Team

Human activities have multiple and complex effects on wildlife. Sound wildlife management depends on our ability to make predictions about the current and future state of animal populations. The reliability of these predictions, however, can be compromised by uncertainty related to natural processes or by a lack of data on a given species. New statistical methods, such as integrated Bayesian state‑space models, make it possible to account for variation in ecological processes and to study a population using incomplete data. The iterative near-term ecological forecasting approach also allows real‑time integration of short-term environmental changes to improve the accuracy of predictions. The objective of my work is to assess the current dynamics of black bear populations using these new predictive models and to develop management tools that can be adjusted in real time.