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Exploring the implications of global change on our natural world
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Ungulate Nutrition Across Ecosystems and Scale
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As an ecosystem ecologist, I seek insight into the complex relationships between living organisms and their environment. Understanding these connections is essential for predicting how environmental changes or disturbances might impact the health and functioning of an ecosystem. Forage is the primary source of nutrition for many animals, and as such, it plays a critical role in their overall health and wellbeing. By understanding what types of forage animals need to eat and how much of it they require, we can help ensure that they are getting the nutrients they need to thrive. However, climate change and land use change are altering the resources available to animals at a rapid pace.
I have collaborated on several projects that sought to identify ungulate diets and nutritional demand. This includes identifying exactly what animals are eating (Webber et al., 2022), estimating deposition nutrient content (Barbero-Palacios et al., 2023), and understanding how forage stoichometry varies at different scales, I aim to advance our understanding of wild animal nutrition. |
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Ecosystem Context Dependency of Animal Subsidies
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Animal effects vary by ecosystem context, where context is determined by variables such as animal density, dominant plant species, underlying soil biophysical properties, and soil biota. Studying how animals impact biogeochemical cycles is even more important in an ever-changing, human-dominated world where anthropogenic activity modifies zoogeochemistry through changes to animal community composition, diet, or movement patterns (Abraham et al., 2022). I seek to understand how zoogeochemical inputs may be mediated by such contexts (Burak, Ferraro, Orrick et al., 2024). Most recently, I've been interested in how plant mycorrhizal associations can mediate the impact of zoogeochemical inputs - calling for closer attention to the depositional environment of animal subsidies as ecosystem change (Ferraro et al., 2023).
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