Recent News
Just published in a special issue on "Novel Insights in the Biology and Conservation of Freshwater Turtles" is "Somatic Growth and Maturity for Four Species of River Cooter Including Pseudemys concinna suwanniensis, P. nelsoni, P. peninsularis, and P. texana". This publication presents an incredible dataset collected by the Turtle Survival Alliance North American Freshwater Turtle Research Group over 20 years at five freshwater springs, four in Florida and one in Texas, on four River Cooters. Using this incredible dataset, we fit a hierarchical Bayesian von Bertalanffy growth model to estimate the growth of each species, the individual variation in growth, and the effect of the environment on growth across all the species and sites simultaneously. We also derived the length and age at maturity, key parameters to understanding life history and the resilience of a species to disturbances. This is the first mark-recapture based estimates of growth for these taxa, the first growth estimates for three of these taxa, and sets a precedent for using life history invariants to estimate age at maturity in Testudines.
About Me
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I am a quantitative ecologist and fisheries scientist studying patterns across the ecological hierarchy in search of the processes that link individuals to populations, populations to communities, and communities to ecosystems. I specialize in integrating analytical methods into synthetic models aimed at providing robust inference and filling data gaps. I have applied these integrated models in a broad set of interdisciplinary problems ranging from building risk maps for conservation and natural resource priority species to estimating life history characteristics of data-deficient species. Above all, I enjoy solving puzzles across the natural sciences. With a background in biology and chemistry, it is no wonder that my other interests feature these subjects prominently. I am an avid gardener with a collection of Zingiberales and orchids. I take much of my gardening inspiration by exploring the natural world and especially enjoy hunting for rare plants in situ. I try my hand at photography both in the garden and out exploring so the photos featured here are my own. |
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My Background I received a B.S. in Biology and B.A in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 2013, staying on for my M.S. studying the spatial and movement ecology of Basking Sharks in the Bay of Fundy. I completed my PhD at the University of Florida in 2017 studying the role of habitat in structuring aquatic interactions. I stayed on as a postdoctoral researcher from 2018-2020 before becoming an assistant research scientist working on an ecosystem-based fisheries management initiative in collaboration with NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center.
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