Skip to main content

Wildlife Ecology and Conservation department

Wildlife Ecology and Conservation department

Graduated Students

Cristina Nunez Godoy

2021. Thesis. Improving Payments for Ecosystem Service programs in a global deforestation hotspot: the Gran Chaco of Argentina. Ph.D.

Maria Juliana Bedoya Duran

2020. Thesis. Privately protected areas, shade coffee, and the conservation of ground birds and medium and large mammals in the western Andes of Colombia. Ph.D.

Prescillia Rindang Putri

2019. Thesis. Sustainable palm oil certification: Do forest reserves designated using “high conservation value” and “high carbon stock” approaches within palm oil plantations support mammal conservation? M.S.

Margo Stoddard

2017. Thesis. Beach mouse habitat on storm-affected barrier islands: influence of landscape structure, perceived predation risk, and sea level rise. Ph.D. Current position: Instructor: Santa Fe College.

Maria Laura Gelin Spessot

2016. Thesis. Response of pumas (Puma concolor) to the migration of their primary prey in Patagonia.

Galo Zapata Rios

2014. Thesis. Impacts of domestic dogs on the native mammalian fauna of the Ecuadorian Andes. Ph.D. Current position: Director of Science, Wildlife Conservation Society, Ecuador.

Luis Suarez

2013. Project. Socio-Bosque: an economic incentive program for conservation in Ecuador. Non-thesis M.S. Current position: Executive Director, Conservation International, Ecuador.

Santiago Espinosa

2012. Thesis. Indigenous people and jaguar conservation: Effects of road development and bushmeat extraction in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park. Ph.D. News article about Santiago’s work. WCS Article. National Geographic News. WCS Slide Show. Current positions: Professor and Researcher, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, SLP, México, and Associate Professor, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador.

Eduardo Silva-Rodriguez

2012. Thesis. Domestic dogs as invasive species: from local to global impacts. Ph.D. (Co-chair with Dr. K. Sieving). Current position: Assistant Professor, Instituto de Conservación Biodiversidad y Territorio, Facultad de Ciencias Forestales y Recursos Naturales, Universidad Austral de Chile.

Mauricio Núñez-Regueiro

2011. Thesis. Are forest strips cut out for the job of conserving biodiversity? Analyzing the case of mammals with hierarchical Bayesian occupancy models in the Chaco forest. Current position: Research scientist, CONICET, Salta, Argentina.

Sonia Canavelli

2011. Thesis. Ecological and human dimensions of the monk parakeet damage to crops in Argentina. Ph.D. Current position: Research scientist, Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA) Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Paraná, Argentina.

Dan Thornton

2010. Thesis. The influence of species traits and landscape attributes on the response of mid- and large-sized neotropical mammals to forest fragmentation. Ph.D. (Dr. Mel Sunquist, co-chair). Current position: Assistant professor, School of the Environment, Washington State University.

Jason Martin

2009. Are barn owls (Tyto alba) biological controllers of rodents in the Everglades Agricultural Area? Ph.D.

Alejandro Pietrek

2009. Thesis. Assessment of the importance of plantations for the Araucaria Tit Spinetail (leptasthenura setaria) in Argentina. MS. Current position: Research scientist, CONICET, Salta, Argentina.

Mariano Rodriguez Cabal

2008. Thesis. Habitat assessment for a threatened keystone marsupial in temperate forest of South America (Research site: Andean forest of southern Argentina). MS. Current position: Ph.D. student, University of Tennessee.

Alex Pries

2006. Thesis. Hurricane impacts on coastal dunes and spatial distribution of Santa Rosa Beach Mice (Peromyscus polionotus leucocephalus) in dune habitats. MS. Current position: Regional Conservation Biologist, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

Brittany Bird

2002. Thesis. Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. Effects of predation risk and landscape structure on the foraging behavior of the Santa Rosa beach mouse (Peromyscus polionotus leucocephalus): Conservation management implications. M. S. Current position: Great Lakes Regional Wildlife Biologist, Wildlife Habitat Council.

Kirsten Leong

2001. Thesis. The reproductive context of low-frequency vocalizations in the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) in captivity. M.S. – University of Florida, Ph.D. -- Cornell University.

Marcela Machicote

2001. Thesis. Facilitation of burrowing owls by a colonial rodent: ecosystem engineering and heterospecific communication. M.S.

Susan Walker

2000. Thesis. Effects of landscape structure on the distribution of mountain vizcachas (Lagidium viscacia). Ph.D. Current position: Research Ecologist, Centro de Ecología Aplicada del Neuquén and Co-director, Patagonian and Southern Andean Steppe Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, Argentina.

Diego Villarreal

1999. Thesis. Effects of herbivory by the plains vizcacha (Lagostomus maximus) on vegetation of semiarid scrub of central Argentina. M.S. Current position: Associate Professor, Faculty of Natural and Exact Sciences, National University of La Pampa, Argentina.

Jose Hierro

1999. Thesis. Cold spots/hot spots: facilitation and interference of shrubs by a native herbivore in a semiarid ecosystem. M.S. – University of Florida, Ph.D. – University of Montana, Current position: Assistant Professor and CONICET researcher, Faculty of Natural and Exact Sciences, National University of La Pampa, Argentina.

Andres Novaro

1997. Thesis. Source-sink dynamics induced by hunting: a case study of clupeo foxes on rangelands in Patagonia, Argentina. Ph.D. Current position: Staff Researcher, Argentine Research Council (CONICET); Conservation Zoologist and Co-director, Patagonian and Southern Andean Steppe Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, Argentina.

Martin Funes

1996. Thesis. The European rabbit: patterns of spread and resource availability along watersheds in Northern Patagonia, Argentina. M.S. Current position: Research Biologist, Patagonian and Southern Andean Steppe Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, Argentina.

Joe Meisel

1995. Thesis: The influence of landscape structure on animal communities: landscape spatial patterns and avian body mass aggregations. M.S. – University of Florida, Ph.D. – University of Wisconsin, Current position: President, Ceiba Foundation for Tropical Conservation.