Research

Graduate students and other volunteers help install drift fences on the Cold Mountain Game Land in western North Carolina.

My research is focused on understanding the effects of global change on wildlife, with an emphasis on disturbance ecology.  The research typically is applied and often employs large-scale, replicated environmental manipulations.

Current research activities are:

  • Implications of climate change for wildlife
    • Current Project: Effects of salinization and sea-level rise on coastal birds
  • Informing forest management practices that sustain habitat for focal wildlife
    • Current Project: Relationships between timber harvest residue and small mammals and invertebrates
    • Current Project: Developing woody biomass harvest guidelines to minimize impacts on wildlife
    • Current Project: Identifying habitat thresholds for red-cockaded woodpecker management
  • Fire effects on wildlife vital rates and habitat quality
    • Current Project: Effects of growing-season prescribed fires on wildlife, especially ground-nesting birds
    • Mapping and understanding hardwood persistence in fire-maintained longleaf pine ecosystems

Although I historically have studied non-game species, my interests are rooted more in the particulars of specific land use practices than in the taxonomic groups studied.  For example, I am fascinated by fire ecology and study response by both game (e.g., bobwhite, turkey, deer) and non-game (e.g., salamanders, shrews, songbirds) taxa to prescribed burning.

I value my relationships with graduate students and I do all that I can to spend time with each in the field and schedule periodic meetings to discuss the challenges and opportunities of ongoing research.  My door always is open.