Craig A Stricker, PhD

As an ecologist at the Fort Collins Science Center, Craig Stricker’s research program focuses on an improved understanding of the roles of hydrology, biogeochemistry, and food web interactions on ecosystem structure and function with the goal of assisting land managers. His expertise in chemical and isotopic tracers offers novel insights in ecosystem ecology and has benefitted multidisciplinary collaborations across a variety of state, federal, and academic institutions. Tracer-based approaches to studying wildlife and ecosystems is a capability unique to Stricker’s research and the Fort Collins Science Center with examples ranging from wildlife nutrition, trophic dynamics, impacts of invasive species, animal movements and phenology, biogeochemistry, and environmental stressors such as fire and drought. The spatial domain of his work ranges from discrete habitats, regional assessments, to continental and oceanic basins, with studies from the sub-tropics to the high Arctic. Results of these projects inform on species life history and fitness to ecosystem health and function, but also offer frameworks for monitoring programs, model development, restoration, and risk assessment.