Research

America Pika (Ochotona princeps)

American pikas are small lagomorphs (rabbit relatives) that live in specialized, rocky habitat in the western United States. Dr. Castillo Vardaro's dissertation research focused on dispersal and connectivity within protected areas such as national parks and wildlife refuges. That research was conducted entirely with non-invasive fecal DNA.

Our current pika research builds upon that dissertation work to look at 1) natural selection along environmental gradients in the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin regions, including temporal changes using DNA from historic museum specimens 2) interrelationships among diet, intestinal parasites, and population genetic health, 3) competition for food resources among pikas and other talus-associated mammals, and 4) the genetic and behavioral consequences of introgression between previously separated genetic lineages within Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

Urban Wildlife

With the ever-expanding footprint of urban and suburban areas, the importance of understanding the interactions among people and wildlife, as well as among our native wildlife and introduced or domesticated species, is increasing as well. We are developing an Urban Wildlife research program at SJSU to 1) document the species present in and around San Jose, 2) understand how they are using the landscape, including what impacts different land uses and intensities have on both presence and movement, and 3) better understand the interactions among native and introduced wildlife and human. To accomplish this, we will combine field observations with remote cameras.

Our lab is a part of the CSU Sentinel Sites Project, in collaboration with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's Sentinel Sites for Nature!