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theses

Ecology is the study of interactions between organisms and their environment. These interactions are shaped by the decisions made by both humans and non-human animals. From the human perspective our decisions to develop or preserve land have had and continue to have far reaching impacts on non-human animals. In light of the decisions we make, non-human animals must then make decisions on when/where to move, where to feed and where to breed. Understanding how animals make decisions is a difficult and complex endeavor, but one that can provide a vast amount of ecological knowledge. Knowledge related to animal decision making and other ecological processes can then be used to inform our own decision making processes in terms of when, where and how to invest scarce monetary resources intended for animal conservation. In this dissertation I use simulation models to examine animal movement decisions and how these decisions can affect species persistence and ultimately species conservation. Additionally, I make use of optimization techniques to study how the different ways in which we choose to quantify the costs of conservation management can affect monetary expenditures. From the simulation models I found that evolved behaviors that dictate patterns of animal movement in the early breeding season can have profound effects on species persistence, in some cases leading to declines in expected annual growth rates of 25-50% when cues are altered by anthropogenic change. Additionally, the simulation models show that differences in animal behavior at the level of the individual affects the relative costs and benefits of animal movement which in turn help us to understand how animal decision making interacts with and responds to anthropogenic habitat changes. Finally, the use of optimization techniques allowed us to determine that using detailed tax records to quantify the costs of conservation management allows for a cost-savings of 70-75% over other, more traditional metrics used to quantify costs within the conservation planning literature. The results obtained here have important implications for how we approach conservation management. The results of our simulation models provide a bridge between the seemingly unrelated fields of animal behavior and conservation.

ETD_6153

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by John Curtis Burkhalter

doi:10.7282/T3JM2CB2

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.