Research Pillars: Extinction, Habitat, Corridors, Climate

Overview of research in our lab:  We investigate habitat selection of organisms across scales from the landscape to individual behavioral choices to inform ecology, biogeography, and conservation to help implement scientifically defensible policy and management.

Taxonomic groups: We mainly work on mammals (small to large), but also on other emblematic species such as dusky grouse and pinyon jays.

Where we work: Most research in the lab focuses on montane mammals in the Southwest, particularly the Gila-Sky Island region, the Rocky Mountain Linkages region, and the Southern Rocky Mountains. We work across multiple ecosystems, especially coniferous forests, pinyon-juniper woodlands, grasslands, and riparian systems.

Principal applications:

• Understand habitat requirements, especially for species of concern to inform management

• Identify linkage corridors among populations.

• Identify threats leading to habitat loss, especially related to climate change

• Identify causes of extirpation, especially due to habitat loss or niche reduction

• Predict future impacts of threats and climate change to species habitat and their distributions 

• Identify relictual core habitats necessary to sustain populations

• Identify species range dynamics (expansions and contractions) and mechanisms and methods to identify

Other research topics:

• Species diversity patterns

• Historical and ecological biogeography of the Southwest

• Wildlife depredation risk management

• Altered Daily activity patterns as a response to climate

• Use and interpretation of citizen science data and other forms of species occurrence data

• Taxonomy and phylogeography of mammals

• Natural history and foraging behavior

Principal methods:

Our work has one foot rooted in extensive field data collection and the other foot rooted in robust quantitative analyses.

• Hierarchical models, especially occupancy models and derivations such as false positive models

• Species distribution models based in AI machine learning

• Corridor mapping using circuit theory and other techniques

• Remote camera surveys, including for difficult to identify species

• Capture surveys

• Telemetry

• Morphology and genetics