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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
The lab is led by Paul Taillie, who joined the faculty in the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Geography and the Environment in July 2022 as an assistant professor.
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!
In The Field!
As soon as the semester ended, Harrison headed "down east" to resample some vegetation plots that were originally established 20 years ago! We're excited to dig into these data to learn more about the climatic drivers of vegetation change in low-lying coastal areas like Dare, Tyrrell, and Hyde Counties.
Foot travel can be challenging in coastal wetlands. We typically refer to the "ground" as the "marsh platform," which is mostly decaying organic matter held together by a strong network of plant roots. Except where the marsh platform breaks apart, creating large holes that are easy to fall into.
In The News!
Armadillos have been expanding northward across the US South. But why?
Paul chatted with WCHL about how coastal wildlife are responding to climate change and the importance of coastal wetlands.
Paul's research from his postdoc was featured in Wired Magazine Link
New Paper
Building off previous work in the Florida Everglades, where we showed that mammal declines related to invasive Burmese pythons continue to spread, we tried to better understand the effects on ecosystem function that result from nearly completely removing mammals from this system.
Interestingly, the rates of scavenging and frugivory didn't differ much between areas with intact mammal communities and areas where mammals are now nearly absent. However, the communities responsible for scavenging and frugivory were very different.
To do this, we deployed camera traps baited with native fruits and dead rodent carcasses. Here's an Opossum enjoying some American Beautyberry.