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.