Daniel A. LauerGeorgia Institute of Technology | GT · Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences
Daniel A. Lauer
Doctor of Philosophy
About
21
Publications
2,143
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43
Citations
Introduction
Ph.D. in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences. Former Graduate Research Assistant in the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab, run by Dr. Jenny McGuire. Research focused on the ecology and biogeography of African mammals on broad spatial and temporal scales.
Additional affiliations
November 2016 - August 2018
Position
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Description
- Research assistant for Dr. Marjorie Reaka. Research included projects addressing a dataset of all known marine species in the Gulf of Mexico, with a focus on species’ distributions and biogeographical patterns. Responsibilities included maintaining and organizing the dataset, statistically analyzing the dataset using Microsoft Excel, R, and MATLAB, and writing and editing manuscripts. Work has led to first authorship on a manuscript published in Marine Ecology Progress Series.
June 2016 - August 2016
Song Saa Foundation
Position
- Marine Data Collection Volunteer
Description
- Volunteer for the Tropical Marine Conservation Programme (TMCP), run by the Song Saa Foundation. Program included PADI Advanced Open Water diving certification, Coral Reef Ecology course, and collection of biological data on local coral reefs for the Cambodian government. Responsibilities included passing Coral Reef Ecology tests to be certified for data collection, training other volunteers, collecting data through daily survey SCUBA dives, and establishing permanent underwater transects.
May 2015 - July 2015
Position
- Laboratory Volunteer
Description
- Volunteer in the Johns Hopkins Environmental Health Microbiology and Immunology Laboratory (EHMIL), run by Dr. Christopher Heaney. Research included saliva sample analyses for occupational health studies on hog workers in North Carolina. Responsibilities included carrying out experiments for these studies, while training another volunteer in numerous techniques, including the Micro BCA Protein Assay and ELISA.
Education
August 2013 - May 2016
Brandeis University
Field of study
- Biology (minor: Environmental Studies)
Publications
Publications (21)
Resilient landscapes have helped maintain terrestrial biodiversity during periods of climatic and environmental change. Identifying the tempo and mode of landscape transitions and the drivers of landscape resilience are critical to maintaining natural systems and preserving biodiversity given today’s rapid climate and land use changes. However, res...
Shallow marine ecosystems are threatened by human impacts. The prospect that deeper environments could serve as refugia is promising but remains uncertain, as it has been evaluated primarily in benthic taxa and on small spatial scales. We use a dataset of all biota from the Gulf of Mexico to evaluate the degree to which species’ occurrences extend...
Aim:
The extinction risks of species are influenced by their geographical range sizes, as species with smaller ranges are more likely to go extinct following disturbance events. Theoretically, heterogeneous landscapes can maintain small‐ranged species, because they facilitate the coexistence of taxa that are each constrained to distinct abiotic co...
Environmental disturbances may prevent ecosystems from consistently performing their critical ecological functions. Two important properties of ecosystems are their resistance and stability, which respectively reflect their capacities to withstand and recover from disturbance events (e.g., droughts, wildfires, pests, etc.). Theory suggests that res...
Mammalian megafauna have been critical to the functioning of Earth’s biosphere for millions of years. However, since the Plio-Pleistocene, their biodiversity has declined concurrently with dramatic environmental change and hominin evolution. While these biodiversity declines are well-documented, their implications for the ecological function of meg...
Terrestrial carnivorans, with their diverse diets and unique adaptations such as the carnassial tooth, offer insights into the connections between functional traits and the climatic and environmental conditions they inhabit. They shed light on functional trait‐environment relationships at the highest trophic levels across a broad range of environme...
Mammalian megafauna have been critical to the functioning of Earth’s biosphere for millions of years. However, since the Plio-Pleistocene, their biodiversity has declined, concurrent with dramatic environmental change and hominin evolution. While these biodiversity declines are well-documented, their impacts on the ecological function of megafaunal...
Mammalian megafauna have been critical to the functioning of Earth’s biosphere for millions of years. However, since the Plio-Pleistocene, their biodiversity has declined, concurrent with dramatic environmental change and hominin evolution. While these biodiversity declines are well-documented, their impacts on the ecological function of megafaunal...
Mammalian megafauna have been critical to the functioning of Earth’s biosphere for millions of years. However, since the Plio-Pleistocene, their biodiversity has declined, concurrent with dramatic environmental change and hominin evolution. While these biodiversity declines are well-documented, their impacts on the ecological function of megafaunal...
Stable ecosystems consistently perform critical ecological functions. Two key dimensions of ecosystem stability are resistance and resilience, which respectively reflect the capacity of ecosystems to absorb and recover from disturbances. Theory suggests that resistant and resilient ecosystems possess opposing characteristics, but this has seldom be...
A species’ geographic range size carries critical implications for its extinction risk, as smaller-ranged species persist in fewer environments. Theoretically, heterogeneous landscapes can foster small-ranged species by facilitating the coexistence of taxa that are each constrained to particular abiotic conditions. Whether this process is more attr...
Background/Question/Methods:
To shed light upon the drivers and dynamics of change in faunal biodiversity over time, it is important to examine that biodiversity multidimensionally. Dimensions of biodiversity include taxonomic (TD), phylogenetic (PD), and functional diversity (FD), as well as ecometrics, which quantifies the relationship between s...
Aim:
This study examines how climate shaped Microtus californicus (Rodentia: Arvicolinae) ecomorphology throughout the Quaternary. It tests three hypotheses: (a) climate corresponds with consistent shape variation in M. californicus dentition; (b) Quaternary warming and drying trends caused M. californicus morphotypes to predictably shift in range...
Background/Question/Methods:
To shed light upon the drivers and dynamics of change in faunal biodiversity over time, it is important to examine that biodiversity multidimensionally. Dimensions of biodiversity include taxonomic (TD), phylogenetic (PD), and functional diversity (FD), as well as ecometrics, which quantifies the relationship between s...
Tool in R for students to practice basic code that simulates MacArthur and Wilson’s Island Biogeography model. Code focuses on how island size, distance, and perturbation affect species numbers.
Background/Question/Methods:
Considering the impacts of climate change on natural systems, the study of species’ abilities to adapt to such change is critical. To adapt to rapid change, a species must already possess the necessary phenotypic variation. Climate-relevant variation may exist along environmental gradients within a species’ range. Geom...
This presentation was given by Dr. Marjorie Reaka at a Gordon Research Conference with the following description (from https://www.grc.org/mesophotic-coral-reef-ecosystems-conference/2018/): "Mesophotic Coral Reef Ecosystems (MCEs) are unique and understudied ecosystems characterized as low-light adapted deep reef communities that occur from ~30-15...
The objective of this research was to understand the relationship between diversity, endemism, depth, and geographic location of all the major taxa of crustaceans that occur in the Gulf of Mexico. We used the database that resulted from Gulf of Mexico: Origins, Waters and Biota (Felder and Camp 2009) to quantify the depth distributions and endemic...
The Montgomery County Department of Parks, and other environmentally-oriented organizations, have historically had a difficult time communicating the importance of environmental issues to the general public. A major reason is that much of this communication has promoted environmental protection for the intrinsic sake of the environment, and not for...
In this past Fall 2016 semester, I was privileged to take Ecology (BIOL 23A) with Professor Colleen Hitchcock. One of the highlights of the course was a “Phenology Project,” an undertaking heavily grounded in experiential learning.
The background of the project is rooted in three key terms: phenology, climate change, and citizen science. Phenology...
Background: Protection of living things from effects of catastrophic oil spills is important. Pleurotus ostreatus is an edible mushroom which can be used for medicinal purposes. It grows on beech trees and logs in subtropical forests, and decomposes wood (Wikipedia 2010). Previous studies on different mushrooms include those by Hughes (1960), Adedo...