This seminar will be held on campus in room 1005 Forbes Natural History Building, 1816 S. Oak, Champaign or you may join seminar via Zoom here | Meeting ID 886 8703 1746 | Password 736620
Estimating demographic rates of wildlife species, such as survival and fecundity, is crucial for monitoring wildlife populations and informing management of these species. Monitoring highly mobile species is especially challenging, as the life histories and behaviors (e.g., migration) of highly mobile species can affect inference on demographic rates and ultimately render monitoring less effective. Species’ movements can expose them to a variety of hazards and opportunities, creating spatial and temporal variation in demographic rates that must be accounted for in models. Furthermore, the movement behaviors of many highly mobile species can violate key assumptions of the standard statistical models used to estimate demographic rates. Thus, new monitoring frameworks and models need to be designed to minimize violations of model assumptions or relax those assumptions. In this talk, I use several case studies to demonstrate how novel models and monitoring frameworks can improve demographic rate estimation, ecological inference, and population monitoring capabilities for highly mobile species, including wolverines, American black ducks, and African wild dogs.
