Jared Stabach

• PhD Ecology
• Ecologist, Program Coordinator - Movement of Life at Smithsonian Institution

ContextReduced connectivity across grassland ecosystems can impair their functional heterogeneity and negatively impact large herbivore populations. Maintaining landscape connectivity across human-dominated rangelands is therefore a key conservation priority.Objective Integrate data on large herbivore occurrence and species richness with analyses o...

Movement ecologists have witnessed a rapid increase in the amount of animal position data collected over the past few decades, as well as a concomitant increase in the availability of ecologically relevant remotely sensed data. Many researchers, however, lack the computing resources necessary to incorporate the vast spatiotemporal aspects of datase...

Giraffe are iconic figures across a range of African landscapes but they are currently under considerable conservation threat. Although they are widely distributed throughout 21 different countries, continent-wide populations have declined considerably over the past several decades, highlighted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nat...

Aim Google Earth Engine (GEE) is a free Web‐based spatial analysis platform that requires only a web browser and an Internet connection to programmatically access and analyse data from its multi‐petabyte catalog of regularly updated satellite imagery (e.g. MODIS, Landsat, Sentinel) and other geospatial datasets. The high computing capacity of GEE c...

The ability to move is essential for animals to find mates, escape predation, and meet energy and water demands. This is especially important across grazing systems where vegetation productivity can vary drastically between seasons or years. With grasslands undergoing significant changes due to climate change and anthropogenic development, there is...

Mineral licks are critical resources for herbivores in Amazonia and other tropical regions which may be deficient in dietary minerals or consuming alkaloid‐laced leaves which may cause gastrointestinal issues. However, mineral licks are also important locations for predators, including human hunters. Animals visiting mineral licks must balance the...

Fencing is one of the most widely utilized tools for reducing human‐wildlife conflict in agricultural landscapes. However, the increasing global footprint of fencing exceeds millions of kilometers and has unintended consequences for wildlife, including habitat fragmentation, movement restriction, entanglement, and mortality. Here, we present a nove...

Caring for newborn offspring hampers resource acquisition of mammalian females, curbing their ability to meet the high energy expenditure of early lactation. Newborns are particularly vulnerable, and, among the large herbivores, ungulates have evolved a continuum of neonatal antipredator tactics, ranging from immobile hider (such as roe deer fawns...

Effective approaches are needed to conserve the planet's remaining wildlife and wilderness landscapes, especially concerning global biodiversity conservation targets. Here, we present a new software system called EarthRanger: an open‐source platform built to help monitor, research and manage ecosystems. EarthRanger consists of seven main components...

Purpose of Review Connectivity models are frequently used by researchers and conservation practitioners to support land management and conservation planning, but the performance of these models often goes untested. We conducted a non-systematic review of published studies that validated connectivity model outputs. The purposes of our review were: (...

Context Human modification of landscapes poses a significant threat to wildlife, particularly in Africa where population growth and land conversion are expected to increase. Habitat loss and fragmentation have led to declines in wildlife populations, highlighting the need to identify and preserve critical habitats, including core use areas and conn...

Health assessments and GPS tracking of mountain tapir in Ecuador

A relative lack of standardised long-term monitoring data often limits the ability of African conservancies to quantify their efficacy to protect wildlife. In this study, we combined eight 2-km long transects surveyed monthly between October 2017 and March 2020 (total 240 transects sampled) with a hierarchical multi-species and multi-season distanc...

A large proportion of endangered species lack good-quality data for assessing population trends. Obtaining these data is especially challenging in remote arid ecosystems, in part because these desert environments have historically attracted less scientific attention and funding than more mesic areas. The Sahara-Sahel biome in northern Africa is hom...

Elephants were once widely distributed across the Indonesian island of Sumatra but now exist in small, isolated populations. Using the best data available on elephant occurrence, we aimed to (a) predict potential habitat suitability for elephants ( Elephas maximus sumatranus ) across the island of Sumatra and (b) model landscape connectivity among...

The conservation of threatened and rare species in remote areas often presents two challenges: there may be unknown populations that have not yet been documented and there is a need to identify suitable habitat to translocate individuals and help populations recover. This is the case of the reticulated giraffe (Giraffa reticulata), a species of hig...

Animal movement behaviours are shaped by diverse factors, including resource availability and human impacts on the landscape. We generated home range estimates and daily movement rate estimates for 149 giraffe (Giraffa spp.) from all four species across Africa to evaluate the effects of environmental productivity and anthropogenic disturbance on sp...

COVID-19 lockdowns in early 2020 reduced human mobility, providing an opportunity to disentangle its effects on animals from those of landscape modifications. Using GPS data, we compared movements and road avoidance of 2300 terrestrial mammals (43 species) during the lockdowns to the same period in 2019. Individual responses were variable with no c...

New satellite remote sensing and machine learning techniques offer untapped possibilities to monitor global biodiversity with unprecedented speed and precision. These efficiencies promise to reveal novel ecological insights at spatial scales which are germane to the management of populations and entire ecosystems. Here, we present a robust transfer...

Heart rate biologging has been successfully used to study wildlife responses to natural and human-caused stressors (e.g., hunting, landscape of fear). Although rarely deployed to inform conservation, heart rate biologging may be particularly valuable for assessing success in wildlife reintroductions. We conducted a case study for testing and valida...

Animals moving through landscapes need to strike a balance between finding sufficient resources to grow and reproduce while minimizing encounters with predators. Because encounter rates are determined by the average distance over which directed motion persists, this trade-off should be apparent in individuals’ movement. Using GPS data from 1,396 in...

Reintroduced animals—especially those raised in captivity—are faced with the unique challenge of navigating a wholly unfamiliar environment, and often make erratic or extensive movements after release. Naïveté to the reintroduction landscape can be costly, e.g., through increased energy expenditure, greater exposure to predation, and reduced opport...

Spatial neophobia and exploration are often assessed in nonhuman animals by measuring behavioral responses to novel environments. These traits may especially affect the performance of individuals translocated to novel environments for conservation purposes. Here, we present methods to administer and analyze a minimally invasive novel environment te...

Climatic variability, resource availability, and anthropogenic impacts heavily influence an animal's home range. This makes home range size an effective metric for understanding how variation in environmental factors alter the behavior and spatial distribution of animals. In this study, we estimated home range size of African elephants (Loxodonta a...

Hunter decision-making influences prey selection and is key to understanding the impacts of hunting on biodiversity. Optimal foraging theory (OFT) is often used to describe the decision-making and prey selection of subsistence hunters. We examined the behavior and game meat use of hunters in an indigenous Amazonian community and used free listing a...

Aim: Macroecological studies that require habitat suitability data for many species often derive this information from expert opinion. However, expert-based information is inherently subjective and thus prone to errors. The increasing availability of GPS tracking data offers opportunities to evaluate and supplement expert-based information with de...

In the Amazon Rainforest, the sustainability of hunting is difficult to model. Accurate sustainability models for hunting of mammal populations require a spatially explicit measure of hunting pressure. Because field‐based measures of hunting pressure are time and labor‐intensive, distance‐based proxies for hunting pressure are frequently used. In t...

Understanding how wildlife interacts with human activities across non-protected areas are critical for conservation. This is especially true for ungulates that inhabit human-dominated landscapes outside the protected area system in Nepal, where wildlife often coexists with livestock. Here we investigated how elevation, agricultural land, distance f...

The savannas of the Kenya-Tanzania borderland cover >100,000 km 2 and is one of the most important regions globally for biodiversity conservation, particularly large mammals. The region also supports >1 million pastoralists and their livestock. In these systems, resources for both large mammals and pastoralists are highly variable in space and time...

The forage maturation hypothesis (FMH) states that energy intake for ungulates is maximised when forage biomass is at intermediate levels. Nevertheless, metabolic allometry and different digestive systems suggest that resource selection should vary across ungulate species. By combining GPS relocations with remotely sensed data on forage characteris...

Localizing and counting large ungulates-hoofed mammals like cows and elk-in very high-resolution satellite imagery is an important task for supporting ecological studies. Prior work has shown that this is feasible with deep learning based methods and sub-meter multi-spectral satellite imagery. We extend this line of work by proposing a baseline met...

Localizing and counting large ungulates -- hoofed mammals like cows and elk -- in very high-resolution satellite imagery is an important task for supporting ecological studies. Prior work has shown that this is feasible with deep learning based methods and sub-meter multi-spectral satellite imagery. We extend this line of work by proposing a baseli...

Anthropogenic change is a major threat to individual species and biodiversity. Yet the behavioral and physiological responses of animals to these changes remain understudied. This is due to the technological challenges in assessing these effects in situ. Using captive maned wolves (Chrysocyon brachyurus, n = 6) as a model, we deployed implantable b...

Migration of ungulates (hooved mammals) is a fundamental ecological process that promotes abundant herds, whose effects cascade up and down terrestrial food webs. Migratory ungulates provide the prey base that maintains large carnivore and scavenger populations and underpins terrestrial biodiversity (fig. S1). When ungulates move in large aggregati...

While the tendency to return to previously visited locations—termed ‘site fidelity’—is common in animals, the cause of this behaviour is not well understood. One hypothesis is that site fidelity is shaped by an animal's environment, such that animals living in landscapes with predictable resources have stronger site fidelity. Site fidelity may also...

Most research applying the ‘landscape of fear’ concept to human-wildlife interactions explores wildlife responses to anthropogenic risks, such as altered movement patterns. Here, we explored people's landscapes of fear by investigating their perceptions of spatio-temporal variation in the risk of encountering wildlife, and how those perceptions inf...

Understanding the movement patterns and habitat needs of the endangered Matschie's tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus matschiei) is important for their conservation and management. This study is an assessment of novel techniques to overcome the significant challenges to in situ data collection in remote and rugged tropical cloud forests. Animal locations a...

Human activities are changing landscape structure and function globally, affecting wildlife space use, and ultimately increasing human-wildlife conflicts and zoonotic disease spread. Capybaras (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) are linked to conflicts in human-modified landscapes (e.g. crop damage, vehicle collision), as well as the spread and amplificati...

Understanding habitat selection is important for effective habitat management and recovery of species. However, many habitat selection studies are based on presence and absence data and do not differentiate the intensity of use and its association with fine-scale habitat characteristics. Such information is critical for improving our understanding...

Accurately quantifying species’ area requirements is a prerequisite for effective area‐based conservation. This typically involves collecting tracking data on species of interest and then conducting home‐range analyses. Problematically, autocorrelation in tracking data can result in space needs being severely underestimated. Based on the previous w...

Animal tracking data are being collected more frequently, in greater detail, and on smaller taxa than ever before. These data hold the promise to increase the relevance of animal movement for understanding ecological processes, but this potential will only be fully realized if their accompanying location error is properly addressed. Historically, c...

GPS collars have revolutionized the field of animal ecology, providing detailed information on animal movement and the habitats necessary for species survival. GPS collars also have the potential to cause adverse effects ranging from mild irritation to severe tissue damage, reduced fitness, and death. The impact of GPS collars on the behavior, stre...

Human activities are changing landscape structure and function globally, affecting wildlife space use, and ultimately increasing human-wildlife conflicts and zoonotic disease spread. Capybara ( Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris ) is a conflict species that has been implicated in the spread and amplification of the most lethal tick-borne disease in the worl...

Private lands are critical for maintaining biodiversity beyond protected areas. Across Kenyan rangelands, wild herbivores frequently coexist with people and their livestock. Human population and livestock numbers are projected to increase dramatically over the coming decades. Therefore, a better understanding of wildlife-livestock interactions and...

One of the greatest challenges in restoring species to the wild is insufficient knowledge about their habitat requirements and movement ecology. This is especially true for wide-ranging species such as the scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah). Once widespread across Sahelo-Saharan grasslands, oryx were declared Extinct in the Wild in 1999. Here, we i...

Studying nomadic animal movement across species and ecosystems is essential for better understanding variability in nomadism. In arid environments, unpredictable changes in water and forage resources are known drivers of nomadic movements. Water resources vary temporally but are often spatially stationary, whereas foraging resources are often both...

Population numbers of Kordofan giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis antiquorum) have declined throughout its range by more than 85% in the last three decades, including in the isolated easternmost population found in the Garamba National Park (NP) in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We provide new data on the conservation status and ecology of Kordofan...

GPS collars have revolutionized the field of animal ecology, providing detailed information on animal movement and the habitats necessary for species survival. GPS collars also have the potential to cause adverse effects ranging from mild irritation to severe tissue damage, reduced fitness, and death. The impact of GPS collars on the behavior, stre...

Giraffe populations have declined in abundance by almost 40% over the last three decades, and the geographic ranges of the species (previously believed to be one, now defined as four species) have been significantly reduced or altered. With substantial changes in land uses, loss of habitat, declining abundance, translocations, and data gaps, the ex...

Migration of ungulates is under pressure worldwide from range contraction, habitat loss and degradation, anthropogenic barriers and poaching. Here, we synthesize and compare the extent of historical migrations of the white-bearded wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) to their contemporary status, in five premier East African ecosystems, namely the Se...

Wildlife crossings are designed to mitigate barrier effects of transportation infrastructure on wildlife movement. Most efforts in evaluating crossing efficiency focus on counting animal use. However, crossings placed at suboptimal locations may alter animals' natural movement pattern and decrease population fitness, which cannot be reflected solel...

Wildlife crossings are designed to mitigate barrier effects of transportation infrastructure on wildlife movement. Most efforts in evaluating crossing efficiency focus on counting animal use. However, crossings placed at suboptimal locations may alter animals’ natural movement pattern and decrease population fitness, which cannot be reflected solel...

Habitat loss and fragmentation represent major threats for the conservation of apex predators, such as the jaguar (Panthera onca). Investigating species' resource selection behavior in response to landscape alteration is critical for developing relevant conservation management plans. The jaguar is found across a variety of habitats with different g...

Over one-quarter of the Earth’s land surface is used as rangeland for grazing domestic livestock. Rangelands are the dominantland use in Laikipia County, Kenya, which is also a global biodiversity hotspot for birds and large mammals. Our objective was to disentangle the influences of climatic and anthropogenic drivers on vegetation trends in Laikip...

Aim To assess the distribution and occurrence of addax ( Addax nasomaculatus ), the most critically endangered ungulate species globally, and dorcas gazelle ( Gazelle dorcas ), for which the ecology in the southern Sahara is virtually unknown. Location Tin Toumma desert, Niger Methods Integrating field surveys, collected over a 7‐year period (200...

Accurately estimating home range and understanding movement behavior can provide important information on ecological processes. Advances in data collection and analysis have improved our ability to estimate home range and movement parameters, both of which have the potential to impact species conservation. Fitting continuous-time movement model to...

List of the GPS collared jaguars with information on Biome, animal ID, sex and estimated age (years), equipment used (tag brand and satellite system), sampling protocol (time interval between locations), period of data collection, coordinator and institution. (DOCX)

Resident white-bearded wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) have experienced widespread population declines across much of their range over the past few decades, the drivers of which are attributed to landscape changes. Despite the ecological significance of this decline, surprisingly little is known about the resource needs and habitat use of these...

Analysis of an invasive species' niche shift between native and introduced ranges, along with potential distribution maps, can provide valuable information about its invasive potential. The tawny crazy ant, Nylanderia fulva, is a rapidly emerging and economically important invasive species in the southern United States. It is originally from east-c...

Appendix S1. Occurrence data, climatic variables and cross‐correlation Tables. Appendix S2. Model selection summary Table. Appendix S3. Variable importance and species response curves.

White-bearded wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) are the dominant herbivores found across grassland savannas of East Africa. Known to be particularly important to ecosystem diversity and function, many resident populations of wildebeest have become threatened with extinction over the past few decades. Surprisingly little is known about the movement...

Understanding the impact of fire and large mammals on African Savannas is essential for ecologically sustainable management. Fire impacts both vegetation and wildlife directly by killing species in both categories but it is the longer term effects on vegetation which are the more important to understand as this ultimately affects the species compos...

Grey Crowned-cranes occur throughout the mixed wetland-grassland habitats of Eastern and Southern Africa. Due primarily to loss of habitat, however, the species is in swift decline over much of its historic range. We present a prediction of habitat suitability throughout Uganda using a Maxent modeling approach, combining presence-only field data co...

Matschie's tree kangaroos (Dendrolagus matschiei) are arboreal marsupials endemic to the Huon Peninsula in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Primarily because of an increase in hunting pressure and loss of habitat from agricultural expansion, D. matschiei is currently listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. This paper...

Introduction. Remote sensing technologies can provide detailed assessments of the state of Protected Areas, including critical information on threats (such as deforestation and wildfire), while also facilitating habitat evaluation and change detection. A multitude of satellite-based sensors of varying characteristics are now in operation, enabling...

Industrial logging has become the most extensive land use in Central Africa, with more than 600,000 square kilometers (30%) of forest currently under concession. With use of a time series of satellite imagery for the period from 1976 to 2003, we measured 51,916 kilometers of new logging roads. The density of roads across the forested region was 0.0...

Typescript. Thesis (M.S.)--University of Rhode Island, 2005. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-123).