Who
I am a research scientist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Assistant Unit Leader at the Colorado Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, an Associate Professor in the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology and a faculty member of the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology at Colorado State University.
What are cooperative research units?
The mission of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Cooperative Research Units (CRU) is to
- conduct research to inform the management of fish and wildlife
- train graduate students to be effective natural resource scientists, biologists, and managers
- provide technical assistance to natural resource and conservation agencies and groups
The CRU Program was established in 1935 and codified by Congress (Public Law 86-686) in 1960.
The Colorado Unit is staffed, supported, and coordinated by Colorado State University, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Wildlife Management Institute.
What I do?
My focus is on collaborative science:
With my lab and colleagues, we work with scientists and resource and land managers to help learn through data to provide inferential or predictive knowledge or decision-support that is used for empirically informed conservation management of animal species and their habitats.
My focus is on statistical ecology:
My research often includes developing, evaluating, and applying modern sampling techniques and statistical modeling. I am perhaps a generalist in this regard, as I do not focus on a single class of statistics or statistical models.
Teaching
I teach two graduate courses at Colorado State University, FW670: Wildlife Ecology Modeling and FW552: Applied Sampling for Fish and Wildlife Studies. These courses emphasize the theory and practice of sampling, estimation, and statistical modeling relevant to fish and wildlife ecology and management.
I also teach workshops that have focused mainly on coding in the R programming language, general statistical modeling (hierarhical Bayesian modeling), and more specific topics (mark-recapture, integrated population models).
Some Research Topics
- Wildlife Population Demography and Distribution
- mark-recapture, species distribution modeling, population reconstruction / harvest modeling, integrated population modeling,
- Study design / Model Evaluation
- simulation and model robustness analysis, power analysis
- Conservation Decision Making
- structured decision making, adaptive management
- Animal Behavior
- diel niche, species interactions, predator-prey
- Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling
- integrated data modeling, observational/process modeling
- Animal Movement and Habitat Selection
- home range, movement modeling, habitat selection
- Optimal Prediction via Statistical Regularization
- lasso, ridge, elastic net, machine learning algorithms
News
January, 2026
- New Publication: Individual-based monitoring is critical for small populations from Brian and Neil Gilbert. We make a case for monitoring individuals and warn about using unmarked methods.
December, 2025
- New OA Publication: Aggregating three sources of long-term trends of swallows and martins to identify priority conservation areas in the Great Lakes region from Dr. Maria C.T.D. Belotti.
November, 2025
New OA Publication: Covariates influence optimal camera-trap survey design for occupancy modelling from Dr. Owain Barton.
Brian and David Koons hosted Michael Schaub and Marc Kery at Colorado State University, where we co-taught a 5 day workshop on “Integrated Population Models”.
September, 2025
- New OA Publication: Integrated species distribution model using historical data shows decline in a common semi-aquatic mammal from Dr. John Crockett. Data and code can be downloaded on Zenodo.
July, 2025
Dr. Sammie Schofield passes her dissertation defense and finishes her Ph.D. at the University of Rhode Island!
Lê Tấn Quy defends his thesis and finishes his M.S. degree at Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh University of Science!
June, 2025
- New Publication: High individual variability in space use by translocated, imperiled New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis) from Dr. Wales Carter. Download.
May, 2025
- New OA Data Publication: Rhode Island wildlife camera trap survey 2018 to 2023 from Amy Mayer. Download. Data can be found at Zenodo.
April, 2025
New OA Publication: Individuality, diel time, and landscape context shape space-use of an elusive carnivore in a risky environment from Dr. Laken Ganoe. Download. Data and code can be found at Zenodo.
Tori Mezbish Quinn passes her dissertation defense and Liam Corcoran passes his thesis defense at the University of Rhode Island!
February, 2025
- New OA Publication: When the wild things are: Defining mammalian diel activity and plasticity from 217 authors around the world on understanding the variability in animal activity. See all the results from this study online using a ShinyApp. Data and code can be downloaded on Github and Zenodo. Code for the ShinyApp can be downloaded here.