefore requires a
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Energy & Wildlife (unpublished), Eastern Ecological Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Quantifying the effects of research band resighting activities on staging terns in comparison to other disturbances

Avian research that involves potential disturbance to the study species may have unintended fitness consequences and could lead to biases in measurements of interest. The effects of band resighting on the behavior of mixed-species flocks of staging waterbirds were evaluated against recreational pedestrian activity that was expected to cause flushing. We found a model with additive effects of dista
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Energy & Wildlife (unpublished), Eastern Ecological Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Roseate Tern breeding dispersal and fidelity: Responses to two newly restored colony sites

We used 22 yr of capture–mark–reencounter (CMR) data collected from 1988 to 2009 on about 12,500 birds at what went from three to five coastal colony sites in Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut, United States, to examine spatial and temporal variation in breeding dispersal/fidelity rates of adult Roseate Terns (Sterna dougallii). At the start of our study, Roseate Terns nested at only one si
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Prebreeding survival of Roseate Terns Sterna dougallii varies with sex, hatching order and hatching date

Unequal sex ratios can reduce the productivity of animal populations and are especially prevalent among endangered species. A cohort of 333 Roseate Tern Sterna dougallii chicks at a site where the adult sex ratio was skewed towards females was sexed at hatching and followed through fledging and return to the breeding area, and subsequently during adulthood. The entire regional metapopulation was s
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Species Management Research Program, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Eastern Ecological Science Center

First record of a banded Sandwich Tern (Thalasseus sandvicensis) moving from England to the United States

A Sandwich Tern (Thalasseus sandvicensis sandvicensis) banded as a chick in 2002 at Coquet Island off the northeast coast of Great Britain was observed at two locations on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA, in August and September 2013. This is the first record of a banded Sandwich Tern from the United Kingdom being observed in the United States.
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
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Staging HY ROSTs still need parental care

Evaluation of Potential Offshore Wind Projects in the Northeastern U.S. on Endangered Roseate Terns: Who is at Risk and When?

The Challenge: Terns in coastal areas of the Northeastern US likely will be impacted by construction and operation of offshore wind turbines. The “Cape Cod & Islands” (CCMA) area of Massachusetts is a particularly important area for the endangered Northwest Atlantic Roseate Tern (ROST) population as most ROSTs from throughout the breeding range (Nova Scotia to Long Island, New York) congregate...
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Species Management Research Program, Eastern Ecological Science Center
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Evaluation of Potential Offshore Wind Projects in the Northeastern U.S. on Endangered Roseate Terns: Who is at Risk and When?

The Challenge: Terns in coastal areas of the Northeastern US likely will be impacted by construction and operation of offshore wind turbines. The “Cape Cod & Islands” (CCMA) area of Massachusetts is a particularly important area for the endangered Northwest Atlantic Roseate Tern (ROST) population as most ROSTs from throughout the breeding range (Nova Scotia to Long Island, New York) congregate...
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Colorbanded Roseate Tern, Sterna dougallii

Modeling Sex-specific Demographic Rates in Metapopulations

The Challenge: Research that integrates population dynamics and ecological studies is needed to identify the causal factors involved in population declines and viability. For highly mobile organisms such as birds, “between-patch” movements and the use of different geographic sites and habitats at various stages of the annual cycle can make it difficult to measure the effectiveness of “within-patch...
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center
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Modeling Sex-specific Demographic Rates in Metapopulations

The Challenge: Research that integrates population dynamics and ecological studies is needed to identify the causal factors involved in population declines and viability. For highly mobile organisms such as birds, “between-patch” movements and the use of different geographic sites and habitats at various stages of the annual cycle can make it difficult to measure the effectiveness of “within-patch...
Learn More

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