Cooperative Research Unit Headquarters
Brent Sigafus grew up in Tucson and began working with the USGS as an undergraduate at the University of Arizona in 2000, creating a specimen inventory database in collaboration with the USGS and National Park Service for the National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring Program. After graduating with a B.S. in natural resources, he became a volunteer for the USGS, focusing on data collection for bullfrogs and other desert amphibians, as well as assisting with mapping bullfrog dispersal. He began working with the USGS full-time in 2001 as a University of Arizona, Research Specialist for herpetologist Cecil Schwalbe. In 2009 Brent switched from a University employee to a USGS employee as a Biologist allowing him to expand into other scientific and support roles.
These days, Brent wears many hats. As a biologist, working on the Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (https://armi.usgs.gov/), he supports amphibian projects across Arizona. Most of his time now is spent as the Collateral Duty Safety Program Director for the Southwest Biological Science Center leading all aspects of safety support from instructing classes like Wilderness First Aid and Animal Behavior to implementation of procedures and policies to keep our workforce safe. On a Bureau level he is the Southwest and Northwest-Pacific Islands Regional Firearms Safety Manager where he instructs others on the safe handling of firearms for Defense Against Wild Animals and Specimen Collection.
Science and Products
Modeling Colonization of a Population of Chiricahua Leopard Frogs
Amphibian Chytrid Fungus Sampling in Arizona and Mexico
Science and Products
- Science
Modeling Colonization of a Population of Chiricahua Leopard Frogs
Managing a species with intensive tools like reintroduction may focus on single sites or entire landscapes. For mobile species like the federally-threatened Chiricahua leopard frog (Lithobates chiricahuensis [CLF]), both suitable colonization sites and suitable dispersal corridors between sites are needed. Following the eradication of the invasive American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) from...Amphibian Chytrid Fungus Sampling in Arizona and Mexico
Information on disease presence can be of use to natural resource managers, especially in areas supporting threatened and endangered species that occur coincidentally with species that are suspected vectors for disease. A general sense of pathogen presence (or absence) can inform management directed at threatened and endangered species, especially in regions where disease is suspected to have... - Publications
- News