John Anderson, College of the Atlantic

Profile photo of John Anderson, expert at College of the Atlantic

Professor Bar Harbor, Maine janderson@coa.edu Office: (207) 801-5717

Bio/Research

The current focus of my research is on colonial nesting seabirds and island ecology. I am also interested in the application of G.I.S. and remote-sensing technology to landscape ecology and conservation. At present the bulk of my field research centers around Great Duck Island in eastern Maine.Th...

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Bio/Research

The current focus of my research is on colonial nesting seabirds and island ecology. I am also interested in the application of G.I.S. and remote-sensing technology to landscape ecology and conservation. At present the bulk of my field research centers around Great Duck Island in eastern Maine.This island supports one of the largest colonies of Leach's Storm Petrels in the continental United States, it may also be the largest breeding colony of Black Guillemots in the Lower 48. At present my students and I are looking at habitat utilization by Herring and Black-backed Gulls, Guillemots, and Petrels. In addition we are examining territoriality and foraging behaviors by gulls and chick survival/mortality in relation to parental investment. We are in the process of completing comprehensive G.I.S. based mapping of Great Duck Island,which includes habitat parameters, nesting locations, shoreline structure, etc.

In addition to work at Great Duck I am interested in the intersection between Natural History and Human History in relation to long-term ecological processes. Each Summer teams of students and I visit a variety of islands in the Gulf of Maine, talking with residents and examining the effects of present and past land-use practices on the configuration of island landscapes. I am particularly interested in the effects of human influences-both in terms of active management and incidental use on our ideas of wilderness, and appropriate strategies for conserving biodiversity.


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