Marine mammals face multiple, serious, even existential threats. Agent-based models (ABMs) are a powerful tool particularly well suited to conservation biology since they include individual, independent agents that interact with each other and the environment. Incorporating behaviors and behavioral/physiological variability among individuals is especially important in marine mammal conservation if we wish to understand and predict impacts of human disturbance …
Biology Department CalendarAnimals must forage to acquire energy for survival and reproduction, yet foraging exposes them to predators. This creates a trade-off between energy intake and safety that shapes behavior, wherein the mere perception of predation risk can create a “landscape of fear.” Within this trade-off, both risk and energetic needs vary, shifting the balance and favoring different foraging strategies. Using Neotropical …
Biology Department CalendarRecovery of long-lived marine vertebrates can change local capture records by altering movement and site fidelity, making mortality difficult to distinguish from redistribution. We developed a behaviorally explicit framework to separate true mortality from changes in availability caused by movement and redistribution. We evaluated this problem for juvenile green turtles (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) captured at the …
Biology Department CalendarPentastomids are a poorly studied group of parasitic crustaceans with growing relevance to wildlife conservation and public health. Despite their zoonotic potential and their association with declining snake populations in the southeastern United States, genomic data for this group remain limited. This study presents the first annotated reference genomes for three pentastome species: Kiricephalus coarctatus, Porocephalus crotali, and the invasive …
Biology Department CalendarSeagrass restoration efforts globally have been motivated by decreases in coverage associated with urban development and climate change. In the Indian River Lagoon (IRL), FL, seagrass beds declined by 58% between 2011-2019. During this time, the abundance of the native macroalga Caulerpa prolifera increased substantially in the IRL. It is not known how dense, continuous beds of C. prolifera could …
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