Urban areas are currently expanding to accommodate the growing human population, with up to 1.5 million km² of additional impervious surfaces projected to be added to the Earth's surface by 2050. As impervious surfaces increase globally, the human-wildlife interface will shrink, subjecting wildlife to the myriad social-ecological pressures of cities and underscoring the need to understand the drivers of biodiversity and wildlife ecology for effective management and conservation initiatives. Moreover, as we aim to protect and bolster biodiversity amidst a global decline in species, investigating how biodiversity data coverage varies across landscapes will be critical in filling gaps and ensuring equitable conservation. Though cities are famously characterized by inequities and legacies of injustice, little work has incorporated these perspectives into wildlife ecology. This presentation will highlight the deeply interconnected futures of humans and wildlife by exploring how legacies of injustice and societal inequity shape urban ecosystem health, biodiversity data, and wildlife ecology.
Upcoming Events
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Past Events
Berkeley Wildlife Seminar Science Communication Workshop, Making Research Accessible
Communicating complex scientific concepts to the public is challenging for busy academics. However, raising awareness of the innovative science being conducted at UC Berkeley and beyond is essential! Science communication bridges the gap between researchers and the public, transforming complex ideas into accessible language, visuals, and stories that resonate with non-specialists. How can we make science communication more effective, apply it to our own work, and fit it into our packed schedules? With so many forms of communication—such as data visualization, photography, and journalism—what’s the best way to leverage these approaches to share our research widely?
Join us at this Berkeley Wildlife seminar featuring five UC Berkeley-affiliated communications specialists (and one humble PhD student). Our speakers, including data visualizers, photographers, and professional communicators, will each present their unique perspectives on science communication and their most effective methods. Following short presentations, there will be a 20–30-minute guided discussion.
Speakers include:
Julie Gipple is the Director of Communications for Rausser College of Natural Resources, where she leads all College communications including Breakthroughs magazine, news stories for College and departmental sites, social media, and donor communications. Suzanne Spencer: Communications Manager for Schmidt DSE and the Stone Center at UC Berkeley, specializing in translating data science & research for non-academic audiences. Malia Byrtus: A communications specialist on the California Wolf Project at UC Berkeley and an Emmy award-winning producer with expertise in conservation storytelling and wildlife camera trapping. Mat Burciaga: Writes about natural and human systems from biological, ecological, economic, and social science perspectives for UC Berkeley’s Rausser College of Natural Resources. Vishal Subramanyan: Accomplished wildlife photographer focused on telling conservation stories in California and beyond. Eric Heisey: PhD student in ESPM and photographer interested in applying visual science communication to his work.Veronica Frans, Postdoctoral Researcher, Stanford
Traditional ecology focuses on relationships between species and their environment. However,
today, humans and human systems increasingly interact with these relationships, making humans
an essential part of ecology worth acknowledgment and understanding. Here, I will present my
efforts to bridge the foundations of ecology with practice to better reflect the realities of our
integrated human and natural world. I will share a case study of the New Zealand sea lion, and the
complications that arise in modeling its future geographic range in areas where human-wildlife
interactions are inevitable. Beyond this example, I show that modeling human influence on species
distributions is severely under-practiced. Based on a synthesis and analysis of thousands of
ecological studies from the past two decades, I reveal some surprising gaps and inconsistencies.
Popular methods and applications such as species distribution modeling and conservation
planning reflect ecological theories such as the niche. I conclude with some proposed next steps
for better integrating human systems into such theories to enhance efforts toward coexistence
and sustainability.
Jill Tiefenthaler, CEO of the National Geographic Society: Meeting the Moment: Embracing Change at the National Geographic Society
Join us for this special Albright lecture and celebration as part of Rausser College of Natural Resources' 50th anniversary.
For 136 years, the National Geographic Society has championed exploration, science, conservation, education and storytelling to deepen understanding and protection of our world. The Society's conservation efforts date back to the early 20th century with environmentalists like Horace M. Albright.
Today, in the face of climate change and biodiversity loss, National Geographic Society CEO Jill Tiefenthaler collaborated with strategic partners, Society staff, Trustees and supporters to create and implement a dynamic vision and ambitious plan that addresses these urgent global challenges.
Dr. Tiefenthaler will discuss how the Society draws on its legacy to shape its future, driving impactful initiatives — from international conservation projects to historic scientific expeditions — to illuminate and protect the wonder of our world.
Wildlife Seminar, Mauriel Rodriguez Curras, Wildlife Postdoc
The National Park Services' decision to reintroduce wolves (Canis lupus) to Isle Royale in 2018
presented a unique opportunity to study how large carnivores influence a simple, insular
community of carnivores, red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and martens (Martes americana). Although
the community is simple, Isle Royale features a highly dynamic seasonal flux of resources and
extensive tourism in the summer. To understand the effects that the wolf reintroduction had on
foxes and martens, we quantified their demography, space-use, and diet before and after the wolf
reintroduction. Furthermore, we quantified the seasonal diet of foxes to test the degree to which
wolves and humans mediate dietary seasonality through trophic facilitation and human food
subsidies. Wolves did not impact fox demography, though foxes increased their use of campsites
initially following the reintroduction, which reflected an increase in human food consumption.
Martens subsequently responded by increasing in abundance and exhibiting a broader space use.
Finally, the resource use of foxes was highly seasonal, consuming mostly large prey (moose and
snowshoe hares Lepus americanus) during winter and small prey, berries, and human foods in
summer. Our results suggest that the cascading effects of apex carnivore reintroductions are at
first strong, but then relax. Importantly, though large carnivores strongly impact subordinate
carnivores, seasonal resources coupled with human recreation can provide a buffer for
meso-carnivores, which can have strong consequences on carnivore community structure.
Wildlife Seminar-Felipe Montealegre, Postdoc, DSE
Bridging adaptive management with deep reinforcement learning
Machine learning seems to pop up everywhere you look these days. Many times, a question that
hovers over a research project is: Could an AI methodology help here? In this talk I'll explore a
particular type of machine learning tool used for sequential decision making—deep reinforcement
learning (RL). RL has been used to solve complex control problems in fields such as robotics,
engineering and operations research. Its claim to fame was when an RL algorithm was able to beat
grandmaster Magnus Carlsen at chess. Here I'll explore the question: Can this type of algorithm
help us in decision problems related to complex ecosystem dynamics? I'll focus on our most
recent project: the problem of designing harvest control rules for fisheries with irregular, highly
variable, recruitment dynamics.
Wildlife Seminar-Grant Ballard, Chief Science Officer, Blue Point Conservation Science
Point Blue Conservation Science has been studying the ecology of the southern ocean since the early 1970's, with ongoing studies largely focused on the population dynamics of Adelie penguins. After several decades of relative stability in the Ross Sea region, sea ice has rapidly declined there over the past 7 years, joining the rest of the world's polar seas. I will summarize the context of our research and report recent findings leveraging advances in technology, computer science, and perspectives gained from long-term ecological observations.
Berkeley Wildlife Fall 2024 Seminar Schedule
9/13, Kaggie Orrick, Wildlife Postdoc, Social-Ecological Practice Theory & Human-Wildlife
Interactions: People, Cattle, and Predators in Makgadikgadi, Botswana
9/27, Grant Ballard, Chief Science Officer Point Blue Conservation Science, Recent advances in our understanding of Adelie penguin ecology and the Southern Ocean ecosystem in the context of climate change
10/11, Felipe Montealegre, DSE Postdoc, Bridging adaptive management with deep reinforcement
learning
10/25, Mauriel Rodriguez Curras, Wildlife Postdoc, Contrasting impacts of humans and wolves shape Isle Royale's carnivore guild
11/8, Veronica Frans, Stanford Postdoc, Humans' place in nature and niches: updating ecological
methods, applications, and theory for coexistence and sustainability
11/22, Cesar O. Estein, Yesterday's tomorrow: Exploring how societal inequities shape the ecology of cities
Wildlife Seminar- Kaggie Orrick, Post Doc, ESPM
Social-Ecological Practice Theory & Human-Wildlife Interactions: People, Cattle, and Predators in Makgadikgadi, Botswana
The intertwinement of ecological and social processes is complex; conservation projects aiming to overcome human-wildlife conflict may in fact risk exacerbating it and causing injustices whenever either process is only superficially addressed. Using a case study in north-central Botswana, we provide a nuanced approach in conservation and ecology which intentionally considers the social sciences, using a framework we call ‘Social-Ecological Practice Theory’. First, we demonstrate differences of wildlife activity in space and time across communal, private, and protected areas using a 180-camera trap survey. We then provide the context to why this occurs through the study of cattle rearing logics, based on our findings of 80 semi-structured interviews of local community members across the region and GPS collars on select cattle herds. We then use our social and ecological understanding of the landscape to help us predict perceived predator presence in the area. Using theories and methodologies based in anthropology, social sciences, and ecology we hope to demonstrate that this integrative framework helps us to better understand human-carnivore interactions and progress how we approach applied management and conservation.
Berkeley Wildlife Seminar Schedule
MONTH DAY SPEAKER
Jan 19 Fengyi "Freda"Guo *
Feb 9 James Prosek *
Feb 23 Axel Hunnicutt CDFW Wolf Coordinator, "The return of an apex predator: California’s conservation of gray wolves"
Mar 8 Intro to The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center for Data Science & Environment (DSE), developing data-enabled solutions to our most pressing environmental challenges
Mar 22 Daniel Okamoto, Assistant Professor of Global Change Biology, "Coastal oceans under global change"
Apr 5 Emily Chen Finishing Talk, Population dynamics of Chinook salmon and implications for fisheries and water in the state
Apr 19 Mitch Serota Finishing Talk, "Pumas and penguins: how an unexpected interaction reshapes the ecology of coastal Patagonia"
May 3 Jessie Moravek Finishing Talk, "Freshwater restoration in California: Exploring how floodplain reconnection, habitat restoration, and species reintroduction influence freshwater resources at a landscape scale"
May 10 Avery Shawler Finishing Talk, "Ecological & social challenges of wolf-livestock conflict: wolf-elk interactions & local perspectives in the eastern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem"
* Please note, most talks are from 12noon-1pm, but 1/19 is from 1-2pm and 2/9 is from 10-11am. We will update the events page with talk details the week of each talk.
Mitch Serota, PhD Finishing Talk: Pumas and Penguins: How an Unexpected Interaction Reshaped the Ecology of Coastal Patagonia
To combat ongoing declines of biodiversity worldwide, conservationists are increasingly looking to restore wildlife populations, with a central objective to re-establish their ecological influence. However, the ecological outcomes of wildlife restoration have been inconsistent, in part due to the significant ecosystem changes that have occurred over the time following the extirpation of target species. In Patagonia, the local eradication of mainland predators at the turn of the 20th century is believed to have triggered the expansion of Magellanic penguin colonies across the Atlantic coast of Argentina. Today, large-scale rewilding and conservation initiatives in the region have led to local recoveries of mainland predators, like the puma, leading to a novel predator-prey dynamic between pumas and penguins. This presentation will highlight the impact of this novel marine resource on puma behavior and density, as well as its impact on their primary prey, guanacos.
Wildlife Seminar Finishing Talk, Emily Chen, PhD Candidate
Population Dynamics of California's Central Valley Chinook Salmon
Chinook salmon in the Central Valley exhibit rich life history diversity that historically supported abundant runs of salmon at their southernmost range. The productivity and resilience of this species in the basin has been challenged and reduced by human demands for water, flood control, fisheries, and land use. This presentation will highlight the life history diversity of Chinook salmon, the challenges they face inhabiting a system with high human use and demands, and research on their life history and population dynamics geared towards improving tools for managing and conserving this species.
Daniel Okamoto Assistant Professor: Coastal Oceans Under Global Change
Nearshore marine ecosystems are among the most productive ecosystems on the planet, host diverse assemblages of ecologically, economically, and culturally important species, and also lie on the front lines of climate change. Yet like many ecosystems, classic models of organismal and ecological dynamics have often underpredicted effects of harvest and climate. I will present recent work showing how measuring and modeling processes such as energetic plasticity, acclimatization, consumer-resource dynamics, and metapopulation structure can substantially improve our understanding of how individuals, populations, and ecosystems respond to climate change and harvest.
Intro to The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center for Data Science & Environment (DSE)
Presenters:
Brookie Guzder-Williams, Senior Data Scientist
Ciera Martinez, Senior Program Manager
Kevin Koy, Executive Director
Sam Pottinger, Senior Research Data Scientist / Software Engineer
The DSE (https://dse.berkeley.edu/) was founded in 2022 with a mission to develop data-enabled solutions to our most pressing environmental challenges. In the last year, we have hired and onboarded a talented staff team, narrowed on in five core projects, and began developing user-centered applications that meet specific identified needs.
We look forward to sharing an introduction to where we are now, our projects work with Co-Design of Technology for Tribal Environmental Stewardship, Unlocking Regenerative Agriculture Practices at Scale, Solving the Snow Problem with Remotely Sensed Data, Ending Plastic Pollution Forever, and National Park Service Climate Change Decision Support. And, lastly, we'll also share additional plans for the future and where we'd love to further engage with ESPM students, faculty, and staff.
Axel Hunnicutt, CDFW Wolf Coordinator: The Return of an Apex Predator: California’s Conservation of Gray Wolves
Please join us Today, 2/23/24 from 12noon-1pm for a talk from Axel Hunnicutt, CDFW Wolf Coordinator for a talk titled: "The Return of an Apex Predator: California’s Conservation of Gray Wolves,"
The talk will take place in 36 Mulford Hall. Or you can join by zoom using this link. Please see below for a short description of the talk.
In this presentation, I will speak on the historic return and current status of gray wolves in California, and the social, ecological, and economic challenges posed by their recolonization. I’ll share CDFW’s efforts for conservation and recovery planning of the species, as well as our efforts in the field of population monitoring and community engagement. Lastly, as the new state wolf coordinator, whose career has largely been spent working with African carnivores, I’ll link the parallels of predator management and conflict across continents, highlighting the hope of success for the future of wolves in California.
Artist, Writer and Naturalist James Prosek speaking in the Wildlife Seminar on 2/9/24 from 10-11am
James Prosek is an artist, writer, and naturalist whose work pays homage to the history of art and natural sciences while addressing contemporary environmental concerns. His diverse body of work is the result of extensive travel and field observation. Prosek creates paintings, drawings, and sculptures that evoke the immense biodiversity of our planet and its imaginative potential. The interconnectedness of nature, the ephemerality of boundaries, and the loss of cultural and biological diversity are major themes of Prosek’s work.
Prosek will discuss his work in the context of his interest in lines that humans draw in nature—in the mind and on the world—and how nature trespasses across those lines. He will give an overview of his work as a visual artist and talk about how his passion for trout and char as a child evolved into a lifelong inquiry into how and why we name and order nature—asking what happens when we join words to a world that doesn’t have words on it. He will discuss how we and other animals use representation and mimicry to read and communicate information (from imitation in varied forms, to drawing, to using fishing flies, lures and decoys), how these representations are not the world they describe but can influence the world they describe. Prosek will talk about the possible origins of drawing through the study of shadows and reflections, and how reading passive marks left behind by animals (animal tracks) may have evolved into using marks with intent to communicate information, to drawing and the beginnings of written language and recorded history. He will talk about his current exhibition about remnant praires at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas and the biological memory that ancient remnant prairies hold.
Fengyi Guo (Freda), PhD Princeton: Stopover Ecology and Conservation of Migratory Landbirds in the Eastern United States
Migratory landbirds are experiencing dramatic population declines in North America, but little is known about the important habitats they use as stopover sites during migration. We used data from weather surveillance radar to map seasonal stopover densities of landbirds across the eastern U.S. during spring and autumn migrations. We identified stopover hotspots covering 2.47 million hectares that consistently support high densities of migrants across years. However, only 16.7% of these sites are hotspots in both seasons. Deciduous forest is the most important habitat type, with high concentrations of birds in forest fragments embedded in broadly deforested regions, especially in spring. While protected areas have higher stopover densities of birds, only 1/3 of hotspots are covered, and many of these protected areas are still subject to extractive uses. We also found evidence that the agricultural Midwest is an anthropogenic migration barrier for many landbirds, affecting their flight and stopover behaviors. In summary, a well-distributed network of well-protected stopover areas, complementing conservation efforts on the breeding and wintering grounds, is essential to sustaining healthy populations of migratory landbirds in North America.
Wildlife Seminar, Brian Kastl
This week's speaker is Brian Kastl (PhD in Environmental Science, Management & Policy, 2023)
Brian is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the U.S. EPA and serves as a National Geographic Explorer. He holds over 15 years of experience leading aquatic conservation projects and teaching environmental leadership, spanning 12 countries.
Kastl's seminar is his finishing talk and is titled: "Ecological Thresholds in a Water-Scarce, Warming World: Informing Instream Flow Conservation for Endangered Salmon"
We will meet in-person in 36 Mulford Hall or via Zoom for remote attendees.
Wildlife Seminar, Dr. Sudeep Chandra
Our speaker for this week - is Dr. Sudeep Chandra, A Professor of Limnology in the Biology Department at the University of Nevada, Reno (USA), Sudeep Chandra serves as Director of the University’s Global Water Center: Solutions for Sustainability, the Ozmen Institute for Global Studies, and is the former Co-Director for the Lake Tahoe Science Advisory Council.
In his seminar, Sudeep will discuss efforts to conserve Lake Tahoe
Climate, Conservation and Equity at the US Department of Agriculture
The talk will be from 9-10am at the Faculty Club (The Heyns room) and light breakfast will be provided.
Wildlife Seminar, Marisa McGrew
Please join us on Friday (10/27) from 12-1pm for our next installment in the Wildlife Seminar Series.
This week's speaker is Marisa McGrew, Fisheries & Natural Resources Specialist for the Shawir Darrudaluduk Natural Resources Department. McGrew's seminar is titled: "Gou’daw (Pacific lamprey) in the Eel River"
PhD Finishing Talk: The impact of human activity on conservation areas, predator-prey interactions, and animal movement
Amy Van Scoyoc, ESPM Grad Student
PhD Finishing Talk: From home ranges to range-level connectivity: conservation and behavioral insights from GPS telemetry data
Harshad Karandikar, ESPM Grad Student
PhD Finishing Talk: Investigating Resilience to Megafire in Californian Wildlife Communities
Kendall Calhoun, ESPM Grad Student
PhD Finishing Talk: Ecological inference from participatory science data
Ben Goldstein, ESPM Grad Student
Environmental contaminants in the Arctic: What are they doing there?
Anders Goksøyr, Professor and Fulbright Arctic Chair, U. Bergen
Mapping Terrestrial Vertebrates Climate Change Refugia for the "30x30" target in China
Xiaoshan Wang, Institute for National Parks & Department of Landscape Architecture, Tsinghua University