In today’s fast changing world, one of the most pressing issues facing ecologists is disentangling the relative effects of habitat alteration and climate change on species declines, complicated by the fact that these two factors are often correlated in space and time. This difficulty holds true in western Canada’s boreal forests; both human land-use and climate are implicated in the expansion of white-tailed deer northward into caribou range, disrupting the ecological community caribou call home. In this webinar, learn how researchers took advantage of the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, along with camera traps, in a clever study design to decouple these two factors on white-tailed deer densities.
Melanie is a Senior Caribou Ecologist in both the ABMI’s Science Centre and the Wildlife Science Centre of Biodiversity Pathways. Melanie’s work revolves around understanding how landscape change triggers ecological pathways that contribute to caribou declines, and testing management actions that can be used to address these pathways.
Read the research online: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.17286
