While all eyes may be turned toward the sun during the upcoming solar eclipse on April 8, some researchers are looking forward to a new opportunity on the ground.
A team of three faculty members and three students from SUNY Oswego is conducting research on how the solar eclipse will affect native wildlife. SUNY Oswego Biological Sciences Professor Daniel Baldassarre said the eclipse offers a really exciting opportunity.
“There’s a chance that I will not see this again in this current position where I can assemble a research team to take advantage of this and look at it, so it’s a really cool and unique opportunity,” Baldassarre said.
The team will use audio recording devices to gather data on birds, bats and amphibians from the Rice Creek Field Station during the eclipse – and use the data to see what behavioral changes may occur.
“What we want to do is record before, during and after the eclipse to see if we can get some data on whether the soundscape changes over the course of the eclipse,” Baldassarre said.
Kristen Haynes, assistant director of SUNY Oswego’s Rice Creek Field station said this is a more modern continuation of a study done almost a century ago.
“The human brain can usually only be paying attention to one thing at a time so they’d have to go in order and try to identify each of those birds, whereas if you have a recording and you can use software or repeatedly play things back and have a human listen, you are going to pick up much more, so it’s actually better in many ways than if we were just putting people out in fields to listen to amphibians,” Haynes said.
Baldassarre said the research group will look to have the research findings published after the study is complete.
