As part of its continuing commitment to intellectual community, the University of Maine at Augusta Research Colloquium (UMARC) series is a venue for UMA faculty, staff, and sponsored students to present completed scholarly works to their peers. The series provides a forum for the presentation of all UMA research (as defined by the Faculty Senate in 2010) including scientific investigations, innovations in education, creative works, and theoretical considerations. Priority is given to those who have not already presented at the Research Colloquium.
The Research Colloquium series takes place during the noon hour using technology to connect UMA’s multiple campuses and Centers. The time reflects our commitment to inclusion, a traditional lunch hour for staff and the time between morning and afternoon classes for faculty and students. Ensuing discussion promotes collaboration through the exchange of ideas and the development of relationships across colleges, programs, departments and disciplines.
2024 Schedule
![jentitmouse5sq](https://www.uma.edu/academics/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/02/JenTitmouse5sq.jpg)
Jennifer Long
UMA Assistant Professor of Biology
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Marielle Postava-Davignon
UMA Assistant Professor of Biology
The effects of human interaction on Canada jay (Perisoreus canadensis) behavior and nest predation
Tuesday, September 24, 2025 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Zoom™
Humans have a long history of feeding birds, either to help them survive by supplementing their diets, or simply to enjoy interacting with them. Canada jays are charismatic birds that have become accustomed to these interactions to varying degrees. To survive the winter, they need to cache numerous food morsels throughout their territory. Their diverse diets include insects, berries, carrion, human offerings, and the eggs and nestlings of other birds. Concern has been expressed in recent years that Canada jays attracted to wilderness recreationists might increase predation pressure on nesting songbirds. To address this concern, we compared jay behavior and nest predation levels in New Hampshire and Maine between sites where little human interaction has been documented, and sites located at popular recreation areas where feeding has been well documented. During May and June 2022-2024, we captured and banded Canada jays to track individuals, recorded their behavioral responses to people in their territory, and used artificial nests with game cameras to document nest predation. Results show that in areas of high human interaction, jays approach closer to humans, usually landing on someone’s hand to take food, spend much more time near people, find decoy nests in less time and find more nests compared to low interaction areas. In areas with fewer human interactions, they rarely approach people, showing no interest in human food. These results suggest that feeding jays may have an impact on breeding songbirds, which could have important conservation implications.
Conceptual Neighborhoods – A Future Step for Spatio-temporal Decision Support Systems
October 2024 (Date TBD) 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Zoom™
In spatial and temporal reasoning, a mathematical construct known as a conceptual neighborhood graph takes relations between objects and forms a graph between them explaining systematic transfers between the relations. The relations are nodes, while the transfers are edges. Over the past few decades, research has been done on numerous relation sets to identify salient patterns of transfer in these relations. What has not been accomplished is to develop an information system that accounts for this logic, a key piece for moving into decision support systems based on principles of human cognition. In this presentation, I will detail research into conceptual neighborhoods of important relation spaces undertaken by my students (undergrad and grad) and I that pave the way for the future of spatio-temporal decision tools.
![Matt Dube](https://www.uma.edu/academics/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/04/mattdube1.png)
Matt Dube
UMA Associate Professor in Data Science, Computer Information Systems, and Applied Mathematics