Boulay, PegMackin, Libby2024-08-302024-08-302024https://hdl.handle.net/1794/2997244 pagesBird populations across North America have plummeted by nearly three billion since 1970; steep, irrecoverable losses across nearly every avian family with grave global environmental implications. In the same time frame, the American agricultural landscape has changed dramatically through the green revolution, a time of great agri-technological innovation that has introduced widespread monocropping, pervasive pesticide use, feed lotting, and a host of pollution from agricultural byproducts. Among the guilds facing the most decline are grassland birds, migratory birds, and avian insectivores, all of which are acutely and uniquely affected by industrial agricultural practices and anthropogenically driven climate change. Birds that fall in the intersection of these groups are at great risk for endangerment and extinction, and the grassland ecosystems in which they live are in jeopardy of experiencing trophic cascades. Climate, topography, vegetation, and anthropogenic influence range greatly across the United States, and faunal interactions vary with it. This paper focuses on the status of three migratory grassland avian insectivores that reside in three geographically and ecologically distinct regions of the US: the Henslow’s sparrow (Ammodramus henslowii) in Illinois, the grasshopper sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum) in Kansas, and the western meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) in Oregon. All three focal species have experienced declines due to industrial agriculture, impacted uniquely based on their life strategies and the management of the states within their ranges.en-USCC BY-NC-ND 4.0AgricultureBirdsAvian declineConservationEnvironmentThesis/Dissertation0009-0003-9833-4016