![\"Silas](\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Silas-Fischer-2025-STORY.jpg\")
Silas Fischer, a doctoral student studying ecology and organismal biology, studies the gray vireo native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico.<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cWe need data to inform conservation efforts,\u201d said Silas Fischer, who led the collaborative research. \u201cFor some species we don\u2019t know enough to determine whether they\u2019re at risk and, if they are, what steps we can take to protect them. We stand to lose a lot when we neglect visually unremarkable and geographically distant species.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fischer is a doctoral candidate studying ecology and organismal biology<\/a> at UToledo, which recently received R1 status<\/a> placing it among the country\u2019s top-tier research universities by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Fischer credits their advisor, Dr. Henry Streby, an ornithologist who utilizes novel and conventional methods to collect field data and expedite wildlife ecology research, with attracting them to the University.<\/p>\n \u201cI had read a lot of his papers on songbird post-fledging and migration ecology,\u201d recalled Fischer, who cemented an interest in ornithological research through a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program at Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico while a student at Ball State University. \u201cIt was a little bit like meeting a celebrity.\u201d<\/p>\n Through a master\u2019s thesis and now doctoral dissertation at UToledo, Fischer has continued to study the songbird that first piqued their interest as an undergraduate. For the thesis they defended in 2020, they completed an intensive demographic study of the gray vireo, a small songbird native to southwestern United States and northern Mexico, using several advanced methods to track the birds and document their annual cycles.<\/p>\n Now as a doctoral candidate, Fischer is building on this foundation to explore the impacts of climate change-driven droughts on their population dynamics.<\/p>\n “You\u2019d think that a desert species like the gray vireo is adapted to heat and drought, but we\u2019re finding that even desert species are being pushed beyond their physiological capacity,\u201d Fischer said.<\/p>\n With years invested in researching a species whose drab coloring is unlikely to excite any but the most meticulous birdwatchers, Fischer was perhaps particularly sensitive to the perception that fancier and more familiar birds tend to draw attention \u2014 and, often, research opportunities \u2014 at the expense of the gray vireos of the world.<\/p>\n In the recent research, Fischer sought to put data to that perception through an intensive bibliometric analysis of academic literature on nearly 300 bird species in North America.<\/p>\n Fischer and their collaborators scored the species according to three factors subject to human bias: visual appeal as identified by characteristics like size, color and crest or other extraordinary features; familiarity as identified by the species\u2019 range size; and accessibility as identified by the number of universities within a species\u2019 range. Then they identified trends within research efforts on these species, analyzing more than 27,000 academic articles published between 1965 and 2020.<\/p>\n The findings backed the perception that inspired the research, with species scoring in the top 10% on visual appeal, like the tree swallow with its white and iridescent blue-green coloring, studied three times more on average than species scoring in the bottom 10%.<\/p>\n Overall researchers found that 45% of the variation in publication trends can be explained by visual appeal, familiarity and accessibility, suggesting factors other than research gaps and conservation needs steer ornithologists in identifying the subjects of their research.<\/p>\n \u201cThis study is an important reminder that scientists are humans. We put a lot of effort into designing studies to collect data that are representative and unbiased, but we don’t often think about bias when we’re choosing what to study in the first place,\u201d Streby said. “This study and several others on plants and other animal taxa come together to show we have not been doing a great job of checking our biases at the door when choosing what to study, what research to fund and even what to spend conservation dollars on.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Silas](\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Silas-Fischer-2025-SIDE-150x150.jpg\")
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