https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4310-8973
My name is Dr. Jeff Martin and I am Director of Research for the Center of Excellence for Bison Studies at the West River Research and Extension Center, South Dakota State University in Rapid City, SD. My research is interdisciplinary across wildlife biology, climatology, and human dimensions to answer questions of wildlife conservation and production in a changing world. My research on bison is at the nexus of two paradigms: changing climate and changing cultural values. My goal is to merge our understanding of conservation science with direct stakeholder engagement to improve conservation for wildlife across working and natural lands. I explore both direct and indirect drivers and consequences of body size change using bison (Bison bison) from the Great Plains as a focal species. Bison are unique in North America because they are both native wildlife and privately owned livestock. Bison are natural indicators of climatic and ecological change for the Great Plains because wildlife species cannot be supplied growth stimulants.
My research program focuses on A) the drivers of wildlife responses to climate change, B) the consequences of those responses to wildlife and stewards, and C) how to best engage people to improve wildlife conservation on working lands. The result of these three themes led to an emerging project: D) the bison system, which may enable re-thinking the North American Model for wildlife management and conservation. To do this, I quantify the biophysical aspects of bison responses to climatic change with aims to understand the long-term and short-term consequences of climate change on wildlife species by creating innovative methods such as 1) large-data analysis of deep-time and long-term ecological data to correlate environmental conditions with morphology, 2) high-resolution thermal imagery to quantify seasonal heat flux over growth and geography, and 3) stable isotope comparisons of fast and slow growth tissues within adolescent individuals to quantify seasonal energy and protein recycling. Thank you for visiting! |
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