Wildlife movement, connectivity, human-wildlife interactions, and more!
I use spatial ecology to study how landscape composition and configuration can facilitate or impede ecological processes in order to support wildlife conservation and management. My research is often within social-ecological systems and includes human-wildlife interactions, as well as connectivity of desired processes (e.g., wildlife movement, habitat corridors) and negative propagative processes (e.g., uncontrolled wildfire, invasive species spread).
Please head to my staff page on the USGS SC CRU website to see an up-to-date list of publications and presentations.
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Wildlife resource use in human-impacted landscapesPeople and wildlife share the planet. In most places, they overlap in some way, leading to interactions and adjustments to their activities. Research on this topic includes looking at spatial and temporal patterns of overlap & niche partitioning between people and wildlife, negative interactions such as elephant crop-raiding, as well as patterns of landscape utilization.
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We found differences in the daily patterns of elephants' water access varying by human development presence and seasonal availability of other water sources. Elephants more commonly visited water resources during the hot part of the day in areas with fewer people & development (as proxied by building density), but in areas with more buildings, elephants showed more nocturnal water access patterns. These trends were observed in the dry season, but not in the wet season, where elephants had other water sources they could use. For more information, see onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/aje.12860
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Related publications
- Buchholtz *et al. 2023. A mixed- methods assessment of human-elephant conflict in the Western Okavango Panhandle, Botswana. doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10443
- Buchholtz *et al. 2021. Anthropogenic impact on wildlife resource use: Spatial and temporal shifts in elephants’ access to water. doi.org/10.1111/aje.12860
- Buchholtz et al. 2020. Experts and elephants: local ecological knowledge predicts landscape use for a species involved in human-wildlife conflict. doi.org/10.5751/ES-11979-250426
- Buchholtz et al. 2019. Overlapping landscape utilization by elephants and people in the Western Okavango Panhandle: implications for conflict and conservation. doi.org/10.1007/s10980-019-00856-1
Landscape & wildlife connectivity
A connected landscape facilitates functioning ecosystems, with movement of nutrients, organisms, and gene flow. Research on this topic includes the study of structural and habitat connectivity, as well as functional connectivity for wildlife movement. Work ranges from modeling patterns of structural connectivity over time for the sagebrush biome (right) to the movement of elephants in the Okavango Delta region of Botswana (aerial photo of wildlife paths, below).
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Overall structural connectivity patterns in the sagebrush biome of the western United States were based on omnidirectional cumulative current density outputs. (a) Structural sagebrush connectivity displaying a single time step (2020), classified by cumulative current quantiles; (b) Zones with consistently high and low connectivity patterns over eight timesteps from 1985 to 2020. doi.org/10.3390/land12061176
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Related publications
- Buchholtz et al. 2023. Temporal Patterns of Structural Sagebrush Connectivity from 1985 to 2020. doi.org/10.3390/land12061176
- Ghoddousi et al. 2021. Anthropogenic resistance: accounting for human behavior in wildlife connectivity planning. doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.12.003
- Buchholtz et al. 2020. Using landscape connectivity to predict human-wildlife conflict. doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108677
Connectivity for landscape disturbancesA connected landscape facilitates not only desired ecological processes, but the spread of disturbances such as wildfire and invasive species. Research on this topic includes modeling connectivity for potential wildfire spread in the Great Basin of the western U.S. (below), and applying metrics to characterize the spatial patterns and connectedness of invasive annual grasses like cheatgrass (right).
Potential for fire connectivity in the Great Basin, modeled using omnidirectional circuit theory (Omniscape). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10980-022-01581-y
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Related publications:
- Buchholtz et al. 2023. Assessing large landscape patterns of potential fire connectivity using circuit methods. doi.org/10.1007/s10980-022-01581-y
- Buchholtz et al. 2023. Landscape and connectivity metrics as a spatial tool to support invasive annual grass management decisions. doi.org/10.1007/s10530-022-02945-w
- Sofaer et al. 2022. Potential cheatgrass abundance within lightly invaded areas of the Great Basin. doi.org/10.1007/s10980-022-01487-9
Photo credit: Andrew Jamison
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Invasive wild pigsWild pigs (Sus scrofa) are invasive across North America. Here in upstate South Carolina, they cause lots of economic and ecological damage. A group of undergraduates in a Creative Inquiries research project have been collaring and studying the local invasive pig population in order to support management decisions.
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