Ashley Dayer

• PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at Virginia Tech

Backyard bird feeding is one of the most common ways people engage with wildlife in many parts of the world. Given its scale, it can have profound consequences for the ecology of feeder birds and their behaviour. While previous work has primarily explored socio‐demographic factors associated with bird feeding, how observations of nature at backyard...

Training undergraduate fisheries and wildlife students in human dimensions (HD) can prepare them to be part of interdisciplinary teams and apply human dimensions in their careers. We assessed the state of undergraduate HD coursework in the United States for the first time since 2001. The previous survey-based study found approximately 40% of respon...

As the global human population increases, and many bird populations in the Neotropics and the rest of the world continue to decline, the study of the intersection of humans, birds, and conservation has become more relevant than ever. The field of conservation social science is an interdisciplinary field that applies the social sciences and humaniti...

Invasive species, both plants and animals, are a long-standing threat to the National Parks of the United States. For nearly two decades the National Park Service has implemented a service-wide invasive plant management program without a commensurate program focusing on invasive animals. While individual park units are struggling to sufficiently ad...

Developing a deeper understanding about how wildlife recreationists perceive state fish and wildlife agencies as currently serving them, and how they feel valued in relation to other recreation groups, may help agencies more effectively engage their recreation constituencies. Using a mixed methods approach based on relative deprivation theory, we i...

Understanding the factors that influence human behavior is crucial for effective wildlife conservation strategies. This study examines the impact of conservation stewards and cameras on beachgoers’ adherence to conservation guidelines designed to protect beach-nesting birds. Specifically, it investigates whether these interventions encourage visito...

Synopsis The rapid environmental changes associated with the Anthropocene mean that flexible behavioral responses may be a critical determinant of animals’ resiliency to anthropogenic disturbance, particularly for species with long generation times and low vagility. One type of behavior that exemplifies this potentially important flexibility is par...

Las poblaciones de aves en el continente Americano y la región Caribe están en declive. Revertir esta tendencia y conservar a las aves de una manera efectiva es una responsabilidad que debe compartirse entre todas las naciones de la región. El apoyo a los esfuerzos de conservación a menudo depende de una variedad de factores, muchos de los cuales t...

Effective conservation practices require addressing the divide between research and implementation. Co‐production, which emphasizes collaboration and diverse knowledge exchange, is increasingly recognized as valuable in conservation to address this challenge, yet empirical insights remain limited. This case study explores using a Community of Pract...

Wildlife viewing is growing in popularity, especially among Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC), whose participation has increased dramatically in the last 20 years. We used a nationwide sample of wildlife viewers to examine how identity as a wildlife viewer, the importance of wildlife viewing to one's life, ethnoracial identity and soci...

Eastern Hellbenders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis) are giant, charismatic salamanders of conservation concern. Despite growing interest in their breeding behavior, significant gaps remain in our understanding of hellbender reproduction, particularly the behavior occurring immediately prior to and during breeding because these activiti...

While approximately one-quarter of the U.S. population has a disability, many people with disabilities remain excluded from equitable participation in birding. In this study, we compared the constraints and facilitators of birders with and without disabilities from a nationwide survey of U.S. wildlife viewers. Next, we analyzed open-ended responses...

Wildlife-related recreationists play an important role in conservation. Understanding constraints to wildlife-related activities is critical for maintaining or increasing participation in activities like birdwatching and hunting. A mail-out survey was administered to a generalized sample representative of U.S. residents (i.e., not specific to birdw...

Canadian and American waterfowl hunters were surveyed to identify their hunting trip preferences. Respondents were individuals that were now participating or had participated in waterfowl hunting, and most had hunted the majority of the last five years. We identified four latent classes of waterfowl hunters that varied in their preferences for harv...

1. Humans have a particularly strong connection with birds, driving the enormous popularity of residential bird feeding in much of the world. 2. We conducted a web search to document US state wildlife management agency responses to two recent avian disease outbreaks, finding that 23 agencies made recommendations to cease feeding wild birds in 2021...

Walking through shorebird flocks can have negative impacts on shorebird populations. Understanding human behavior is essential for minimizing disturbance. As such, we used a mixed methods approach consisting of phone interviews and a survey to explore (1) recreationists’ perceived benefits and constraints to voluntarily walk around shorebird flocks...

Conservation research programs working on private lands provide invaluable data to support biodiversity conservation efforts and may also engender broader conservation outcomes by influencing the conservation behaviors of individuals that participate within the program. However, little is known about how conservation behavior outcomes may differ ac...

Declines in hunter numbers across the United States make hunter recruitment, retention, and reactivation (R3) a high priority for wildlife management. As wildlife management agencies and nongovernmental organizations seek to reach new audiences, college campuses present a unique opportunity to cultivate nontraditional path hunters. Despite recent p...

Abstract Wildlife recreationists' participation in conservation behaviors could provide key support to the conservation efforts of state fish and wildlife agencies. However, little is known about how identifying with multiple forms of wildlife recreation (i.e., hunters, anglers, birders, wildlife viewers) may influence participation in conservation...

La biodiversidad de los entornos terrestres y marinos viene experimentando un declive vertiginoso en todo el mundo. Por lo tanto, se necesitan acciones de conservación en todas partes del planeta, incluyendo aquellos paisajes terrestres y marinos ricos en biodiversidad y donde las personas viven y trabajan. Los enfoques integradores para la conserv...

North American fish and wildlife management has long been supported by the financial contributions of anglers and hunters to state fish and wildlife agencies; however, stagnation in angling participation and declines in hunting participation threaten the stability of this user‐pay support system. While engaging recreationists beyond those with cons...

Biodiversity is in precipitous decline globally across both terrestrial and marine environments. Therefore, conservation actions are needed everywhere on Earth, including in the biodiversity rich landscapes and seascapes where people live and work that cover much of the planet. Integrative landscape and seascape approaches to conservation fill this...

Disturbance to shorebirds by domestic dogs can cause direct and indirect bird mortality. Dog regulations to minimize disturbance are only effective if people comply with them. Non‐compliance is a universal problem in biodiversity conservation, with an associated body of applicable social science from the field of conservation criminology. We apply...

Despite the many challenges inherent in conducting high-quality evaluations in the field of environmental education (EE), there is a growing recognition of the importance of evaluation, not only to gauge program success, but also to use evaluation results to improve programming, support organizational learning, and ensure programs are meeting the n...

Contributory citizen science projects (hereafter “contributory projects”) are a powerful tool for avian conservation science. Large-scale projects such as eBird have produced data that have advanced science and contributed to many conservation applications. These projects also provide a means to engage the public in scientific data collection. A co...

The future viability of wildlife conservation in the United States hinges on the field's ability to adapt to changing social–ecological conditions including shifting societal values and mounting pressures to engage a greater diversity of voices in decision‐making. As wildlife agencies respond to calls to broaden their relevance amid such changes, t...

Public involvement in conservation is driven by several factors, including individuals’ ecological awareness, sense of connection to landscapes, and wildlife recreation participation. Efforts to increase conservation involvement would benefit from a deeper understanding of the relative strength of these factors in specific landscapes. This study ex...

Owners and managers of private lands make decisions that have implications well beyond the boundaries of their land, influencing species conservation, water quality, wildfire risk, and other environmental outcomes with important societal and ecological consequences. Understanding how these decisions are made is key for informing interventions to su...

Abstract Private land comprises over half the land mass of the United States—dominating certain ecosystems and hosting large numbers of threatened and endangered species. Understanding privately owned properties is thus critically important to conservation, yet these lands remain understudied by conservation biologists. A key factor in this lack of...

Although birdwatchers comprise a large and growing proportion of the American public, there is a lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the birdwatching community. Previous research suggests that this homogeneity is self-perpetuating, as Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color (BIPOC) are less likely to pursue activities in which no one they know...

Insufficient funding is a major impediment to conservation efforts around the world. In the United States, a decline in hunting participation threatens sustainability of the “user‐pay, public benefit” model that has supported wildlife conservation for nearly 100 years, forcing wildlife management agencies to contemplate alternative funding strategi...

Shifting social and ecological contexts for conservation in North America have highlighted that wildlife agencies must engage with broad constituencies to achieve their missions. Responding to limitations in practitioner capacity to find, understand, and plan for engagement with a broader array of stakeholders, we developed a web-based method for s...

The recognized gap between research and implementation in avian conservation can be overcome with translational ecology, an intentional approach in which science producers and users from multiple disciplines work collaboratively to co-develop and deliver ecological research that addresses management and conservation issues. Avian conservation natur...

The recognized gap between research and implementation in avian conservation can be overcome with translational ecology, an intentional approach in which science producers and users from multiple disciplines work collaboratively to co-develop and deliver ecological research that addresses management and conservation issues. Avian conservation natur...

Declining participation in hunting, especially among young adult hunters, affects the ability of state and federal agencies to achieve goals for wildlife management and decreases revenue for conservation. For wildlife agencies hoping to engage diverse audiences in hunter recruitment, retention, and reactivation (R3) efforts, university settings pro...

Dog walking can disturb shorebirds. To inform disturbance reduction campaigns, we conducted a survey of dog walkers in Maine, New York, and South Carolina to understand beach recreationists’ attitudes about the benefits and constraints of voluntarily leashing dogs on beaches and their social and personal norms related to leashing. Common perceived...

The coronavirus (COVID‐19) pandemic is affecting the environment and conservation research in fundamental ways. Many conservation social scientists are now administering survey questionnaires online, but they must do so while ensuring rigor in data collection. Further, they must address a suite of unique challenges, such as the increasing use of mo...

Though coffee was traditionally grown as an understory crop beneath mature trees (i.e. ‘shade‐grown’ coffee), most farms have been converted to full‐sun monocultures over time, which fail to support ecosystem services or biodiversity. The conversion from shade‐ to sun‐grown coffee has prompted the development of environmentally focused certificatio...

Land trusts play an important role in private land conservation and afford some level of protection to 230,000 km² of land across the United States. In this study, we explored the potential for land trusts to contribute meaningfully to bird conservation. Based on survey responses of 626 land trusts, we found substantial regional variation in conser...

Effective public engagement is necessary to reverse the decline of global shorebird populations. Despite recognition of the importance of social science for achieving conservation outcomes, there is limited social science research informing shorebird conservation communications. Strategic communication techniques exist that could support the shoreb...

Recreation specialization is a framework that can be used to explain the variation among outdoor recreationists’ preferences, attitudes, and behaviors. Recreation specialization has been operationalized using several approaches, including summative indices, cluster analysis, and self-classification categorical measures. Although these approaches me...

Conservation efforts are shaped by individual and collective human behaviors, cultural norms and values, economic pressures, and political and organizational structures. As such, the conservation social sciences—disciplines that draw on social science theories and approaches to improve conservation efforts—can play a vital role in advancing the sci...

Conservation efforts are shaped by individual and collective human behaviors, cultural norms and values, economic pressures, and political and organizational structures. As such, the conservation social sciences—disciplines that draw on social science theories and approaches to improve conservation efforts—can play a vital role in advancing the sci...

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is impacting the environment and conservation research in fundamental ways. For conservation social scientists, the pandemic has necessitated swift changes to research methods, including shifting away from in-person data collection. Social survey data are key to integrating perspectives and knowledge from a varie...

The temperate grasslands of North America remain one of the most modified and threatened ecosystems on the planet. In the United States, the conservation of grassland‐dependent wildlife continues to be challenged by the widespread conversion of privately owned grasslands to cropland. Recent analyses indicate that land exiting the Conservation Reser...

Flood irrigation on western rangelands is important for diverse social and ecological reasons, providing forage for many agricultural operations and maintaining many critical wetlands across the region. However, recent debate over the efficiency of flood irrigation and resulting transition to other “more efficient” types of irrigation has put many...

Shorebird researchers and land managers recognize human disturbance as a serious threat facing shorebirds. Yet, a common understanding of what defines human disturbance is lacking. To address this issue, we employed the Delphi technique, an iterative consensus-building social science method, to bring scientists and managers together to develop a sh...

Participatory approaches to natural resource research have become increasingly popular, ensuring local knowledge is incorporated into conservation decisions while also benefitting community members. Understanding if and how different methods achieve participatory research goals is important and lacking. In this study, we investigated how one approa...

Outdoor recreation facilitates important connections to nature and wildlife, but it is perceived differently across population segments. As such, we expected that socio-demographic characteristics of individuals would influence intention to participate in outdoor recreation. We solicited 5,000 U.S. residents (n = 1,030, 23% response rate) to descri...

Facilitating voluntary conservation on private lands is a crucial element of policies that seek to mitigate forest habitat loss and fragmentation around the world. Previous research emphasizes the role of social factors (e.g., landowner characteristics, economics) in forest management, but environmental outcomes of past management can also affect l...

Environmental conservation actions conducted by private landowners are critically important for conservation efforts worldwide. Incentive programs are used to engage landowners in voluntary conservation, but outcomes after landowners exit these programs are poorly understood. Previous research identified several pathways, including landowner motiva...

Sustained management efforts by private landowners are crucial for the long-term success of private land natural resource conservation and related environmental benefits. Landowner outreach is a primary means of recruiting private landowners into voluntary conservation incentive programs, and could also help sustain conservation behaviors through t...

Primary telephone survey questionnaire. (DOCX)

Result mailing example. (PDF)

Significance Key questions remain about the role of social factors, especially the behavior of private landowners, in determining the outcome of strategies for conservation under climate change. We surveyed the behavioral intentions of coastal landowners in the northeast United States, where extreme sea-level rise threatens tidal marsh persistence...

Recent literature has urged the conservation science community to distinguish between human–wildlife and human–human conflict. Mislabelling conflicts is thought to constrain problem definition and hinder appropriate solutions. New to this discussion, we studied how the media is framing conflict. The focus of our research was conflict surrounding co...

Voluntary incentive programs are a keystone policy tool for increasing private landowner conservation behavior. Although landowner participation in conservation incentive programs is well studied, limited empirical research has focused on whether and why landowners continue to conduct conservation practices on their land after payments end, which w...

In 2010, land trusts in the U.S. had protected nearly 50 million acres of land, with much of it providing habitat for wildlife. However, the extent to which land trusts explicitly focus on wildlife conservation remains largely unknown. We used content analysis to assess land trust involvement in wildlife and habitat conservation, as reflected in th...

Limited funds for wildlife conservation require difficult choices about allocation of resources. One consideration is public preferences. While traditional attitudinal approaches can provide information about preferences for conservation efforts aimed at individual species, stated choice models offer a more suitable approach for exploring the compl...

Ensuring that conservation decisions are informed by the best available data is a fundamental challenge in the face of rapid global environmental change. Too often, new science is not easily or quickly translated into conservation action. Traditional approaches to data collection and science delivery may be both inefficient and insufficient, as con...

Early successional forest habitat (ESH) and associated wildlife species in the northeastern United States are in decline. One way to help create early successional forest conditions is engaging private forest landowners in even-aged forest management because their limited participation may have contributed to declines in ESH for wildlife species of...

There is a widely held assumption that outdoor experiences are a key precursor to pro-environmental behavior (PEB). We tested the hypothesis that wildlife recreationists are more likely than non-recreationists to voluntarily engage in different types of PEB, grouped as conservation behaviors and environmental lifestyle behaviors. Via mail and web-b...

Landowner typologies help researchers and practitioners understand similarities and differences among landowners, allowing more targeted education and communications. These typologies have rarely been rigorously assessed before recommended for use. We assessed three typologies created with one data set using three methods: reliability through split...

Wildlife organizations often engage landowners in habitat management. Landowner typology research can provide suggestions for how to work with diverse types of landowners. We explored how typologies can inform selection of tools to engage landowners in early successional habitat (ESH) management. Using a survey, effectiveness of three kinds of tool...

Early successional forest habitats and species reliant on this habitat are in decline in New York State and throughout the Northeast. Shrublands and early successional forest habitats (ESH) can be defined as those sites with persistent shrubs or seedling to sapling-sized trees that are typically a response to some form of disturbance (Litvaitis, 20...

This article develops an approach for exploring the social and cultural aspects of human–wildlife conflict in a global context. The proposed micro-macro level model integrates the cognitive hierarchy theory of human behavior and materialist theory of culture. This model guides research of human behavior in these situations and yields information th...

Partners in Flight Tri-National Vision for Landbird Conservation "Our three nations of Canada, Mexico, and the continental United States are home to more than 1,150 species of birds, including 882 native landbird species. Conserving our shared birds will require a continental, and ultimately hemispheric, perspective and a commitment to internationa...

The need for cross-cultural research to better understand the relationships between humans and wildlife was one of the driving factors in the instigation of the Wildlife Values Globally project. A fundamental challenge in fulfilling this need is developing appropriate methods that can elicit thoughts about wildlife from people in a variety of cultu...

The primary purpose of this study was to determine wildlife value orientations among publics in the western United States and to identify factors influencing the presence of these orientations. Additional objectives were to determine public attitudes toward population-level management techniques, alternative funding and programming approaches, publ...

Bird banding education programs are growing in number throughout North America. Past research reveals that many of these bird banding education programs share the primary goals of edu-cating about conservation, inspiring bird appreciation, and demonstrating the link between science and conservation. However, there has been limited evaluation of the...

Using evaluation research in a practical application can help strengthen natural resource organizations in meeting their mission and goals. This paper demonstrates how to incorporate evaluation research and its concepts into practice. Evaluation research planning, implementation, and incorporation of results can help strengthen conservation educati...

Thesis (M.S.)--Colorado State University, 2006. Includes bibliographical references.