Research

Quantifying the Impact of Human Recreation on Wildlife & Wildlands

Anthropogenic disturbance has reshaped ecosystems globally, reducing the quality and quantity of available habitat for wildlife and leading to widespread loss of biodiversity. With its increasing popularity, outdoor recreation activities such as hiking, camping, and mountain biking, have become a threat to protected areas. Outdoor recreation has become among the leading cause of decline of federally threatened and endangered species on public lands worldwide and is recognized as a major threat to wildlife and wildlands. Properly managing the coexistence of wildlife and recreationists requires a thorough understanding of where recreation is occurring. With the proliferation of smart phones and positioning technologies that can provide reliable, consistent location data, studies of human mobility have been revolutionized in recent years, providing in-depth information on human activity and the anthropogenic footprint. Among the communities impacted by increasing human activity, National Parks across the United States reflect a once pristine wilderness, now a matrix of roads and trails. In one project, we leveraged human mobility data to examine the impact of human activity on road and trail crossings by fishers. In a separate project, we used human mobility data to quantify recreation in the United States’ most heavily trafficked National Forest, the White River National Forest, CO.

Improving Management of Prairie Dog-Grassland Ecosystems in the Central Plains

North America’s Central Grasslands are among the most threatened ecosystems in the world, having been transformed by agriculture, fencing, and loss of its biodiversity. Black-tailed prairie-dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) are a keystone species of the Central Grasslands, creating key habitat for suites of associated species and serving as important prey for predators. Populations of prairie dogs exhibit boom and bust cycles, characterized by rapid large-scale collapse of prairie dog colonies due to introduced plague, followed by periods of growth and recovery from plague epizootics. These population cycles adversely affect biodiversity at their minimum and increase competition with livestock at their maximum. My research focused on balancing the conservation of native grassland species and competing interests from local livestock producers. Specifically, we developed a decision support tool that managers can use to predict fluctuations in populations of prairie dogs and examine how various management strategies affect colony growth and likelihood of plague outbreaks. We developed this decision support tool in a collaborative process with the local stakeholders, tailoring the final product to the practical needs of managers. Our second project focused on examining how fluctuations in prairie dog populations affect various ecosystem services such as forage quality and biodiversity of plants, birds and mammals. We used a Bayesian structural equation model (SEM) to examine how changes in prairie dog population size affected abundance of several bird and mesocarnivores, weight gain of livestock, and forage availability.

Understanding Spatial and Temporal Partitioning Between Endangered Ocelots and Sympatric Bobcats and Coyotes

Understanding habitat selection is a vital component of managing endangered species. Ocelots (Leopardus pardalis), a medium-sized endangered felid, overlap in range with bobcats (Lynx rufus) and coyotes (Canis latrans), with all three species sharing similar space and resource use. As the potential for competition between these three carnivores is high, understanding differences in habitat use and the effect of these potential competitors on habitat selection of ocelots is essential to conservation. My research focused on understanding the habitat selection of ocelots at greater detail than previously known by combining high-resolution GPS data with fine-scale remote sensing data collected using LiDAR. Further, I examined various mechanisms of coexistence between ocelots, bobcats and coyotes by examining spatial and temporal patterns using a variety of statistical approaches including resource and step selections and hidden Markov movement models. This research included a diverse set of partners ranging from private landowners to state and federal wildlife agencies and was part of a larger and still ongoing effort to reintroduce ocelots to new portions of their former range.

Determining Migration Patterns, Survival and Cause-Specific Mortality in a Hunted Population of Elk

Throughout the western United States, elk (Cervus canadensis) are an iconic and charismatic species, valued by both consumptive and non-consumptive recreationalists. Humans are an important predator in the predator-prey system of elk, particularly in areas where wolves (Canis lupus) are absent. Hunting pressure has the ability to alter the behavior and spatial pattern of game species. During hunting periods, elk often select areas that have reduced hunter accessibility by increasing use of forest cover, remaining farther from roads, or moving to private land as a means of refuge. As elk in Utah are primarily managed through hunter harvest, understanding the effect that hunting pressure has on elk and quantifying survival and cause-specific mortality is an essential component to management. My research focused on identifying the impact of hunter harvest on elk directly through harvest and indirectly by altering spatial patterns. I quantified survival rates and cause-specific mortality of elk to examine how size and condition of elk harvested by hunters differed from those predated by cougars (Puma concolor). Additional research included examining how hunting pressure influenced the distribution of elk across public and private land, which included a manipulative element where hunting pressure was introduced on private land as a means of shifting elk toward public land, thereby increasing hunter access, and leading to more effective management of elk.