Our research uses movement ecology as a framework to understand how individuals and populations respond to changes in their environment in order to project how future change may alter a population’s dynamics and evolutionary trajectory. ​
Our Philosophy
​The natural world knows no political boundaries. That means that we are all stakeholders in the conservation of our biodiversity and our lab welcomes the involvement of anyone and everyone, no matter where they come from or how they identify themselves. We are also working to overcome our own biases, as well as those that have long prevailed in the scientific and conservation communities, by learning from and engaging with the communities whose lives intersect with the species we study.

Breaking News

  • Sea level rise is a global threat to coastal biodiversity, yet its impacts are relatively poorly understood, as are the potential strategies to mitigate those impacts. Julian Garcia-Walther has a new paper out in Ecology detailing his recent observations of shorebirds using floating rafts of seagrass to roost during extreme high tides. These novel observations suggest that, in some environments, shorebirds may be able to find alternative roosting habitat, even as sea level rise inundates their typical ones. We hope that Julian's observations may also point toward opportunities for developing nature-based solutions to ongoing anthropogenic environmental change. 
  • Many shorebird populations are in decline, but the causes of these declines have been difficult to isolate and it is unclear if all portions of a species' population are declining at the same rate. Fernando Faria has a paper out in Bird Conservation International exploring the population trends of Buff-breasted Sandpipers at four nonbreeding sites in southeastern Brazil. Despite evidence that the species has declined by more than 50%, surveys at these sites from 2008-2020 showed no evidence of declines and that they support nearly 10% of the total population. Maintaining the integrity of these sites into the future is thus crucial to the species conservation as they made provide a bulwark against habitat degradation and loss elsewhere.
nsenner at umass.edu
Department of Environmental Conservation
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Holdsworth Hall 219
Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S.A.