Identifying and investigating how animals interact with, and contribute to, the ecosystems they inhabit
Identifying Animal-Vectorized Subsidies
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Animals are always on the move, and through what they eat, where they die, and where they urinate, defecate, and give birth, they move nutrients. It was not until recently that the role of larger animals in nutrient cycles, such as our planet’s carbon and nitrogen cycles, has been recognized as significant. This is especially relevant under climate change, as rewilding certain areas with animals could be a nature-based solution to offset carbon emissions.
However, understanding where, when, and how much animals distribute nutrients across ecosystems is challenging, as it relies on methods and concepts from a variety of scientific disciplines (Ellis-Soto, Ferraro et al., 2021). My work seeks to address this information gap, helping ecologists better understand the important role animals play in biogeochemical processes (Barbero-Palacios et al., 2023; Ferraro et al., 2023; Ferraro and Hirst, 2024, Ferraro et al., 2024). |
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Modeling the Zoogeochemical Effects of Ungulates
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Animals alter nutrient distributions across ecosystems, yet analyzing these effects at a landscape scale is logistically challenging. To address this, I use individual-based models Ferraro et al., 2022 and ecosystem budgets (Ferraro and Hirst, 2024, Ferraro et al., 2024) to examine how ungulates impact nutrient distribution at the landscape scale.
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Predators as Drivers of Prey Behavior
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Predator-prey interactions are a fundamental part of community and ecosystem ecology, shaping the way animals move and interact with the environment they inhabit. Using agent-based models, I work closely with collaborators to simulate predator-prey interactions and how such dynamics cause prey individuals to shift in time and space (Orrick et al. 2024; Gadsden et al. 2024, Hawkinson et al., in revision).
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