Nature Is All Around Us You Just Have To Listen will be the subject of a presentation by Dr. Brent Pease for SIAS on Friday, March 24th, starting at 7 p.m. in the meeting room at Carbondale Township Hall, 217 E. Main St. Carbondale. Entrance is from the rear of the building (216. E. Monroe St.) where two parking lots are available for use. Mask wearing is encouraged but not required.

Dr. Brent Pease, assistant professor at SIUC, will discuss several ongoing research projects focused on changes in biodiversity and bird communities across southern Illinois, and how you can help wildlife researchers better understand these changes.

Last year, Dr. Pease and his graduate students partnered with the general public and private landowners to take on an ambitious task – recreate the Illinois Breeding Bird Atlas in southern Illinois just by listening. Using sound recorders, SIU graduate students resurveyed every Breeding Bird Atlas sampling location in the southern 11 counties of Illinois during the 2022 breeding season. Their motivation was two-fold:

1) understand how bird communities have changed across southern Illinois over the past 30 years, and 2) identify biodiversity hotspots in our region to improve wildlife conservation and management. So far, Pease and his students have focused on two bird groups: a once-familiar family of birds – the nightjars – that includes eastern whip-poor-wills and chuck-will’s widows, and the migrant warblers that inhabit the forests of southern Illinois. Additionally, SIU graduate students are studying soundscapes to understand how sound can be an indicator for biodiversity and general ecosystem health.

Brent Pease is a southern Illinois native and joined the faculty at SIUC in August 2021. He, his wife, and two young boys live in Carbondale and are excited to be back in the region, studying, learning, and conserving the wild things that we share space with. You can learn more about his research at peaselab.com.