National Science Foundation award helps build global gyrfalcon research capacity and collaboration

Travis Booms, a key collaborator from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, holding a gyrfalcon. Photo credit Teresa Ely.

Gyrfalcons are the largest species of falcon, and live in one of the most extreme environments in the world: the Arctic. Amazingly, many Gyrfalcons do not migrate to escape sub-zero temperatures; instead, they nest in inhospitable rocky, cliff faces and have adapted to live year round in colder parts of the world, including Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland and Siberia. At a glance, one might think this beautiful raptor is invincible.

But there's one important consideration for researchers that must be studied as climate change alters the Arctic biome: the immune system of gyrfalcons. In such a frigid landscape, the pathogens that plague species at lower latitudes are unable to survive and therefore have not posed a great threat to gyrfalcons. Now, rising temperatures, increased precipitation and global weather shifts threaten this delicate balance.

For ornithologists and wildlife ecologists across the world like Stephanie Galla, an assistant professor in avian biology at Boise State, tracking the genomic diversity of gyrfalcons and their microbial communities will now provide critical insight into the adaptive capacity of this bird in a changing climate.

With the support of a National Science Foundation award of over $400,000, Galla will work with Boise State and a global community of researchers - including those studying Arctic systems - to reveal never-before-seen insights into gyrfalcon immune gene diversity and gut microbiome across three long-term study sites in Alaska, Greenland and Iceland.

Incoming doctoral student Sage Dale repels into a gyrfalcon nest to collect samples. Photo Credit Keith Swindle.

"Gyrfalcons are a powerful and visually striking bird with a lot of personality. They live where few birds are capable, making them tenacious and inspirational to study," said Michael Henderson, a doctoral candidate and project manager of the Gyrfalcon and Tundra Conservation Program within The Peregrine Fund. "Despite being far from most sources of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, the effects of human infrastructure have finally started to catch up to them."

Galla's research partners include Henderson; Ólafur Karl Nielsen, a wildlife ecologist emeritus, recently retired from the Natural Science Institute of Iceland; Travis Booms, a wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game; Kurt Burnham, President at High Arctic Institute in Greenland; and Boise State colleagues Julie Heath, a professor and Raptor Research Center Director; Leonora Bittleson, associate professor of biology; and Stephanie Hudon, a research associate professor in the College of Health Sciences.

This work also leverages capacity in microbiome research and global partnerships built from two NSF Establish Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) grants previously secured and led by Boise State professor Jennifer Forbey.

Sparking globally critical science at Boise State

Stephanie Galla

Galla is an early career faculty at Boise State with a passion to ensure that the work in her Conservation Genetics Lab directly supports the needs of ornithologists, wildlife ecologists and biologists across the world. Honing in on gyrfalcon research stemmed from many conversations with researchers to understand how the Boise State lab could serve the pressing needs of researchers, globally.

As a conservation genetics researcher, Galla is excited to dive into studying specific genetic markers for immunity that will shed new light on immune resilience of gyrfalcons.

"One benefit of living and breeding at the top of the world is that it's so cold and so dry, that you don't have exposure to as many diseases. There seems to be a trend where birds at the top have less diversity at those immune genes than those that live at the equator. This grant is going to help us build capacity, not only in looking at the DNA of the birds, but also looking at their microbial communities for their guts to better understand and characterize immune competence genes across the range," Galla said.

Iceland is a particularly important region in this study, as that nation has already documented cases of gyrfalcons with specific diseases, including highly pathogenic avian influenza. For Nielsen, the Icelandic collaborator on the grant who has studied gyrfalcons for 45 years, the swiftness of the impacts of climate change on arctic biomes means this research could not come at a more pressing time.

Key collaborators from The Peregrine Fund-Michael Henderson and Kara Beer-banding a gyrfalcon chick. Photo credit Dakota Walz.

"This vast region is of conservation interest due to its biological and physical factors. The entire ecosystem is delicate, and our actions are upsetting the balance; glaciers and sea ice are melting, and food webs are being disturbed," Nielsen said. "The rapid increase in average temperature and precipitation across all seasons in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions could create new environments for unfamiliar species of parasites and vectors to establish themselves in these high-latitude areas."

Research collaborator Booms has worked with gyrfalcons for 25 years in Alaska and Greenland. For him, the way the species has adapted to their environment is a sustained source of personal and professional intrigue, and this research is a critical next step in advancing understanding of the raptors' biology. Booms says that the direct and indirect challenges posed by climate change, in addition to the species' prized status in the world of falconry, "make the gyrfalcon a species of greatest conservation concern in Alaska."

"This award provides our collaboration new support and opportunities to dive into aspects of gyrfalcon biology that have not previously been studied, as well as leverage existing samples and data to improve our understanding of this species and system," Booms said. "It promises to reveal important, new information about a species that is facing serious challenges by climate change. It also is an excellent opportunity to train new biologists and introduce them to the field of Arctic avian ecology, as well as bring together existing biologists from across the globe to work together."

Wild gyrfalcon chicks. Fecal microbiome data will be collected from nests like these for study. Photo credit Travis Booms.

In addition to widening the breadth of gyrfalcon research, this grant represents important funding for student research development opportunities, as well as increased instrumentation and capacity for all genomic and genetic research at Boise State.

"Under this grant we can fund a doctoral student and a Master's of Raptor Biology student," Galla said. "We've got funding to support graduate and undergraduate students here at Boise State, and I'm grateful that we could support our students to travel to the Arctic, to conferences, to meet with our collaborators so that they can build a wider network outside of Boise State University, which is so great for job potential. I think that the resources that are built into this grant will help really build capacity so that we can launch a program that could last much longer than the tenure of the grant."

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under award number 2437743.

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.

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