Research Interests

General:

Ecology, behavior, and management of mammals with an emphasis on carnivores; applied landscape ecology; forest wildlife management.

More specifically: 

I am most interested in the conservation challenges that continue to surface in the interface between shrinking wildlife habitat and growing human populations. I believe the best means of addressing these challenges equates good conservation to good ecology, and research toward that end should be grounded in basic ecological, behavioral, and evolutionary theory. My approach to research integrates fieldwork, modeling, and GIS to test predictions of basic ecological theories in a context suitable for application to conservation and management. I am flexible on research subjects and methodological approaches-- I am more interested in ecological questions and management challenges than in certain species or technical particulars.
Large Mammals

Much of my work has focussed on a population of black bears living in the Pisgah Bear Sanctuary, located in the Appalachian Mountains in western North Carolina. Working with Roger Powell (NC State University), we have used a 22-year data set to:

Develop and test a habitat suitability index (HSI) for black bears in the Southern Appalachians.

Develop and apply models of optimal home range selection based on optimal selection of resource-bearing patches.

Evaluate effects of forest management on food resources, home range behavior, and demography of black bears.

Model the long-term demography of the bear population.

Relate demographic trends of the bear population to limiting food resources.

Recently, I have gotten involved in black bear research in the panhandle of Idaho. Working with Idaho Fish and Game, we are using hair-trapping to genotype an intensively monitored bear in order to better understand its demography and to ground-truth other monitoring methodologies.

We are also developing a project to evaluate the behavior and potential management of nuisance black bears at the urban/wildlands interface.
I am involved in work investigating the demography, management, and monitoring of gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains. I am collaborating with the Nez Perce Tribe'sWolf Recovery Project and Idaho Fish and Game to develop monitoring protocols. I am also working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the Nez Perce Tribe, and Idaho Fish and Game to evaluate demographic trends for the wolf population in the Northern Rockies.

 

I have begun collaborating with Rich Harris to study wildlife on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai Province, China. The focus of the research will be on the demography and behavior of ungulate species such as blue sheep and argali.

I have also been studying an invasive species of considerable concern throught the US, feral pigs. Working with Steve Ditchkoff(Auburn University) and Barry Grand (Alabama Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit), we are conducting a broad-scale, manipulative study on Fort Benning, GA, to:

Model demography of the pig population and its response to control measures.

Evaluate changes in habitat use and home range behavior due to control measures.

Evaluate affects of feral pigs on sensitive habitats and any changes due to control measures.

Evaluate dietary changes due to control measures.
Forest Management and Wildlife

In addition to the work I've done with black bears, I have evaluated interactions between forest management and small mammal and bird populations. Working in coastal North Carolina, I evaluated the effects of intensive forest management within pine plantations on the small mammal and bird populations native to pocosin wetlands. More recently, I have been involved in the nation-wide study on Fire and Fire Surrogate Treatments for Ecosystem Restoration, evaluating the response of small mammal communities in the longleaf system to fire and management alternatives to fire (e.g. thinning, herbicides) at the Gulf Coastal Plain study site. In this study, we have:

Evaluated demographic responses of small mammals to fire and fires surrogate treatments. Determined contribution of stand- and landscape-scale habitat features to population dynamics of mice.

For a number of years, I have been involved in collabaorative research evaluating factors determining the distribution of songbird populations and community characteristics on managed forest landscapes. Most recently funded by the National Commission on the Science of Sustainable Forestry (NCSSF), working with Dick Lancia (NC State University), Ben Wigley, and Craig Loehle (NCASI), as well as a long list of cooperators from federal agencies, private industry, and universities, and using a replicated landscape-scale study design, we have:

Developed and tested models of presence absence for select songbird species.

Evaluated effects of scale in determining landscape-scale associations between habitat and bird species.Modeled distribution of avian richness on 4 managed forest landscapes in the Southeast.

Developed a Multi-scale Spatial Analysis Tool for using landscape models to map probability of presence or probability of belonging to different richness classes for any forested landscape for which basic GIS data are available.

Combined use of our Multi-scale Spatial Analysis Tool with a spatially explicit harvest scheduler (Habplan) to evaluate long-term effects of alternative forest management practices.

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