Written by Dr. Kasim Rafiq In June 2024, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Kasim Rafiq and PhD candidate Leigh West from Dr. Briana Abrahms‘ lab returned to Wild Dog Camp in the Okavango Delta and were joined by Briana’s new PhD student Marie-Pier Poulin. The team successfully deployed six new tracking collars on African wild dogs, including in two brand new packs, […]
Field Updates: Botswana, summer 2024 Read More »
Congratulations to Leigh West, Dr. Abrahms’s graduate student, who just recently published her first paper as lead author. Her research article, “Droughts reshape apex predator space use and intraguild overlap,” was published in the Journal of Animal Ecology on October 4th, and also serves as the second chapter of her dissertation. This is an exciting milestone for Leigh as she
Abrahms Lab grad student Leigh West publishes first article Read More »
In July 2024, Dr. Dee Boersma and Dr. Caroline Cappello traveled to the Galápagos Islands for a penguin expedition unlike any they’d experienced before. Since 2010, CES has collaborated with Galápagos National Park and conservationist Godfrey Merlen to visit penguin breeding areas and conduct research. After Godfrey’s passing in 2023, CES—with heavy hearts but optimism for the future—sought a new
Field Updates: Galápagos Islands, summer 2024 Read More »
From the Abstract:Droughts are increasing in frequency and severity globally due to climate change, leading to changes in resource availability that may have cascading effects on animal ecology. Although several studies have demonstrated the ecological impacts of drought, the behavioural responses of individuals that scale up to these broader-scale effects are not well known, particularly among animals in top trophic
Droughts reshape apex predator space use and intraguild overlap Read More »
Summary adapted from social media post by Anna Testorf: One of our recent studies illustrates how noise from large ships and other vessels decreases overall foraging success of fish-eating killer whales through a process known as auditory masking. Knowing how vessel noise affects killer whales can inform actions to mitigate noise and promote health and survival of these vulnerable populations
From the abstract: “Here, we review studies of animal behaviour at the spatial–social interface to understand and predict how human disturbance affects animal movement, distribution and intraspecific interactions, with consequences for the conservation of populations and ecosystems. By understanding the spatial–social mechanisms linking human disturbance to conservation outcomes, we can better design management interventions to mitigate undesired consequences of disturbance.”
Anthropogenic impacts at the interface of animal spatial and social behaviour Read More »
From the abstract: “We propose three key innovations that incrementally build upon each other […] These conceptual innovations cast our understanding of the relationships between social and spatial dimensions of animal ecology in a new light, allowing a more holistic understanding and clearer hypothesis development for animal behaviour.” Authors: Simona Picardi, Briana L. Abrahms and Jerod A. MerkleJournal: Philosophical Transactions
Scale at the interface of spatial and social ecology Read More »
We’ve been publishing a lot these days! Here’s a digest of what we’ve published from September 2024 – November 2024: Keep up with all of our research following us on Instagram, Facebook, or X/Twitter!
Research updates: fall 2024 Read More »
Happy World African Wild Dog Day! While most people know the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels for our work on penguins, we also research African Wild Dogs. In fact, Dr. Kasim Rafiq and graduate students Leigh West and Marie-Pier Poulin are just returning from Botswana right now! As usual, they worked alongside our collaborators from Botswana Predator Conservation over the summer.
World African Wild Dog Day Read More »
“We show that the potential spatial overlap of global human populations and 22,374 terrestrial vertebrate species will increase across ~56.6% and decrease across only ~11.8% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface by 2070 […] The strong spatial heterogeneity of future human-wildlife overlap found in our study makes it clear that local context is imperative to consider, and more targeted area-based land-use
Global expansion of human-wildlife overlap in the 21st century Read More »
