Jeff M. Martin

Jeff M. Martin
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Jeff verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
Verified
Jeff verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
  • Ph.D.
  • Professor (Assistant) at South Dakota State University

About

52
Publications
13,208
Reads
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244
Citations
Introduction
My research lab aims to understand the drivers and consequences of body size change to improve sustainability for large ruminants (bison, cattle, etc.) on working and public lands in a changing world. We study bison (Bison bison) body size change using integrated methods of vertebrate paleontology, thermal biology (thermography), and ecology to inform management and to connect people with nature. Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=fAt4ZhcAAAAJ.
Current institution
South Dakota State University
Current position
  • Professor (Assistant)
Additional affiliations
October 2020 - January 2023
South Dakota State University
Position
  • PostDoc Position
September 2020 - August 2021
Texas A&M University
Position
  • PostDoc Position
July 2016 - August 2020
Texas A&M University
Position
  • Fellow
Education
August 2016 - August 2020
Texas A&M University
Field of study
  • Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences
August 2012 - May 2014
East Tennessee State University
Field of study
  • Geosciences - Vertebrate Paleontology
August 2011 - May 2012
East Tennessee State University
Field of study
  • Geology

Publications

Publications (52)
Article
Full-text available
The relationship between body size and temperature of mammals is poorly resolved, especially for large keystone species such as bison (Bison bison). Bison are well represented in the fossil record across North America, which provides an opportunity to relate body size to climate within a species. We measured the length of a leg bone (calcaneal tube...
Article
Full-text available
Fossils of Bison (bison) are scarce on the Colorado Plateau, especially in and around the Greater Grand Canyon Region. Because of poor preservation and collection biases in the region, various resource managers have erroneously designated bison a nonnative and human-(re)introduced species. This decision directly impacts an extant herd of approximat...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Bison production and bison operations are increasing across the United States. Consumer demand, economic viability, conservation efforts, and support from organizations and agencies are helping to grow the industry. This technical note is designed to assist NRCS planners and partners collaborating with bison producers. It introduces key terminolo...
Article
Full-text available
Simple Summary Unseasonably early blizzards in the northern Great Plains of the U.S. threaten large mammal populations unacclimated for winter conditions. This region averaged 22 blizzards per winter season during the 2010s and is anticipated to have 32 by the 2050s. Generally, expected weather-related deaths remain one of the highest non-predatory...
Article
Full-text available
Following the near extinction of bison (Bison bison) from its historic range across North America in the late 19th century, novel bison conservation efforts in the early 20th century catalyzed a popular widespread conservation movement to protect and restore bison among other species and places. Since Allen's initial delineation (1876) of the histo...
Article
Fences serve multiple purposes, including livestock management, agriculture, property delineation, and con- servation. However, fences often act as ecological barriers, limiting wildlife movement and access to resources, particularly for species like bison (Bison bison) in North America. Despite the substantial impacts of fencing, large-scale datas...
Preprint
Full-text available
In high numbers, trichostrongyle nematodes decrease productivity and cause health problems in ruminants including North American bison (Bison bison). Treatment strategies used to limit their impact in cattle are also being used by bison producers, including free-choice group-treatments either as the sole option or in combination with chute treatmen...
Technical Report
Full-text available
For more than a decade, Mycoplasma bovis — a bacteria without a cell wall that causes fatal respiratory disease — has posed the most significant health threat to bison (Bison bison) herds across North America. We provide updates on the multiple facets that the M. bovis Task Force at the Center of Excellence for Bison Studies has been addressing thi...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background Parasitic gastrointestinal nematode (GIN) infections in North American plains bison, predominated by trichostrongyles of Clade V, are a major cause of health and production losses, even death. The diversity and distribution of trichostrongyles in bison in the USA remains poorly understood. The aim of this study was to assess the diversit...
Article
Full-text available
Today’s livestock producers face increasing public scrutiny because animal agriculture is often cited as a major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, this negative perception does not take into account the carbon (C) sequestration benefits of grazing livestock nor that grazing lands account for 25% of the global soil sequestratio...
Chapter
Full-text available
In ecology and biology, body mass is a useful measure to predict dietary requirements, metabolic energy budgets, among other biological functions (Martin et al., 2018). Much of my research is focused on body size reconstructions and the consequences of body size change in response to global climate change. In a warming world, smaller body sizes wil...
Research
Full-text available
Welcome to this reading list on buffalo, also known as bison. The list gathers together literature focused on buffalo to support ongoing efforts to restore this iconic species to its keystone cultural and ecological role. Once the thundering heartbeat of Turtle Island or the North American continent, buffalo were nearly exterminated by the end of t...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Lay summary of mortality rates of beef cattle, sheep, horses, and bison during the October 2013 Atlas Blizzard that affected South Dakota. The original research article is entitled: "Facing into the Blizzard: Resiliency and Mortality of Native and Domestic North American Ungulates to Extreme Weather Events" in Diversity.
Conference Paper
Ecosystem function relies in part on aligned relationships between functional traits of animals and the environments in which they live. Studies of trait-environment relationships have largely focused on communities of native species, but domestic and non-native species also play a role in the functioning of modern ecosystems. We use ecometrics, or...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Summary article for bison managers of "Integrated evidence-based extent of occurrence or North American bison since 1500 CE and before".
Article
Full-text available
Several quantitative diagnostic techniques are available to estimate gastrointestinal parasite counts in the feces of ruminants. Comparing egg and oocyst magnitudes in naturally infected samples has been a recommended approach to rank fecal techniques. In this study, we compared the Mini-FLOTAC (sensitivity of 5 eggs per gram (EPG)/oocysts per gram...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Most of us are familiar with the childhood story of Goldilocks and the three bears, where the little girl tries to find the bed that wasn't too hard, nor too soft, but “just right.” This concept can be applied to many facets of life and business. For livestock, discussions and evaluation of body size, carcass weight, and dressing percentage come up...
Article
Full-text available
Bison (Bison bison) restoration has profound implications for ecological, economic and cultural domains, especially restoration into their former historic ranges. Climate change and climate variability, however, threaten sustainable restoration progress. The historic range of bison centered on the prairies of the Great Plains but spanned from Alask...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Currently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) considers bison (Bison bison) a non-amenable, “exotic” species. This designation has been applied because bison were first considered a native wildlife game species under states’ laws (i.e. public trust doctrine circa 1700s) and most wildlife laws pre-date agricultural laws (see Geer vs. Connecti...
Data
We reassess the historic maximum extent of where bison once naturally roamed during or near the arrival of colonial explorers to this continent. In a first demonstration of a multidisciplinary meta-analysis for a species’ extent of occurrence, we combined evidence from paleontology (fossils), archaeology (Indigenous and cultural use associated with...
Technical Report
Full-text available
We evaluated 200 carcasses and meat samples produced from two common bison finishing systems to characterize the influence of diet on key product attributes and to gain insight into consumer preferences for bison meat. Collectively these data indicate that finishing system impacts composition of bison carcasses, nutrient profile of bison meat, and...
Article
Full-text available
Future climate projections of warming, drying, and increased weather variability indicate that conventional agricultural and production practices within the Northern Great Plains (NGP) will become less sustainable, both ecologically and economically. As a result, the livelihoods of people that rely on these lands will be adversely impacted. This is...
Data
We have prepared a standardized format of the USDA Agricultural Census Data of bison that are available by county and by State. Data available here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/6cc9ee1b777447128d811238babfe1ed
Technical Report
Full-text available
North American bison (Bison bison) are an attractive, high-value livestock species that is growing in number and popularity across the United States. While bison ranching has some similarities with cattle ranching, there are significant differences that must be accounted for to ensure long-term sustainability and profitability. Bison are a hardy sp...
Technical Report
Full-text available
The bison market has been a vital part of the sustained production and conservation of the species. The bison market has largely been dependent on slaughtered bison meat prices since the 1960s. The primary reporting service for bison market data is the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service (USDA AMS) office, providing monthl...
Article
Full-text available
Peer writing groups serve an important role in providing a venue to improve written productivity, provide support, and brainstorm research ideas. Peer accountability assists with focusing attention on tasks at hand, which often receive less attention due to the demands on agent’s and researcher's time. Establishing dedicated meeting times to priori...
Article
Full-text available
Bison Bison bison are a keystone of a conservation system, but that system is vulnerable to the effects of a changing climate projected to alter land use through the 21st century. The current bison population of North America is approximately 400,000 animals and is maintained by a self‐assembled bison management system (BMS) of various stakeholders...
Article
Full-text available
A paleontological deposit near San Clemente de Térapa represents one of the very few Rancholabrean North American Land Mammal Age sites within Sonora, Mexico. During that time, grasslands were common, and the climate included cooler and drier summers and wetter winters than currently experienced in northern Mexico. Here, we demonstrate restructurin...
Technical Report
Full-text available
The bison market has been a vital part of the sustained production and conservation of the species. This same market has been largely dependent on slaughtered bison meat prices since the 1960s. The primary reporting service for bison market data is the U.S. Department of Agriculture- Agricultural Marketing Service (USDA AMS) office, providing onlin...
Article
Full-text available
We used an infrared thermal imaging camera to measure body surface temperature (ºC) and heat transfer (total surface Watts and Watts/m2) between bison and their environment across 19 herds from Saskatchewan, Canada to Texas, USA, in both the summer of 2017 and the winter of 2017–2018, a total driving trip of nearly 19,000 miles. We focused on femal...
Article
Full-text available
Aim Mammals on islands often undergo remarkable evolutionary changes. The acquisition of ‘low gear’ locomotion, namely short and robust limb elements, has been typically associated with the island syndrome in large mammals and, especially, ruminants. Here we provide an investigative framework to examine biotic and abiotic selective factors hypothes...
Article
Full-text available
Body size of bison (Bison bison) declines with rising global temperature across the fossil record and rising annual temperatures across the Great Plains, but what are the underlying drivers? Body size depends on growth, which depends on maximizing net energy and nutrient flows for the production of tissues at seasonal scales across the range of the...
Thesis
Full-text available
Body size of animals is plastic and dependent on environmental conditions that are changing globally. In this dissertation, I explore environmental traits as they relate to and drive body size change of North American bison (Bison bison) along the Great Plains. I examined 1) 40,000 years of body size change in the fossil record, 2) five decades of...
Article
Full-text available
Large grazers are visible and valuable indicators of the effects of projected changes in temperature and drought on grasslands. The grasslands of the Great Plains have supported the greatest number of bison (Bison bison; Linnaeus, 1758) since prehistoric times. We tested the hypothesis that body mass (BM, kg) and asymptotic body mass (ABM, kg) of B...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This is a stakeholder synopsis of our peer-reviewed article, "Decadal heat and drought drive body size of North American bison (Bison bison) along the Great Plains" in Ecology and Evolution.
Technical Report
Full-text available
A layman's overview of conservation paleontology, written for bison managers and ranchers across North America.
Technical Report
Full-text available
A layman's overview of the recent article by Martin, Mead, and Barboza (2018) about fossil bison body size and its relationship to climatic change over the past 40,000 years in North America and its implications for bison management and conservation.
Preprint
Fossils of Bison (bison) are scarce on the Colorado Plateau, especially in and around the Greater Grand Canyon Region. Because of poor preservation and collection biases in the region, various resource managers have erroneously designated bison a nonnative and human-(re)introduced species. This decision directly impacts an extant herd of approximat...
Technical Report
Full-text available
A layman's overview of the recently published discovery of the "Higgs Bison" in Eurasia and its implications on bison management and conservation.
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Influence on the body size of Bison has been forced prehistorically by climate, and historically by anthropogenic selection for breeding. Specifically, bison body size appears to be diminishing due to increasing temperatures and/or abrupt climate change. High resolution relative temperature changes occur within centuries and decades in many cases,...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Bison spp. (bison) fossils are scarce on the Colorado Plateau, especially within and adjacent to the greater Grand Canyon region. Because of the poor fossil record for the bison on the Colorado Plateau and in Grand Canyon National Park, various resource managers have surreptitiously designated bison a non-native and human-introduced species to the...
Conference Paper
Bison spp. (bison) fossils are scarce on the Colorado Plateau, especially within and adjacent to the greater Grand Canyon region. Because of the poor fossil record for the bison on the Colorado Plateau and in Grand Canyon National Park, various resource managers have surreptitiously designated bison a non-native and human-introduced species to the...
Thesis
Full-text available
Bison spp. (bison) fossils are scarce on the Colorado Plateau, especially within the greater Grand Canyon region. Because of the poor fossil record for bison on the plateau and in Grand Canyon National Park, various resource managers have surreptitiously designated bison a nonnative and human-introduced species. The lack of evidence for bison seems...
Poster
Full-text available
The Cucaracha Formation (early Miocene, 18.8 Ma (B. MacFadden, pers. comm., Oct. 2012) of the Panama Canal Basin preserves a rare record of terrestrial neotropical paleoenvironments and is important in understanding the history of biotic interchange between North and South America in the geologic past. We describe a new assemblage of freshwater mol...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
LaGarry, H. E., M. B. Leite, W. B. Wells, J. Martin, & A. Malchow. 2008. Dirty Creek trackways: a new vertebrate trackway site from the Oglala National Grassland in northwestern Nebraska. Proceedings of the 118th Annual Meeting of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences, p. 65. Based on 1991-2006 detailed 1:24,000 geologic mapping and pedestrian surveys...

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