One day when Max Goldman ’09 was growing up in Tulsa, Okla., his grandmother handed him a pair of binoculars. He fell in love with the world of birds he saw through the lenses.
During the fall of 2007, in the course Field Biology Studies: Colorado Plateau, faculty member Lisa Floyd-Hanna introduced him to her passion for fire ecology. It wasn’t surprising, then, that when it came time to create a week-long research project in Mesa Verde National Park as part of the class, he combined his love of birding with a study of fire ecology.
With Dr. Floyd-Hanna as a mentor, the study evolved into Max’s Senior Project. He returned to the park to evaluate areas that had burned at different times in the last hundred years or so, measuring the abundance and variety of birds.
“After months of data collection,” he wrote, “we found that there was indeed a significant difference in the richness and abundance between fire sites, and that the most recently burned sites actually have substantially more species and individuals than the old growth sites.”
Max concluded that “fire very positively impacts avian diversity, creating habitat for new and varied species to explore and utilize. If you have only one habitat type, you have one bird community, but many habitat types make for many bird communities and a more competitive, healthier ecosystem.”
Birds aren’t the only animals that have captured Max’s attention. In March, 2010 he headed to South Africa to study the marine foraging behavior in Chacma Baboons.
“These baboons are unique in that they live on the ocean, and utilize it as a food source, eating limpets and some shark eggs, among other things,” he wrote of the experience.
“We are trying to figure out how this unique form of energy plays into their overall energy budget, which is spent on walking, fighting, copulating, grooming, et cetera.”
Max said his favorite part of his time at the College was being able to complete coursework in Borneo, Costa Rica, Colorado, Indonesia, Mexico, New Mexico, and all over Arizona. He credits environmental studies faculty member Dave Hanna for helping him learn “a ton about research.”
He plans to build on what he’s learned at the College by enrolling in graduate school. Ultimately, he said, he wants to get a Ph.D. and do “ground-breaking ecological research.”
Until then, he plans to work as a researcher – to evolve, he said in his blog, from field biologist to experienced field biologist. With that in mind, he headed to Wyoming to study the effects of the pine mountain beetle on bird habitats.
