Suburban mammals
As urban development surrounds and isolates natural areas animal populations must adapt to these changes or be driven out. Some carnivores are especially sensitive to development, and in their absence local suburban ecology could go haywire. Working with students at SUNY Albany I have examined how different mammal species adapt to human development, and how the resulting patterns of abundance affect local ecological processes such as seed predation and disease levels.
Collaborations: Dr. George Robinson, SUNY Albany
A radio-collared house cat in its native habitat.
Amielle DeWan with the track-tube plate she used to quantify seed predation by rodents.
Cori Drummond surveying ticks and Lyme disease in the Pine Bush.
Radio-tracking suburban coyotes.
Bill Lang holds a tranquilized fisher we radio-tracked in the Pine Bush.
Dan Bogan with two recently radio-collared coyotes.
Bogan, D. A. Eastern coyote (Canis latrans) home range, habitat selection, and survival rates in the suburban Albany Pine Bush landscape of New York. 2004. State University of New York at Albany. [pdf 4MB]
DeWan, A. A. The ecological effects of carnivores on small mammals and seed predation in the Albany Pine Bush. 2002. State University of New York at Albany. [pdf 440KB]
Drummond, C. The ecological impacts of habitat fragmentation on deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis) and Lyme disease. 2004. State University of New York at Albany. [pdf 2MB]
Kays, R. W. & DeWan, A. A. (2004). The ecological impact of inside/outside house cats around a suburban nature preserve. Animal Conservation 7: 1-11. [pdf 424KB]
