Ryan Pienaar

I am a PhD student in Dr. Sam St Clair's lab at Brigham Young University. Interested in the effects of fire on plants and animals across broad spatial and temporal scales. As an ecologist, I am interested in all sorts of plants, animals, and ecosystems. Because there are too many interesting things to study anyone specifically, I use quantitative methods to understand ecological processes. This allows me to do research in many different ecosystems. I am particularly interested in how human actions are altering biodiversity and what changes we can expect in the future.

My PhD research has focused on how fire affects plant and animal species in forest and desert ecosystems. Deserts of the Western United States are threatened by invasive annual grass fire cycles that can alter vegetation dominance with cascading effects on other species in the community. I am investigating how fire, herbivory, and climate shape desert plant, rodent, and ant communities. In forests I am using camera traps to determine deer and elk occupancy along burned edges of multiple forest types after a megafire.

My next adventure will be at the University of Wisconsin Madison where I will be working with Drs Jonathan Pauli and Volker Radeloff on understanding the effects of oak wilt on black bears on the Apostle Islands.

Outside of academic research I try to instill enthusiasm for wildlife and then natural environment in children by visiting elementary schools and teaching about wildlife.