Prairies are one of the world's most at-risk ecosystems. Today, only 1% of historic tallgrass prairie remains. In the wake of mass habitat loss, restoration has become a key aspect of keeping the prairie alive. However, restoration ecology is still an emerging field, and therefore much work needs to be done alongside land managers to make evidence-based choices in restored systems.
In prairies, much of the early work has examined the impacts of management activities like prescribed fire and the reintroduction of native grazers on the vegetative community. My research interests lie in understanding the impacts of management and changes in climate on the communities of small mammals in the prairie, and how those impacts change at different spatial scales. |
Small Mammal TrappingSince 2013, small mammals have been trapped, marked, and released at Nachusa Grasslands four times from April to October. Mammals are measured, tagged, and released, allowing us to gather survivorship and population structure data. We sample from 19 sites throughout the preserve, across various management regimes, allowing us to understand the effects of bison grazing and prescribed fire, as well as landscape features, on small mammal populations.
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Aerial Imagery and GISUsing historical aerial imagery as well as imagery collected using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), I am working to map landscape features such as bison wallows and calculating distance to edge throughout the preserve. I am developing quantitative spatial metrics to look at variables traditionally studied categorically to enhance our understanding of the impacts of prescribed fire, land cover, and landscape configuration. Finally, I recently worked to digitize the entire 35-year history of prescribed fire maps at Nachusa Grasslands and published these maps open access.
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Ecology EducationI am developing an active lesson plan for use in introductory ecology courses to help introduce the concepts of landscape ecology. This topic is often overlooked or limited to a single class period, so having clear and engaging activities will help make the most of this time. My lesson plan includes a conversational lecture, a group problem-solving challenge derived from real-world examples, and a reflection exercise that asks students to consider how landscape ecology concepts relate to green spaces they are familiar with.
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