
Hannah B Vander ZandenUniversity of Florida | UF · Department of Biology
Hannah B Vander Zanden
PhD
About
50
Publications
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
September 2016 - August 2017
May 2013 - May 2016
August 2012 - April 2013
Education
August 2006 - August 2012
August 1999 - May 2003
Publications
Publications (50)
Understanding an organism’s niche and ecological role in its ecosystem is critical for conservation, especially for species that use multiple habitats at different life stages. The hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) is one such migratory animal that plays an ecologically important role in imperiled coral reef habitats. Hawksbill resource...
Stable isotope data have made pivotal contributions to nearly every discipline of the physical and natural sciences. As the generation and application of stable isotope data continues to grow exponentially, so does the need for a unifying data repository to improve accessibility and promote collaborative engagement. This paper provides an overview...
The species-specific migratory patterns and strategies of many songbirds remain unknown or understudied, as research in animal ecology is biased toward the breeding period, with the fewest studies on the migratory period across taxa. Identifying large-scale spatiotemporal migratory patterns is challenging, as individuals within a species may vary i...
Seasonal movement strategies are poorly understood for most animals, impeding broader understanding of processes underlying migration and limiting practical conservation needs. Here we develop and implement a framework for integrating multiple sources of endogenous markers, in particular stable hydrogen isotope data, that capture and scale dynamics...
Understanding an organism’s niche and ecological role in its ecosystem is critical for conservation, especially for species that use multiple habitats at different life stages. The hawksbill sea turtle ( Eretmochelys imbricata ) is one such migratory animal that plays an ecologically important role in imperiled coral reef habitats. Although hawksbi...
Bird populations are declining globally. Wind and solar energy can reduce emissions of fossil fuels that drive anthropogenic climate change, yet renewable‐energy production represents a potential threat to bird species. Surveys to assess potential effects at renewable‐energy facilities are exclusively local, and the geographic extent encompassed by...
Multi-species assemblages can help identify key resources in their habitat by evaluating how they are partitioning their resources. Here we used the isotopic niche of loggerhead, Kemp’s ridley, and green sea turtles to assess their ecological niche within a Gulf of Mexico bay. Additionally, we assessed temporal and size-class variation in their die...
Increasing human–bear conflicts are a growing concern, and managers often assume bears in developed areas are food-conditioned. We examined the relationship between human–bear conflicts and food conditioning by analyzing isotopic values of hair from black bears (Ursus americanus floridanus) involved in research (n = 34) and conflicts (n = 45). We s...
Assessing environmental changes in Southern Ocean ecosystems is difficult due to its remoteness and data sparsity. Monitoring marine predators that respond rapidly to environmental variation may enable us to track anthropogenic effects on ecosystems. Yet, many long-term datasets of marine predators are incomplete because they are spatially constrai...
White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emerging fungal epizootic disease that has caused large-scale mortality in several species of North American bats. The fungus that causes WNS, Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd), has also been detected in bat species without diagnostic signs of WNS. Although these species could play a role in WNS spread, understanding...
Renewable energy production can kill individual birds, but little is known about how it affects avian populations. We assessed the vulnerability of populations for 23 priority bird species killed at wind and solar facilities in California, USA. Bayesian hierarchical models suggested that 48% of these species were vulnerable to population-level effe...
The recognition of adequate sampling designs is an interdisciplinary topic that has gained popularity over the last decades. In ecology, many research questions involve sampling across extensive and complex environmental gradients. This is the case for stable isotope analyses, which are widely used to characterize large‐scale movement patterns and...
Although hydrogen isotopes (δ ² H) are commonly used as tracers of animal movement, minimal research has investigated the use of δ ² H as a proxy to quantify resource and habitat use. While carbon and nitrogen are ultimately derived from a single source (food), the proportion of hydrogen in consumer tissues originates from two distinct sources: bod...
Variations in stable hydrogen and oxygen isotope ratios in terrestrial animal tissues are used to reconstruct origin and movement. An underlying assumption of these applications is that tissues grown at the same site share a similar isotopic signal, representative of the location of their origin. However, large variations in tissue isotopic composi...
Most of the knowledge about the biology, ecology, and conservation needs of sea turtles has been obtained from studies of adult females on nesting beaches and, to a lesser extent, from observations of juveniles and subadults in their foraging and development habitats. Those studies have principally sought to understand natal homing and nest site fi...
Probability-of-origin maps deduced from stable isotope data are important for inferring broad-scale patterns of animal migration, but few resources and tools for interpreting and validating these maps exist. For example, quantitative tools for comparing multiple probability-of-origin maps do not exist, and many existing approaches for geographic as...
Methods for inferring geographic origin from the stable isotope composition of animal tissues are widely used in movement ecology, but few computational tools and standards for data interpretation are available.
We introduce the assignR r package, which provides a structured, flexible toolkit for isotope‐based migration data analysis and interpreta...
Population assessments conducted at reproductive sites of migratory species necessitate understanding the foraging-area origins of breeding individuals. Without this information, efforts to contextualize changes in breeding populations and develop effective management strategies are compromised. We used stable isotope analysis of tissue samples col...
Human activity influences wildlife. However, the ecological and conservation significances of these influences are difficult to predict and depend on their population-level consequences. This difficulty arises partly because of information gaps, and partly because the data on stressors are usually collected in a count-based manner (e.g., number of...
Statistical regression relationships between the hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) isotope ratios (δ²H and δ¹⁸O, respectively) of animal organic tissues and those of environmental water have been widely used to reconstruct animal movements, paleoenvironments, and diet and trophic relationships. In natural populations, however, tissue–environment isotopic...
Alternative life history strategies are mechanisms by which organisms are able to maximize fitness across a range of environmental conditions. Fitness is maximized by different strategies depending on context, resulting in trade-offs between life history strategies. Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) employ both migratory and resident life hist...
Accounting for migration and connectivity of mobile species across the annual cycle can present challenges for conservation and management efforts. The use of stable isotope approaches to examine the movements and ecology of wildlife has been widespread over the past two decades. Hydrogen stable isotope (δ 2 H) composition, in particular, has been...
Rationale:
Stable hydrogen isotope (δ2 H) ratios of animal tissues are useful for assessing movement and geographic origin of mobile organisms. However, it is uncertain whether heat and singeing affects feather δ2 H values and thus subsequent geographic assignments. This is relevant for birds of conservation interest that are burned and killed at...
Natural-abundance stable isotope ratios provide a wealth of ecological information relating to food web structure, trophic level, and location. The correct interpretation of stable isotope data requires an understanding of spatial and temporal variation in the isotopic compositions at the base of the food web. In marine pelagic environments, accura...
In 2010, an international group of 35 sea turtle researchers refined an initial list of more than 200 research questions into 20 metaquestions that were considered key for management and conservation of sea turtles. These were classified under 5 categories: reproductive biology , biogeography, population ecology, threats and conservation strategies...
Assessments of large-scale disasters, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, are problematic because while measurements of post-disturbance conditions are common, measurements of pre-disturbance baselines are only rarely available. Without adequate observations of pre-disaster organismal and environmental conditions, it is impossible to assess th...
The measurement of stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotopes in tissues of organisms has formed the foundation of isotopic food web reconstructions, as these values directly reflect assimilated diet. In contrast, stable hydrogen (δ²H) and oxygen (δ¹⁸O) isotope measurements have typically been reserved for studies of migratory origin and pal...
Environmental chemistry data provide a wealth of information on Earth system processes, but perhaps one of the most general and widely useful applications of such data is in to identify connectivity within systems. Chemical signatures have been used to establish hydrological connectivity, identify the provenance of geological materials, artefacts a...
Precipitation stable isotope patterns over continental scales provide a fundamental tool for tracking origins of migratory species. Hydrogen isotopes from rain and environmental waters are assimilated into animal tissues and may thereby reveal the location where tissues were synthesized. Predictive isotopic maps (or isoscapes) of stable hydrogen is...
Stable isotope analysis is a useful tool to track animal movements in both terrestrial and marine environments. These intrinsic markers are assimilated through the diet and may exhibit spatial gradients as a result of biogeochemical processes at the base of the food web. In the marine environment, maps to predict the spatial distribution of stable...
Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope (δ13C and δ15N) analysis has been used to elucidate foraging and migration behaviours of endangered sea turtle populations. Isotopic analysis of tissue samples from nesting females can provide information about their foraging locations before reproduction. To determine whether loggerhead (Caretta caretta) eggs pro...
RATIONALEStable isotope analysis has been used extensively to provide ecological information about diet and foraging location of many species. The difference in isotopic composition between animal tissue and its diet, or the diet-tissue discrimination factor, varies with tissue type. Therefore, direct comparisons between isotopic values of tissues...
As a result of predictable large‐scale continental gradients in the isotopic composition of precipitation, stable isotopes of hydrogen (δ ² H) are useful endogenous markers for delineating long‐distance movements of animals. Models to predict patterns of δ ² H in precipitation (δ ² H p ), and consequently determine likely geographic origin of migra...
Stable isotope ratios of H and O (δ ² H and δ ¹⁸ O) are intrinsic properties of biological and geological materials, and can be used to constrain the geographic origin and movements of such materials. One of the most widespread uses of such data in ecology is to reconstruct geographic movements of animals by comparing isotope ratios of chemically i...
Diet items and habitat constitute some of the environmental resources that may be used differently by individuals within a population. Long-term fidelity by individuals to particular resources exemplifies individual specialization, a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly recognized across a wide range of species. Less is understood about the con...
Not all individuals in a population use the same subset of dietary and habitat resources. Patterns of individual specialization have been documented in an increasing number of organisms, but often without an associated time scale over which niche specialization was observed. We examined the patterns in individual resource use through time and in re...
ABSTRACT: While many migratory marine organisms converge at breeding areas, identifying foraging strategies away from these reproductive sites can be challenging. Adult female green turtles Chelonia mydas regularly migrate thousands of kilometers between nesting and foraging areas, making it difficult to identify foraging habitats that support nest...
Differential foraging area use can affect population demographics of highly migratory fauna because of differential environmental changes and anthropogenic threats among those areas. Thus, identification of foraging areas is vital for the development of effective management strategies for endangered migratory species. In this study, we assigned 375...
We examine inherent variation in carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values of multiple soft tissues from a population of captive green turtles Chelonia mydas to determine the extent of isotopic variation due to individual differences in physiology. We compare the measured inherent variation in the captive population with the isotopic variation obse...
Knowledge of foraging strategies has significant implications for the conservation of endangered loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta. Stable isotope analysis is a useful tool in studying the ecology of marine consumers, as nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios (δ¹⁵N and δ¹³C) may reflect an organism’s patterns of diet and habitat use. However, obta...
Spatially separated ecosystems are often linked by nutrient fluxes. Nutrient inputs may be transferred by physical vectors (i.e., wind and water) or by biotic vectors. In this study, we examine the role of green turtles (Chelonia mydas) as biotic transporters of nutrients from marine to terrestrial ecosystems, where they deposit eggs. We compare lo...
Individual variation in resource use has often been ignored in ecological studies, but closer examination of individual patterns through time may reveal significant intrapopulation differences. Adult loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) are generalist carnivores with a wide geographical range, resulting in a broad isotopic niche. We microsample...
Understanding the ecology and evolution of insect societies requires greater knowledge of how sociality affects the performance of whole colonies. Metabolic scaling theory, based largely on the body mass scaling of metabolic rate, has successfully predicted many aspects of the physiology and life history of individual (or unitary) organisms. Here w...
Staphylococcal enterotoxins SEB and SEC3 and toxic shock syndrome toxin TSST-1 act as superantigens by overstimulating the human immune system and thereby compromise host defense. The mechanism of pathogenesis is explained on the basis of superantigen binding to the MHC class II receptor on the antigen presenting cell and to the T cell receptor (Tc...