Lauren Schricker- Kitzes Lab
Landscape-Scale Wildlife Conservation in Data-Deficient Landscapes
Most wildlife conservation occurs on landscapes that are mixed-use and human-disturbed, rather than on huge expanses of pristine wild land. The heterogeneity of such habitat makes the study and application of conservation complex—we need to know, for example, how different species respond to the different patches, and how to mitigate whatever consequences of human impact are driving defaunation. My dissertation will address these conservation challenges by clarifying generalizable patterns, generating hand data on landscapes of interest, developing and testing methodology, and training the next generation of conservation scientists. Here, I present the breeding distribution of a data-deficient frog species of concern in a mixed agricultural, restored, and preserved grassland landscape. Preliminary qualitative results indicate that agricultural habitat may negatively affect frog distributions, but ~15 years of native grazer restoration may increase distribution. I also present progress on the development of an Open Educational Resource which is meant to provide undergraduate instructors with customizable lessons and tools to implement machine learning into an undergraduate biology lab curriculum.
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
12PM
A219B or via Zoom