Ph.D. 2007 Virginia Tech

Avian ecology, behavior, demography, mating systems, and life history evolution

My research focuses on the ultimate processes that generate vertebrate diversity, including genetically or culturally transmitted traits or those that arise through phenotypic plasticity. What environmental factors encourage plasticity in individuals? Shape the level of variation within and among populations? Lead to isolation among gene pools? How does habitat alteration or climate change alter these processes?

Olsen, B.J., J. Felch^, R. Greenberg, and J.R. Walters. In Press. Causes of reduced clutch size in a tidal marsh endemic. Oecologia.

Liu, I.A.^, B. Lohr, B.J. Olsen, and R. Greenberg. 2008. Macrogeographic vocal variation in subspecies of Swamp Sparrow. Condor 110(1):102-109.

Olsen, B.J., R. Greenberg, R.C. Fleischer, and J.R. Walters. In Press. Extra-pair paternity in the swamp sparrow, Melospiza georgiana: Male access or female preference? Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology.

Etterson, M.A., B.J. Olsen, R. Greenberg. 2007. The analysis of covariates in multi-fate Markov chain nest failure models in Beyond Mayfield: Measurements of Nest Survival Data (S.L. Jones and G.R. Geupel, eds.). Studies in Avian Biology 34:55-64.

Greenberg, R.G., C. Elphick, J.C. Nordby, C. Gjerdrum, H. Spautz, G. Shriver, B. Schmeling, B.J. Olsen, P. Marra, N. Nur, and M. Winter. 2006. Flooding and predation: Trade-offs in the nesting ecology of tidal-marsh sparrows. Pp. 96-109 in Terrestrial Vertebrates of Tidal Salt Marshes: Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation (R. Greenberg, J.E. Maldonado, S. Droege, and M.V. McDonald, eds.). Studies in Avian Biology 32:96-109. 

Greenberg, R., B. Olsen, and G. Gough. 2005. Population status of the Coastal Plain Swamp Sparrow in Delaware. Delmarva Ornithologist 37.