INVESTIGATING HOW WILDLIFE COMMUNITY ASSEMBLAGES CHANGE AS A RESULT OF HUMAN LANDSCAPE USE
Under accelerating land conversion and climate change, new natures are all around us. How does wildlife respond to changes in their habitats? And how do the changes in wildlife communities (either the local extinction of some species or introduced or expanding ranges of other species) change their ecosystem dynamics? This project combines the Mountain Legacy Project photo collection with camera trapping to look at how species are responding to these large landscape-level changes.
Researcher Profile
Alina Fisher
PhD Candidate – School of Environmental Studies
Alina’s research looks at how wildlife communities along the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies are changing in response to landscape change. This includes not only the changes in species composition and abundance, but how humans are perceiving that change. Given the pervasive and ever-accelerating drivers of change, humans’ perceptions of these changing landscapes—and the wildlife we share those spaces with—impacts how we conserve and restore these places for generations to come.