Ben is a population ecologist focusing on stream habitats and science communication.
Education
- PhD, 1994, NC State, Zoology with statistics and modeling minor
- M.S. 1990, URI School of Oceanography, biological option
- B.S. 1985, Trinity College, Biology
Main research questions include:
Where are the fish?
- Distribution modeling
- Modeling climate refugia
What drives fish abundances?
- Long-term individual-based field studies
- State-space abundance modeling
- Integrated demographic models
How are the fish changing?
- Thermal adaptive capacity
- Estimating fitness in the wild
How are stream environments changing?
- Stream temperature statistical models
- Stream flow modeling using images
In addition, Ben is very interested in creating integrated, interactive, web-based systems to assist decision-making for natural resources. His group has created the Spatial Hydro-Ecological Decision System (‘SHEDS’ at ecosheds.org) which links databases, models and visualization tools.
- An extensive stream temperature database is at db.ecosheds.org.
- Stream temperature and Brook Trout occupancy models are at ecosheds.org
- The Interactive Catchment Explorer (‘ICE’) which facilitates exploration of complex environmental datasets and modeling results is at ice.ecosheds.org.
- Visualizations of individual tagging data from long-term studies are at pitdata.ecosheds.org.
- A stream visualization tool linking hydrographs to images is at fpe.ecosheds.org.
- A time series explorer is at tse.ecosheds.org.
Google scholar link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fwgbROwAAAAJ&hl=en
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 15
Can Wildlife Species Evolve in Response to a Changing Climate? Informing Species Vulnerability Assessments
Climate change poses a variety of threats to biodiversity. Most efforts to assess the likely impacts of climate change on biodiversity try to rank species based on their vulnerability under changed environmental conditions. These efforts have generally not considered the ability of organisms to adjust their phenotype to the changing environment. Organisms can do this by one of two ways. First, the
The Past as a Prelude to the Future: Assessing Climate Effects on Native Trout in the U.S.
Salmonids (a family of fish that includes salmon, trout, and char) are a keystone species for both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and can be an early warning indicator of ecosystem health. Salmonids also have strong societal values and contribute enormously to regional economies and Native American cultures. Today, many native salmonid populations are small, highly fragmented, and isolated fr
Modeling species response to environmental change: development of integrated, scalable Bayesian models of population persistence
Estimating species response to environmental change is a key challenge for ecologists and a core mission of the USGS. Effective forecasting of species response requires models that are detailed enough to capture critical processes and at the same time general enough to allow broad application. This tradeoff is difficult to reconcile with most existing methods. We propose to extend and combine exis
Science and Products
- Science
Filter Total Items: 15
Can Wildlife Species Evolve in Response to a Changing Climate? Informing Species Vulnerability Assessments
Climate change poses a variety of threats to biodiversity. Most efforts to assess the likely impacts of climate change on biodiversity try to rank species based on their vulnerability under changed environmental conditions. These efforts have generally not considered the ability of organisms to adjust their phenotype to the changing environment. Organisms can do this by one of two ways. First, theThe Past as a Prelude to the Future: Assessing Climate Effects on Native Trout in the U.S.
Salmonids (a family of fish that includes salmon, trout, and char) are a keystone species for both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and can be an early warning indicator of ecosystem health. Salmonids also have strong societal values and contribute enormously to regional economies and Native American cultures. Today, many native salmonid populations are small, highly fragmented, and isolated frModeling species response to environmental change: development of integrated, scalable Bayesian models of population persistence
Estimating species response to environmental change is a key challenge for ecologists and a core mission of the USGS. Effective forecasting of species response requires models that are detailed enough to capture critical processes and at the same time general enough to allow broad application. This tradeoff is difficult to reconcile with most existing methods. We propose to extend and combine exis - Publications
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