Brian Gerber, PhD
Assistant Unit Leader - Colorado Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
Brian focuses on collaborative wildlife ecology science aimed to inform conservation and management practice. Brian is interested in all aspects of ecological learning, such as statistical modeling and inference. Brian joined the Cooperative Research Unit at Colorado State University in 2023. From 2017-2023, Brian served as Assistant and then Associate Professor at the University of Rhode Island in the Department of Natural Resources.
Brian completed a bachelor's of science. in Wildlife and Fisheries Conservation at the University of Massachusetts, an master's of science in Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech, and a PhD at Colorado State University.
Professional Experience
Associate Professor - University of Rhode Island
Education and Certifications
PhD - Colorado State University.
M.S. - Virginia Tech
B.S. - University of Massachusetts
Science and Products
When the wild things are: Defining mammalian diel activity and plasticity
Circadian rhythms are a mechanism by which species adapt to environmental variability and fundamental to understanding species behavior. However, we lack data and a standardized framework to accurately assess and compare temporal activity for species during rapid ecological change. Through a global network representing 38 countries, we leveraged 8.9 million mammalian observations to...
Authors
Kadambari Devarajan, Mason Fidino, Zach J. Farris, Solny A. Adalsteinsson, Gabriel Andrade-Ponce, Julia Angstmann, Whitney Anthonysamy, Jesica Aquino, Addisu Asefa, Belen Avila, Larissa L. Bailey, Lyandra Maria de Sousa Barbosa, Marcela de Frias Barreto, Owain Barton, Chloe E Bates, Mayara Guimarães Beltrão, Tori Bird, Elizabeth G Biro, Francesco Bisi, Daniel Bohórquez, Mark S. Boyce, Justin S. Brashares, Grace Bullington, Phoebe Burns, Jessica Burr, Andrew R. Butler, Kendall L. Calhoun, Tien Trung Cao, Natalia Casado, Juan Camilo Cepeda-Duque, Jonathon D. Cepek, Adriano Garcia Chiarello, Merri Collins, Pedro Cordeiro-Estrela, Sebastian Costa, Giacomo Cremonesi, Bogdan Cristescu, Paula Cruz, Anna Carolina Figueiredo de Albuquerque, Carlos De Angelo, Cláudia Bueno De Campos, Liana Mara Mendes De Sena, Mario Di Bitetti, Douglas de Matos Dias, Duane R. Diefenbach, Tim S. Doherty, Thais P dos Santos, Gabriela Teixeira Duarte, Timothy M. Eppley, John Erb, Carolina Franco Esteves, Bryn Evans, Maria L.M. Falcão, Hugo Fernandes-Ferreira, John R. Fieberg, Luiz Carlos Firmino de Souza Filho, Jason Fisher, Marie-Josee Fortin, George A. Gale, Travis Gallo, Laken S. Ganoe, Rony Garcia-Anleu, Kaitlyn M. Gaynor, Tiziana A. Gelmi-Candusso, Phillys N. Gichuru, Quimey Gomez, Austin M. Green, Luiza Neves Guimarães, Jeffrey D. Haight, Lavendar R. Harris, Zachary D. Hawn, Jordan Heiman, Huy Quoc Hoang, Sarah Huebner, Fabiola Iannarilli, María Eugenia Iezzi, Jacob S. Ivan, Kodi J. Jaspers, Mark J Jordan, Jason Kamilar, Mamadou Kane, Mohammad Hosein Karimi, Marcella J. Kelly, Michel T. Kohl, William P. Kuvlesky, Andrew Ladle, Rachel N. Larson, Quy Tan Le, Duy Le, Van Son Le, Elizabeth W. Lehrer, Patrick E Lendrum, Jesse S. Lewis, Andrés Link, Diego J. Lizcano, Jason V. Lombardi, Robert Long, Eva López-Tello, Camile Lugarini, David Lugo, Paula MacKay, Maria Madadi, Rodolfo Assis Magalhães, Seth B. Magle, Ludmila Hufnagel Regis Diniz Maia, Salvador Mandujano, Taisiia Marchenkova, Paulo Henrique Marinho, Laurie Marker, Julia Martinez Pardo, Adriano Martinoli, Rodrigo Lima Massara, Juliana Masseloux, Dina Matiukhina, Amy E. Mayer, Luis Mazariegos, Maureen R. McClung, Alex McInturff, Darby McPhail, Amy Mertl, Christopher R. Middaugh, David Miller, David Mills, Dale Miquelle, Vivianna Miritis, Remington J. Moll, Péter K. Molnár, Robert Montgomery, Toni Lyn Morelli, Alessio Mortelliti, Rachael I. Mueller, Anna S. Mukhacheva, Kayleigh Mullen, Asia Murphy, Vance Nepomuceno, Dusit Ngoprasert, An Nguyen, Thanh Van Nguyen, Van Thai Nguyen, Hoa Anh Nguyen Quang, Rob Nipko, Ana Clarissa Costa Nobre, Joseph Northrup, Megan A. Owen, Adriano Pereira Paglia, Meredith S. Palmer, Gabriela Palomo-Munoz, Lain E. Pardo, Chrystina Parks, Ana Maria de Oliveira Paschoal, Brent Patterson, Agustin Paviolo, Liba Pejchar, Mary E. Pendergast, Humberto L. Perotto-Baldivieso, Timofei Petrov, Mairi K.P. Poisson, Daiana Jeronimo Polli, Morteza Pourmirzai, Alexander Reebin, Katie R. Remine, Lindsey Rich, Christopher S. Richardson, Facundo Robino, Daniel G Rocha, Fabiana Lopes Rocha, Flávio Henrique Guimarães Rodrigues, Adam T. Rohnke, Travis J. Ryan, Carmen M. Salsbury, Heather A. Sander, Nadia Maria da Cruz Santos-Cavalcante, Cagan H. Sekercioglu, Ivan Seryodkin, Dede Hendra Setiawan, Shabnam Shadloo, Mahsa Shahhosseini, Graeme Shannon, Catherine J. Shier, G. Bradley Smith, Tom Snyder, Rahel Sollmann, Kimberly L. Sparks, Kriangsak Sribuarod, Colleen Cassady St. Claire, Theodore Stankowich, Robert Steinmetz, Cassondra J Stevenson, Sunarto Sunarto, Thilina D. Surasinghe, Svetlana V. Sutyrina, Ronald R. Swaisgood, Atie Taktehrani, Kanchan Thapa, Matthew Thorton, Andrew Tilker, Mathias W. Tobler, Van Bang Tran, Jody Tucker, Russell C. Van Horn, Juan S. Vargas-Soto, Karen L. Velásquez, Jan Venter, Eduardo M. Venticinque, Stijn Verschueren, Erin Wampole, Darcy J. Watchorn, Oliver R. Wearn, Katherine C.B. Weiss, Alejandro Welschen, Febri Anggriawan Widodo, Jacque Williamson, Andreas Wilting, George Wittemyer, Arturo Zavaleta, Amanda J. Zellmer, Brian Daniel Gerber
Climate, food and humans predict communities of mammals in the United States
AimThe assembly of species into communities and ecoregions is the result of interacting factors that affect plant and animal distribution and abundance at biogeographic scales. Here, we empirically derive ecoregions for mammals to test whether human disturbance has become more important than climate and habitat resources in structuring communities.LocationConterminous United States.Time...
Authors
Roland Kays, Matthew H. Snider, George Hess, Michael V. Cove, Alex Jensen, Hila Shamon, William J. McShea, Brigit Rooney, Maximilian L. Allen, Charles E. Pekins, Christopher C. Wilmers, Mary E. Pendergast, Austin M. Green, Justin Suraci, Matthew S. Leslie, Sophie Nasrallah, Dan Farkas, Mark Jordan, Melissa M. Grigione, Michael LaScaleia, Miranda L. Davis, Chris Hansen, Josh Millspaugh, Jesse S. Lewis, Michael Havrda, Robert Long, Kathryn R. Remine, Kodi J. Jaspers, Diana J. R. Lafferty, Tru Hubbard, Colin E. Studds, Erika L. Barthelmess, Katherine Andy, Andrea Romero, Brian J. O'Neill, Melissa T.R. Hawkins, Jason V. Lombardi, Maksim Sergeyev, M. Caitlin Fisher-Reid, Michael S. Rentz, Christopher Nagy, Jon D Davenport, Christine C. Rega-Brodsky, Cara L. Appel, Damon B. Lesmeister, Sean T. Giery, Christopher A. Whittier, Joshua D Alston, Chris Sutherland, Christopher Rota, Thomas P. Murphy, Thomas E. Lee, Alessio Mortelliti, Dylan L. Bergman, Justin A. Compton, Brian D. Gerber, Jess Burr, Kylie Rezendes, Brett Alexander DeGregorio, Nathaniel H. Wehr, John F. Benson, M. Teague O'Mara, David S. Jachowski, Morgan Gray, Dean E. Beyer, Jerrold L. Belant, Robert V. Horan, Robert Charles Lonsinger, Kellie M. Kuhn, Steven C. M. Hasstedt, Marketa Zimova, Sophie M. Moore, Daniel J. Herrera, Sarah Fritts, Andrew J. Edelman, Elizabeth A. Flaherty, Tyler R. Petroelje, Sean A. Neiswenter, Derek R. Risch, Fabiola Iannarilli, Marlien van der Merwe, Sean P. Maher, Zach J. Farris, Stephen L. Webb, David B. Mason, Marcus A. Lashley, Andrew M. Wilson, John P. Vanek, Samuel R. Wehr, L. Mike Conner, James C. Beasley, Helen L. Bontrager, Carolina Baruzzi, Susan N. Ellis-Felege, Mike D. Proctor, Jan Schipper, Katherine C.B. Weiss, Andrea K. Darracq, Evan G. Barr, Peter D. Alexander, Çağan H. Şekercioğlu, Daniel A. Bogan, Christopher M. Schalk, Jean E. Fantle-Lepczyk, Christopher A. Lepczyk, Scott LaPoint, Laura S. Whipple, Helen Ivy Rowe, Kayleigh Mullen, Tori Bird, Adam Zorn, LaRoy Brandt, Richard G. Lathrop, Craig McCain, Anthony P. Crupi, James S. Clark, Arielle Parsons
Using global remote camera data of a solitary species complex to evaluate the drivers of group formation
The social system of animals involves a complex interplay between physiology, natural history, and the environment. Long relied upon discrete categorizations of “social” and “solitary” inhibit our capacity to understand species and their interactions with the world around them. Here, we use a globally distributed camera trapping dataset to test the drivers of aggregating into groups in a...
Authors
Joshua P. Twining, Chris Sutherland, Andrzej Zalewski, Michael V. Cove, Johnny Birks, Oliver R. Wearn, Jessica Haysom, Anna Wereszczuk, Emiliano Manzo, Paola Bartolommei, Alessio Mortelliti, Bryn Evans, Brian D. Gerber, Thomas J. Jr. McGreevy, Laken S. Ganoe, Juliana Masseloux, Amy E. Mayer, Izabela Wierzbowska, Jan Loch, Jocelyn Akins, Donovan Drummey, William J. McShea, Stephanie Manke, Lain Pardo, Andy J. Boyce, Sheng Li, Roslina Binti Ragai, Ronglarp Sukmasuang, Álvaro José Villafañe Trujillo, Carlos López-González, Nalleli Elvira Lara-Díaz, Olivia Cosby, Cristian N. Waggershauser, Jack Bamber, Frances Stewart, Jason C. Fisher, Angela K. Fuller, Kelly A. Perkins, Roger A. Powell
Optimal management decisions are robust to unknown dynamics in an amphibian metapopulation plagued by disease
Identifying conservation actions to recover threatened species can be challenging due to many ecological uncertainties. For example, major threats to a species' conservation are commonly known or suspected, but the specific impacts on population or metapopulation dynamics can be uncertain. This is frequently the case with emerging infectious diseases, including chytridiomycosis, a global...
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, Brittany Mosher, Larissa L. Bailey, Erin L. Muths, Harry J. Crockett, Sarah J. Converse
Extreme site fidelity as an optimal strategy in an unpredictable and homogeneous environment
1.Animal site fidelity structures space use, population demography and ultimately gene flow. Understanding the adaptive selection for site fidelity patterns provides a mechanistic understanding to both spatial and population processes. This can be achieved by linking space use with environmental variability (spatial and temporal) and demographic parameters. However, rarely is the...
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, Mevin Hooten, Christopher P. Peck, Mindy B. Rice, James H. Gammonley, Anthony D. Apa, Amy J. S. Davis
Accounting for location uncertainty in azimuthaltelemetry data improves ecological inference
BackgroundCharacterizing animal space use is critical for understanding ecological relationships. Animal telemetry technology has revolutionized the fields of ecology and conservation biology by providing high quality spatial data on animal movement. Radio-telemetry with very high frequency (VHF) radio signals continues to be a useful technology because of its low cost, miniaturization...
Authors
Mevin Hooten, Brian D. Gerber, Christopher P. Peck, Mindy B. Rice, Anthony D. Apa, James H. Gammonley, Amy J. S. Davis
Adaptive management of animal populations with significant unknowns and uncertainties: A case study
Conservation and management decision making in natural resources is challenging due to numerous uncertainties and unknowns, especially relating to understanding system dynamics. Adaptive resource management (ARM) is a formal process to making logical and transparent recurrent decisions when there are uncertainties about system dynamics. Despite wide recognition and calls for implementing...
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, William L. Kendall
Identifying species conservation strategies to reduce disease-associated declines
Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are a salient threat to many animal taxa, causing local and global extinctions, altering communities and ecosystem function. The EID chytridiomycosis is a prominent driver of amphibian declines, which is caused by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). To guide conservation policy, we developed a predictive decision-analytic model...
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, Sarah J. Converse, Erin L. Muths, Harry J. Crockett, Brittany Mosher, Larissa L. Bailey
Evaluating and improving count-based population inference: A case study from 31 years of monitoring Sandhill Cranes
Monitoring animal populations can be difficult. Limited resources often force monitoring programs to rely on unadjusted or smoothed counts as an index of abundance. Smoothing counts is commonly done using a moving-average estimator to dampen sampling variation. These indices are commonly used to inform management decisions, although their reliability is often unknown. We outline a...
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, William L. Kendall
A model to inform management actions as a response to chytridiomycosis-associated decline
Decision-analytic models provide forecasts of how systems of interest will respond to management. These models can be parameterized using empirical data, but sometimes require information elicited from experts. When evaluating the effects of disease in species translocation programs, expert judgment is likely to play a role because complete empirical information will rarely be available...
Authors
Sarah J. Converse, Larissa L. Bailey, Brittany Mosher, Chris Funk, Brian D. Gerber, Erin L. Muths
Considering transient population dynamics in the conservation of slow life-history species: An application to the sandhill crane
The importance of transient dynamics of structured populations is increasingly recognized in ecology, yet these implications are not largely considered in conservation practices. We investigate transient and long-term population dynamics to demonstrate the process and utility of incorporating transient dynamics into conservation research and to better understand the population management...
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, William L. Kendall
Optimal population prediction of sandhill crane recruitment based on climate-mediated habitat limitations
Prediction is fundamental to scientific enquiry and application; however, ecologists tend to favour explanatory modelling. We discuss a predictive modelling framework to evaluate ecological hypotheses and to explore novel/unobserved environmental scenarios to assist conservation and management decision-makers. We apply this framework to develop an optimal predictive model for juvenile (
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, William L. Kendall, Mevin Hooten, James A. Dubovsky, Roderick C. Drewien
Non-USGS Publications**
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.
A ‘How-to’ Guide for Estimating Animal Diel Activity Using Hierarchical Models
We provide R Markdown files that are built by Bookdown to create a tutorial (HTML) that contains step-by-step examples on how to use trigonometric and cyclic cubic spline hierarchical models to analyze animal diel activity patterns from time-stamped data.
Global Animal Diel Activity Results
This ShinyApp provides users the ability to subset animal diel activity results by species, country, or project.
Science and Products
When the wild things are: Defining mammalian diel activity and plasticity
Circadian rhythms are a mechanism by which species adapt to environmental variability and fundamental to understanding species behavior. However, we lack data and a standardized framework to accurately assess and compare temporal activity for species during rapid ecological change. Through a global network representing 38 countries, we leveraged 8.9 million mammalian observations to...
Authors
Kadambari Devarajan, Mason Fidino, Zach J. Farris, Solny A. Adalsteinsson, Gabriel Andrade-Ponce, Julia Angstmann, Whitney Anthonysamy, Jesica Aquino, Addisu Asefa, Belen Avila, Larissa L. Bailey, Lyandra Maria de Sousa Barbosa, Marcela de Frias Barreto, Owain Barton, Chloe E Bates, Mayara Guimarães Beltrão, Tori Bird, Elizabeth G Biro, Francesco Bisi, Daniel Bohórquez, Mark S. Boyce, Justin S. Brashares, Grace Bullington, Phoebe Burns, Jessica Burr, Andrew R. Butler, Kendall L. Calhoun, Tien Trung Cao, Natalia Casado, Juan Camilo Cepeda-Duque, Jonathon D. Cepek, Adriano Garcia Chiarello, Merri Collins, Pedro Cordeiro-Estrela, Sebastian Costa, Giacomo Cremonesi, Bogdan Cristescu, Paula Cruz, Anna Carolina Figueiredo de Albuquerque, Carlos De Angelo, Cláudia Bueno De Campos, Liana Mara Mendes De Sena, Mario Di Bitetti, Douglas de Matos Dias, Duane R. Diefenbach, Tim S. Doherty, Thais P dos Santos, Gabriela Teixeira Duarte, Timothy M. Eppley, John Erb, Carolina Franco Esteves, Bryn Evans, Maria L.M. Falcão, Hugo Fernandes-Ferreira, John R. Fieberg, Luiz Carlos Firmino de Souza Filho, Jason Fisher, Marie-Josee Fortin, George A. Gale, Travis Gallo, Laken S. Ganoe, Rony Garcia-Anleu, Kaitlyn M. Gaynor, Tiziana A. Gelmi-Candusso, Phillys N. Gichuru, Quimey Gomez, Austin M. Green, Luiza Neves Guimarães, Jeffrey D. Haight, Lavendar R. Harris, Zachary D. Hawn, Jordan Heiman, Huy Quoc Hoang, Sarah Huebner, Fabiola Iannarilli, María Eugenia Iezzi, Jacob S. Ivan, Kodi J. Jaspers, Mark J Jordan, Jason Kamilar, Mamadou Kane, Mohammad Hosein Karimi, Marcella J. Kelly, Michel T. Kohl, William P. Kuvlesky, Andrew Ladle, Rachel N. Larson, Quy Tan Le, Duy Le, Van Son Le, Elizabeth W. Lehrer, Patrick E Lendrum, Jesse S. Lewis, Andrés Link, Diego J. Lizcano, Jason V. Lombardi, Robert Long, Eva López-Tello, Camile Lugarini, David Lugo, Paula MacKay, Maria Madadi, Rodolfo Assis Magalhães, Seth B. Magle, Ludmila Hufnagel Regis Diniz Maia, Salvador Mandujano, Taisiia Marchenkova, Paulo Henrique Marinho, Laurie Marker, Julia Martinez Pardo, Adriano Martinoli, Rodrigo Lima Massara, Juliana Masseloux, Dina Matiukhina, Amy E. Mayer, Luis Mazariegos, Maureen R. McClung, Alex McInturff, Darby McPhail, Amy Mertl, Christopher R. Middaugh, David Miller, David Mills, Dale Miquelle, Vivianna Miritis, Remington J. Moll, Péter K. Molnár, Robert Montgomery, Toni Lyn Morelli, Alessio Mortelliti, Rachael I. Mueller, Anna S. Mukhacheva, Kayleigh Mullen, Asia Murphy, Vance Nepomuceno, Dusit Ngoprasert, An Nguyen, Thanh Van Nguyen, Van Thai Nguyen, Hoa Anh Nguyen Quang, Rob Nipko, Ana Clarissa Costa Nobre, Joseph Northrup, Megan A. Owen, Adriano Pereira Paglia, Meredith S. Palmer, Gabriela Palomo-Munoz, Lain E. Pardo, Chrystina Parks, Ana Maria de Oliveira Paschoal, Brent Patterson, Agustin Paviolo, Liba Pejchar, Mary E. Pendergast, Humberto L. Perotto-Baldivieso, Timofei Petrov, Mairi K.P. Poisson, Daiana Jeronimo Polli, Morteza Pourmirzai, Alexander Reebin, Katie R. Remine, Lindsey Rich, Christopher S. Richardson, Facundo Robino, Daniel G Rocha, Fabiana Lopes Rocha, Flávio Henrique Guimarães Rodrigues, Adam T. Rohnke, Travis J. Ryan, Carmen M. Salsbury, Heather A. Sander, Nadia Maria da Cruz Santos-Cavalcante, Cagan H. Sekercioglu, Ivan Seryodkin, Dede Hendra Setiawan, Shabnam Shadloo, Mahsa Shahhosseini, Graeme Shannon, Catherine J. Shier, G. Bradley Smith, Tom Snyder, Rahel Sollmann, Kimberly L. Sparks, Kriangsak Sribuarod, Colleen Cassady St. Claire, Theodore Stankowich, Robert Steinmetz, Cassondra J Stevenson, Sunarto Sunarto, Thilina D. Surasinghe, Svetlana V. Sutyrina, Ronald R. Swaisgood, Atie Taktehrani, Kanchan Thapa, Matthew Thorton, Andrew Tilker, Mathias W. Tobler, Van Bang Tran, Jody Tucker, Russell C. Van Horn, Juan S. Vargas-Soto, Karen L. Velásquez, Jan Venter, Eduardo M. Venticinque, Stijn Verschueren, Erin Wampole, Darcy J. Watchorn, Oliver R. Wearn, Katherine C.B. Weiss, Alejandro Welschen, Febri Anggriawan Widodo, Jacque Williamson, Andreas Wilting, George Wittemyer, Arturo Zavaleta, Amanda J. Zellmer, Brian Daniel Gerber
Climate, food and humans predict communities of mammals in the United States
AimThe assembly of species into communities and ecoregions is the result of interacting factors that affect plant and animal distribution and abundance at biogeographic scales. Here, we empirically derive ecoregions for mammals to test whether human disturbance has become more important than climate and habitat resources in structuring communities.LocationConterminous United States.Time...
Authors
Roland Kays, Matthew H. Snider, George Hess, Michael V. Cove, Alex Jensen, Hila Shamon, William J. McShea, Brigit Rooney, Maximilian L. Allen, Charles E. Pekins, Christopher C. Wilmers, Mary E. Pendergast, Austin M. Green, Justin Suraci, Matthew S. Leslie, Sophie Nasrallah, Dan Farkas, Mark Jordan, Melissa M. Grigione, Michael LaScaleia, Miranda L. Davis, Chris Hansen, Josh Millspaugh, Jesse S. Lewis, Michael Havrda, Robert Long, Kathryn R. Remine, Kodi J. Jaspers, Diana J. R. Lafferty, Tru Hubbard, Colin E. Studds, Erika L. Barthelmess, Katherine Andy, Andrea Romero, Brian J. O'Neill, Melissa T.R. Hawkins, Jason V. Lombardi, Maksim Sergeyev, M. Caitlin Fisher-Reid, Michael S. Rentz, Christopher Nagy, Jon D Davenport, Christine C. Rega-Brodsky, Cara L. Appel, Damon B. Lesmeister, Sean T. Giery, Christopher A. Whittier, Joshua D Alston, Chris Sutherland, Christopher Rota, Thomas P. Murphy, Thomas E. Lee, Alessio Mortelliti, Dylan L. Bergman, Justin A. Compton, Brian D. Gerber, Jess Burr, Kylie Rezendes, Brett Alexander DeGregorio, Nathaniel H. Wehr, John F. Benson, M. Teague O'Mara, David S. Jachowski, Morgan Gray, Dean E. Beyer, Jerrold L. Belant, Robert V. Horan, Robert Charles Lonsinger, Kellie M. Kuhn, Steven C. M. Hasstedt, Marketa Zimova, Sophie M. Moore, Daniel J. Herrera, Sarah Fritts, Andrew J. Edelman, Elizabeth A. Flaherty, Tyler R. Petroelje, Sean A. Neiswenter, Derek R. Risch, Fabiola Iannarilli, Marlien van der Merwe, Sean P. Maher, Zach J. Farris, Stephen L. Webb, David B. Mason, Marcus A. Lashley, Andrew M. Wilson, John P. Vanek, Samuel R. Wehr, L. Mike Conner, James C. Beasley, Helen L. Bontrager, Carolina Baruzzi, Susan N. Ellis-Felege, Mike D. Proctor, Jan Schipper, Katherine C.B. Weiss, Andrea K. Darracq, Evan G. Barr, Peter D. Alexander, Çağan H. Şekercioğlu, Daniel A. Bogan, Christopher M. Schalk, Jean E. Fantle-Lepczyk, Christopher A. Lepczyk, Scott LaPoint, Laura S. Whipple, Helen Ivy Rowe, Kayleigh Mullen, Tori Bird, Adam Zorn, LaRoy Brandt, Richard G. Lathrop, Craig McCain, Anthony P. Crupi, James S. Clark, Arielle Parsons
Using global remote camera data of a solitary species complex to evaluate the drivers of group formation
The social system of animals involves a complex interplay between physiology, natural history, and the environment. Long relied upon discrete categorizations of “social” and “solitary” inhibit our capacity to understand species and their interactions with the world around them. Here, we use a globally distributed camera trapping dataset to test the drivers of aggregating into groups in a...
Authors
Joshua P. Twining, Chris Sutherland, Andrzej Zalewski, Michael V. Cove, Johnny Birks, Oliver R. Wearn, Jessica Haysom, Anna Wereszczuk, Emiliano Manzo, Paola Bartolommei, Alessio Mortelliti, Bryn Evans, Brian D. Gerber, Thomas J. Jr. McGreevy, Laken S. Ganoe, Juliana Masseloux, Amy E. Mayer, Izabela Wierzbowska, Jan Loch, Jocelyn Akins, Donovan Drummey, William J. McShea, Stephanie Manke, Lain Pardo, Andy J. Boyce, Sheng Li, Roslina Binti Ragai, Ronglarp Sukmasuang, Álvaro José Villafañe Trujillo, Carlos López-González, Nalleli Elvira Lara-Díaz, Olivia Cosby, Cristian N. Waggershauser, Jack Bamber, Frances Stewart, Jason C. Fisher, Angela K. Fuller, Kelly A. Perkins, Roger A. Powell
Optimal management decisions are robust to unknown dynamics in an amphibian metapopulation plagued by disease
Identifying conservation actions to recover threatened species can be challenging due to many ecological uncertainties. For example, major threats to a species' conservation are commonly known or suspected, but the specific impacts on population or metapopulation dynamics can be uncertain. This is frequently the case with emerging infectious diseases, including chytridiomycosis, a global...
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, Brittany Mosher, Larissa L. Bailey, Erin L. Muths, Harry J. Crockett, Sarah J. Converse
Extreme site fidelity as an optimal strategy in an unpredictable and homogeneous environment
1.Animal site fidelity structures space use, population demography and ultimately gene flow. Understanding the adaptive selection for site fidelity patterns provides a mechanistic understanding to both spatial and population processes. This can be achieved by linking space use with environmental variability (spatial and temporal) and demographic parameters. However, rarely is the...
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, Mevin Hooten, Christopher P. Peck, Mindy B. Rice, James H. Gammonley, Anthony D. Apa, Amy J. S. Davis
Accounting for location uncertainty in azimuthaltelemetry data improves ecological inference
BackgroundCharacterizing animal space use is critical for understanding ecological relationships. Animal telemetry technology has revolutionized the fields of ecology and conservation biology by providing high quality spatial data on animal movement. Radio-telemetry with very high frequency (VHF) radio signals continues to be a useful technology because of its low cost, miniaturization...
Authors
Mevin Hooten, Brian D. Gerber, Christopher P. Peck, Mindy B. Rice, Anthony D. Apa, James H. Gammonley, Amy J. S. Davis
Adaptive management of animal populations with significant unknowns and uncertainties: A case study
Conservation and management decision making in natural resources is challenging due to numerous uncertainties and unknowns, especially relating to understanding system dynamics. Adaptive resource management (ARM) is a formal process to making logical and transparent recurrent decisions when there are uncertainties about system dynamics. Despite wide recognition and calls for implementing...
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, William L. Kendall
Identifying species conservation strategies to reduce disease-associated declines
Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are a salient threat to many animal taxa, causing local and global extinctions, altering communities and ecosystem function. The EID chytridiomycosis is a prominent driver of amphibian declines, which is caused by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). To guide conservation policy, we developed a predictive decision-analytic model...
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, Sarah J. Converse, Erin L. Muths, Harry J. Crockett, Brittany Mosher, Larissa L. Bailey
Evaluating and improving count-based population inference: A case study from 31 years of monitoring Sandhill Cranes
Monitoring animal populations can be difficult. Limited resources often force monitoring programs to rely on unadjusted or smoothed counts as an index of abundance. Smoothing counts is commonly done using a moving-average estimator to dampen sampling variation. These indices are commonly used to inform management decisions, although their reliability is often unknown. We outline a...
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, William L. Kendall
A model to inform management actions as a response to chytridiomycosis-associated decline
Decision-analytic models provide forecasts of how systems of interest will respond to management. These models can be parameterized using empirical data, but sometimes require information elicited from experts. When evaluating the effects of disease in species translocation programs, expert judgment is likely to play a role because complete empirical information will rarely be available...
Authors
Sarah J. Converse, Larissa L. Bailey, Brittany Mosher, Chris Funk, Brian D. Gerber, Erin L. Muths
Considering transient population dynamics in the conservation of slow life-history species: An application to the sandhill crane
The importance of transient dynamics of structured populations is increasingly recognized in ecology, yet these implications are not largely considered in conservation practices. We investigate transient and long-term population dynamics to demonstrate the process and utility of incorporating transient dynamics into conservation research and to better understand the population management...
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, William L. Kendall
Optimal population prediction of sandhill crane recruitment based on climate-mediated habitat limitations
Prediction is fundamental to scientific enquiry and application; however, ecologists tend to favour explanatory modelling. We discuss a predictive modelling framework to evaluate ecological hypotheses and to explore novel/unobserved environmental scenarios to assist conservation and management decision-makers. We apply this framework to develop an optimal predictive model for juvenile (
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, William L. Kendall, Mevin Hooten, James A. Dubovsky, Roderick C. Drewien
Non-USGS Publications**
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.
A ‘How-to’ Guide for Estimating Animal Diel Activity Using Hierarchical Models
We provide R Markdown files that are built by Bookdown to create a tutorial (HTML) that contains step-by-step examples on how to use trigonometric and cyclic cubic spline hierarchical models to analyze animal diel activity patterns from time-stamped data.
Global Animal Diel Activity Results
This ShinyApp provides users the ability to subset animal diel activity results by species, country, or project.