Vertebrate Ecology and Conservation Lab

California State University, Fullerton

 

 

Current Graduate Students

 

Sean Hauser (B.S., Centenary College of Louisiana) - Sean is studying the effects of prairie dogs and livestock grazing on grasshopper communities at the Shortgrass Steppe LTER site in northern Colorado. He also plans to use stable isotope analysis to examine contributions of cool- and warm-season plants to grasshopper diets.

 

Stephanie Cashin (B.S., Cal Poly Pomona) - Stephanie began her M.S. program in Fall 2007 and is examining the continued use of the Harbor Boulevard Underpass by wildlife in the Puente Chino Hills Wildlife Habitat Corridor and methods to migitate wildlife-vehicle collisions in this heavily urbanized area.  Stephanie is in the Environmental Studies Program.

 

 

 

Melissa Fowler (B.S., CSUF) - Missy is in the Environmental Studies Program working on a project to determine the effects of desert rodents on vegetation recovery and plant invasions in the Mojave National Preserve.  Missy was also a scholar in the UMEB-SCERP Program as an undergraduate at CSUF. 

 

 

 

 

 

Heather Franklin (B.S., Colorado State University) - Heather is using molecular genetic approaches (PCR) to identify the blood meals in fleas and determine whether prairie dog fleas feed on grasshopper mice, providing a mechanism by which the plague bacterium can be transmitted to different species.  Her work was part of the broader NSF-funded plague project that was recently completed in northern Colorado.

 

 

 

 

Current Undergraduate Research Students

 

Bryan White - Bryan is a scholar in the UMEB-SCERP Program who is studying microhabitat use and movements of desert rodents under predation risk at the Desert Studies Center in Zzyzx, California.

Denise Soto - Denise is currently examining how fleas from prairie dogs jump onto mammalian hosts, using data from our field studies in Colorado.

 

Distinguished Alumni

Dan Salkeld (Postdoc 2005-06)

Dan Salkeld is a wildlife disease specialist who studied the ecology of fleas and small mammals as part of our NSF-funded study of the ecology of plague in prairie dog colonies.  Dan received his PhD in Tropical Biology in 2004 from James Cook University in northern Queensland, Australia, and also serves as a Research Fellow for the IUCN World Conservation Union in Washington, DC.  Currently, Dan is a postdoc in James Jones' lab at Stanford University and continues to collaborate on the plague grant.

 

 

Scott Newbold (Postdoc 2006-07) - Scott received his PhD from Utah State University and worked on field data collection and synthesis for an ongoing, 4-year study of the effects of grazing on habitat and resources for Mountain Plovers in the eastern plains of Colorado.  This project was supported in part by the NSF Shortgrass Steppe LTER project.  He is currently teaching at CSU.

 

 

John Kraft (M.S., Biology, 2008) - John studied the movements of grasshopper mice associated with prairie dogs and their burrows, as part of the broader NSF-funded plague project underway in northern Colorado. He recently took a position as a Non-Game Biologist for the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

 

 

Abby Benson (M.S., Biology, 2008) - Abby studied sex-biased dispersal of thirteen-lined ground squirrels in and out of prairie dog colonies in northern Colorado, as part of the broader NSF-funded plague project in northern Colorado.

 

 

David Elliott (M.S., Biology, 2008) - David's project examined the effectiveness of underpasses constructed for wildlife in maintaining connectivity of the local Chino-Puente Hills Wildlife Habitat Corridor for carnivores and deer.  He used a combination of track stations and remote cameras and road-kill surveys to monitor use of a planned underpass in the Puente Hills, before, during and after its construction.  He is currently a Wildlife Biologist for the Canadian government in Labrador.

 

 

 

Katie Levensailor(M.S., Environmental Studies, 2007) - Katie studied the responses of small mammals and arthropods to various grazing regimes designed to create habitat for Mountain Plovers, a threatened shorebird of the western Great Plains.  Her research was located on the NSF Shortgrass Steppe LTER site near Ft. Collins, Colorado.  Katie is an Education Coordinator for Inside the Outdoors Orange County.

 

 

Darcee Guttilla (M.S., Biology, 2007) - Darcee examined the effects of sterilization on spacing and movement behavior and habitat use of feral cats on Santa Catalina Island.  Her project was part of a larger study of the ecology of feral cats on Catalina, which aimed to estimate the impact of cats on native species and evaluate the efficacy of sterilization as a management tool for controlling feral cat populations.  Darcee is currently working for an environmental consulting firm in Lompoc, California.

 

 

Sarah Millus (M.S., Biology, 2006) Sarah studied interactions between deer mice and Xantus' Murrelet, a threatened seabird, on Santa Barbara Island, the smallest island in Channel Islands National Park.  Deer mice have been implicated as major predators on murrelet eggs and chicks, and are believed to have played a role in the recent decline of murrelet populations.  She is currently working on a research project in Costa Rica.

 

 

 

Kimberly Nelson (B.S., 2009) - Kim was a scholar in the UMEB-SCERP Program and studied the effects of invasion of Argentine ants on native arthropods in riparian areas at the Audubon Starr Ranch Sanctuary in southern Orange County.  She is currently in the M.S. Program in Biology at CSUF.

 

 

 

 

Amanda Boone (B.S., 2009) - Amanda was an NSF-REU scholar who studied carnivore activity and scavenging rates at active and plague-extirpated prairie dog colonies, as part of the plague project.

 

 

 

Jessica Aldana (B.S., 2007) - Jessica was an NSF-REU student who studied the behavior of thirteen-lined ground squirrels in Colorado in association with our ongoing studies of the ecology of plague in small mammals associated with prairie dog colonies.

 

 

Loralee Larios (B.S., 2005)

Loralee was a UMEB-SCERP Program Scholar and studied the effects of artichoke thistle on arthropod biodiversity.  Her research was conducted at the Audubon Starr Ranch Sanctuary in southern Orange County.  She is currently a PhD student in Katie Suding's lab at UCI.

 

 

Leilani Townsend (B.S., 2004)

Leilani worked on the Catalina Island feral cat project, studying the diet of feral cats in different habitat types and near human settlements.  Her project helped determine the effects of feral cats on native prey species. She is in medical school in Las Vegas.