The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $779,001 Project Grant under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) on May 1, 2024. The grant supports a 3-year research study examining the adaptive benefits of daylight availability and the photoperiodism of transhemispheric migratory birds. The research aims to determine if longer summer daylight at higher latitudes accelerates parental provisioning and offspring growth compared to lower latitudes, as well as identify photoperiodic and geomagnetic mechanisms enabling unihemispheric breeding in birds that migrate across the equator. UNC-CH will partner with a public science center to develop exhibits educating schoolchildren on the astronomy of daylength and migratory birds, and will collaborate with First Nations and Métis communities in northern Canada to incorporate traditional ecological knowledge into the field research.
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