November 2024
- Ken Wilson successfully defended his Master’s thesis on feral hog
impacts on avian communities!! He did a fantastic job, and we’re so
excited to see where he goes next!
- We are so excited that Anne Puchalsky will be
joining our lab as a Master’s Student! Anne will be studying King Rail
breeding ecology and movement in Arkansas. Check back on the People
Tab for profile pic and bio soon!
August 2024
- MS position for King Rail breeding ecology
available!! Check out the Join
the Lab tab for more information.
- Two of our lab alumni got some fantastic jobs!
- Jess Novobilsky: Habitat Coordinator for Arkansas Natural
Heritage Commission
- Lauren Berry: Intern for the US Senate Committee on
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
- We’ve also gotten two new publications for the lab:
- Dr. Reilly Jackson led a publication looking at potential risk of
interaction/disease transmission between two invasive waterfowl
(Egyptian Geese and Mute Swan) and poultry in Ecology
and Evolution. This is especially relevant given the HPAI
outbreaks!
- We came up with an approach for balancing practical concerns with
the ecologies of invasive species. Check out our new article in Ecological
Solutions and Evidence if you’re interested in species distribution
models and eradicating invasive species!
May 2024
- Lauren Berry and Jess Novobilsky graduated with their M.S. degrees!
Woohoo! They’ll be sticking around for a bit in post-Master’s technician
positions, but we’re so excited to see where they’ll go next!
- We’re also excited to welcome Lauren Luther to the
lab! Lauren is working on her undergraduate honor’s thesis with Michael
Ferrara on the WildSNaP solar project! Check her bio out on the People
tab.
April 2024
- Congratulations to Jess Schmit and Lauren Berry for defending their
M.S. theses! They did tremendous jobs, and we can’t wait to see where
they go next!
- Double congratulations to Lauren Berry and Jess Schmit for winning
first and second place, respectively, at the student presentation
competition at The Arkansas Chapter of The Wildlife Society 2024 annual
meeting!
- Finally, we have a new book chapter published: “Alternative Futures
of the Sandhills” in The
Nebraska Sandhills book.
March 2024
- Lately, our team has won so many awards that we have to make a list!
Here they all are in alphabetical order by surname:
- Paul Akpejeluh: University of Arkansas Doctoral Academy
Fellowship
- Lauren Berry: 3rd place in Graduate Student Presentation
Competition at the Society for Range Management Conference; Kimberly G.
Smith Memorial Scholarship
- Lindsey LaBrie: University of Arkansas Doctoral Academy
Fellowship; Outstanding Subunit Member of the Arkansas Chapter of the
American Fisheries Society; Natural State Fisheries Scholarship
- We’ve got a new pub on pronghorn antelope in Global
Ecology and Conservation led by Dr. Donovan. Oil and gas
development + woody plant encroachment are correlated to declining
recruitment.
December 2023
- Congratulations to Mike Shaw for passing his thesis
defense!!! Mike will be heading to Michigan State to pursue a PhD. We’ll
miss you, Mike!
- Hello to Paul Akpejeluh, who will be joining the
lab in spring 2024! Paul will be funded by our USDA AFRI grant, working
on improving early detection methods for invasive plants. Check his info
out on the People
tab.
November 2023
- So excited for our two new additions to the lab: Vinita
Karki and Michael Ferrara! Vinita will be
creating a statewide decision support tool to inform wild turkey
conservation, and Michael will be joining the WildSNaP project to
investigate the responses of bird communities to native plantings under
solar arrays. Check out the People
tab to read their bios and the Research
tab to read about their projects.
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
- **1
MS position open in the lab!: Come investigate how birds are
responding to native plantings under solar arrays! Fully funded, lots of
field work, and opportunities to work with renewable energy, acoustic
recording units, and a fantastic team of scientists!
- We’re so excited that Lindsey
LaBrie will be joining the Living Landscapes Lab this fall! Lindsey
will be pursuing a PhD and leading research on aquatic invasive species.
Can’t wait!
- Congratulations to our very own Jess
Schmit for winning the 2023 Lynds Jones Prize for best poster at the
104th Annual Meeting of the Wilson Ornithological Society! King Rails
all the way!
- And last, but definitely not least, congratulations to Percy
Marshall for graduating with their M.S.! Thankfully, we’re keeping Percy
around for a bit to help design a study on invasive shrub treatments at
Big Oaks NWR–and to finish publishing their amazing thesis
chapters.
June 2023
- 2
PhD positions open in the lab:
- Wild Turkey Population Ecology: Want to study wild turkeys
and learn about Integrated Population Models and spatially varying
coefficient models? Start date is spring 2024!
- Invasion Ecology: Also, we have an amazing position
investigating new methods for early detection of invasive plant species
+ impacts of invasive plant species. If you’re interested in modeling,
fire ecology, wildlife, and/or ecosystem services, we hope to see your
application in the pool! Start date is fall 2023 or spring 2024.
April 2023
March 2023
- Congratulations to Percy Marshall for winning second place in the
Arkansas Chapter of The Wildlife Society’s Student Oral Presentation
Award! We’re so proud!
- We’re heading to IALE-North
America next week! Hope to see you there!
January 2023
- We’re hiring a Ph.D. student to work on aquatic invasive species
issues in Arkansas and beyond! To apply, see the job ad in the Join
The Lab tab. Looking forward to seeing your application!
- Speaking of invasive species–stay tuned for another
Ph.D. student position opening soon! Some sneak peaks: there’s gonna be
study sites in Florida/Arkansas, visits to Montana, learning about fire,
and creating a national-scale early detection workflow for invasive
terrestrial plants. Can’t wait!!
December 2022
November 2022
- How much does tree invasion of grasslands cost western US economies?
Billions. Check out our new Journal
of Applied Ecology article for the details.
- Our own Percy
Marshall has published their first peer-reviewed manuscript in Crop
Science! Spoiler: hummingbirds can help control orchard pest
insects!
October 2022
- New technologies allow us to rapidly learn from rangeland management
actions like prescribed fire, grazing, and tree removal at scales from
30m2 pixels to biomes! Check out our brand new Journal
of Environmental Management manuscript to learn more.
- We’re kicking off a new research project on risk of giant
salvinia invasion. See our research
tab to learn more!
August 2022
July 2022
- Audubon
Magazine just covered our fire-grassland bird restoration research!
Many thanks to the Working Land for Wildlife folks who are getting the
good word out!
June 2022
- We’re very excited to welcome Lauren
Berry to the Living Landscapes Lab! Lauren will be using bird
community and remote sensing data to quantify grassland management
outcomes for USFWS refuges.
- Super excited that National Public Radio covered our research on
grassland restoration in the Loess Canyons! Read the article here.
May 2022
- Targeted grazing or tree thinning: which best improves forest stand
resilience to wildfire (i.e., crown fires)? For answers, check out our
new
paper in Ecosphere.
April 2022
- If you’re interested in how large-scale fire and grassland
restoration gets done, check out our AERLive
workshop!
- One of our photos made the cover of Ecological
Solutions and Evidence!
- Rare birds? Regime shifts? Scale detection via Asymmetric
Eigenvector Maps?? Check out our new ms in Frontiers
in Ecology and Evolution if you’re interested in a quirky look at
spatial resilience.
March 2022
- The Wildlife Society covered our paper! Check out their news
feed.
February 2022
- Big news!! We got a grant with the US Fish & Wildlife Service to
develop a mapping tool to quantify grassland management outcomes. See
the new project on the Research
page.
- We’re hiring two summer technicians!! Check out the job
ad for more information.
- Also, if you’re interested in ecological resilience and think
“wombling” is a hilarious word, check out our new paper
in Ecological Indicators.
January 2022
- Big, hot, and connected fires restored grassland bird species! Read
our new paper
in Ecological Solutions and Evidence to find out more!
- Lots of press for the Living Landscapes Lab in the New Year: an
article in the Wildlife Management Institute’s Outdoor
News Bulletin, a publication
alert and an “Ask
an Expert interview” with the Lesser Prairie-Chicken Initiative, and
an upcoming press release by University of Arkansas.
December 2021
- Our upcoming paper in Ecological Solutions and Evidence on
grassland bird responses to prescribed fire was featured in Discover
Magazine! We hope the paper will be published in the New Year!
November 2021
- +1 article for November: Dr. DeGregorio’s lab and I
collaborated to investigate responses of nine-banded armadillo activity
patterns to human development/noise. Check it out in Ecology and
Evolution!
- Welcome to our new MS student and secretive marshbird expert, Jess
Schmit! Jess will start in spring 2022, and she will be co-advised by
Caleb and Dr. Fournier. Jess
will study King Rail migration and habitat usage.
- Our new article in Ecological
Applications shows how new tech/methods can provide early warnings
of woody invasions and help rapidly adapt management. Stay tuned for
more press on this one!
August 2021
- Mike Shaw will be joining the Living Landscapes Lab this fall too!
Mike will be an MS student co-advised by Caleb and Dr. DeGregorio and will
study Eastern Spotted Skunk.
- I have another essay out in Terrain.org!
I talk about my experiences as a person of Hispanic heritage during my
first field internship. Check it out if you’re interested!
June 2021
- Very happy to announce that Percy Marshall will be joining the
Living Landscapes Lab this fall! They will be pursuing their MS and
studying invasive waterfowl.
- Also, very proud to be a coauthor on another publication
led by Dr. Donovan! It’s the best of our fire + resilience +
savanna/grassland ecotone papers yet!
May 2021
- We have a new publication
in Journal of Mammalogy led by Dr. Victoria Donovan! Check it out if
you’re interested in bighorn sheep and/or fire.
April 2021
- Website launched
- I’m hiring a Master’s student for an invasive species ecology and
management project! Check out this link
for more information.