Tropical Bird Specialist; Principal Investigator, Tropical Research for Avian Conservation & Ecotoxicology (TRACE) Initiative
csayers2@ucla.edu
+1 (732) 608–1728

Chris is a bird conservation biologist, ecotoxicologist, and PhD student in the Tingley Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is broadly interested in how environmental pollution affects biodiversity, especially populations of declining species. Chris joined BRI in 2021 as a tropical bird specialist, and continues to contribute to BRI’s mission while investigating the spatiotemporal impacts of gold mining on tropical bird communities.

Chris contributes to BRI’s Center for Mercury Studies in an international collaboration to understand the prevalence and distribution of mercury pollution in Neotropical birds. His research broadly helps to highlight how prevalent ecotoxins—including heavy metals, pesticides, and microplastics—have become in the environment as a direct result of human activities.

• Ph.D., Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles (present)
•  BSc., Environmental & Sustainability Sciences, Cornell University, 2020.

• Bird conservation
• Ecotoxicology
• Tropical ecology

Peer-reviewed Publications

• Sayers II, C.J., D.C. Evers, V. Ruiz-Gutierrez, E. Adams, C.M. Vega, J. Pisconte, K. Regan, O.P. Lane, A.A. Ash, R. Cal, S. Reneau, W. Martínez, G. Welch, K. Hartwell, M. Teul, D. Tzul, W. Arendt, M. Tórrez, M. Watsa, G. Erkenswick, C.E. Moore, J. Gerson, V. Sánchez, R. Pérez Purizaca, H. Yurek, M. Burton, P.L. Shrum, F.F. Fogarty, M.R. Charette, A.E. Martínez, E.S. Bernhardt, T.H. Tear, and L.E. Fernandez. In review. Mercury in Neotropical birds: a synthesis and prospectus on 15 years of exposure data. Submitted to Ecotoxicology.
• Sayers II, C.J., M.R. Roeder, L.M. Forrette, D. Roche, G.L.B. Dupont, S.E. Apgar, A.R. Kocek, A.M. Cook, W.G. Shriver, C.S. Elphick, B. Olsen, and D.N. Bonter. 2021. Geographic variation of mercury in breeding tidal marsh sparrows of the northeastern United States. Ecotoxicology 30(9):1929–1940. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-021-02461-y
• Sayers II, C.J., C. Moreland, H. Morgan, and J.E. Arévalo. 2019. Short-term effects of traffic noise on avian dawn chorus in a neotropical cloud forest. El Boletín Zeledonia 23(2):8–28. https://www.zeledonia.com/zeledonia-23-2019.html

Editorial-reviewed Publications

• Sayers II, C.J. 2020. Diademed Sandpiper-Plover (Phegornis mitchellii), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (Billerman SM, Keeney BK, Rodewald PG, and Schulenberg TS, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.diaplo1.01

Reports

• Sayers II, C.J., H. Yurek, K. Regan, and D.C. Evers. 2022. Assessing contemporary methylmercury exposure to resident and migratory bird species of Belize. Report BRI 2022-06, Biodiversity Research Institute, Portland, ME, USA.
• Evers, D.C., L.J. Savoy, C.R. DeSorbo, K. Regan, C. Persico, and C.J. Sayers II. 2021. Bird field sampling methods: collection of tissues for mercury analysis. Report BRI 2021-03, Biodiversity Research Institute, Portland, ME, USA. https://bit.ly/3hVeDUp

Films

• Sayers II, C.J. (2019) Fieldwork In East Africa: Cooperative Breeding In Superb Starlings [Video]. All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. https://bit.ly/mpalavideo