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Our research group thinks about applied questions related to the distributions of animals, the composition of animal communities, and how animals are responding to global change, such as the introduction of invasive species and rising sea levels.
The lab is led by Paul Taillie, who recently joined the faculty in the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Geography in July 2022 as an assistant professor. Thus, the "lab" is very new and very small (its just me so far). But please get in touch if you're interested in joining the lab as an undergraduate, grad student, or postdoc.
My research and teaching broadly aim to address the implications of global change for biodiversity conservation. As a problem solver, I'm especially excited by applied questions that address real-world problems. Previously, this work has spanned a variety of spatial scales, focal systems, and taxa, including mountains, coasts, forests, wetlands, fire, hurricanes, birds, bats, voles, and rats. Most recently, I'm really excited about coasts and islands because of the unique animals they support, but also because of their vulnerability to rising sea levels. Methodologically, I try to harness the benefits of well-designed field studies, rigorous analytical tools and data science principles, emerging technologies for monitoring elusive wildlife (e.g. camera traps), and remotely-sensed earth observation data (e.g., satellite imagery).
If any of these topics are interesting, get in touch!
News
New Project!
We're excited to announce that our proposal to investigate the effectiveness of mimicking small-scale disturbances (i.e., herbivory and wrack deposition) toward improving and expanding the habitat of coastal marsh obligates has been funded by the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Over the next year we'll be experimentally manipulating these small disturbances on the Gulf Coast of Florida and monitoring the response of Florida saltmarsh vole and eastern Black Rail, as well as the tidal macroinvertebrates they eat. Check out the opportunities page for our advertisement for a phd student to work on this project!
Pictured below: A specially designed camera trap for small mammals deployed in ideal saltmarsh vole habitat. The camera is inside the bucket and takes close-range pictures of animals that enter to inspect a bait cup. The entire trap can float up and down with the tides.
