Jay Diffendorfer
Biography
I'm an applied ecologist working at the Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center. Trained as an ecologist, I originally worked on spatial ecology and conservation biology, including a USGS-funded post doc at University of Miami modelling reptile and amphibian responses to possible restoration scenarios in the Everglades. I then worked as an assistant and full professor at San Diego State University, studying relationships between urbanization, fire, and invasive species on a native flora and fauna in southern California. This field-oriented research involved radiotelemetry, capture-recapture, and vegetation studies. I left San Diego State University and spent 4 years at the Illinois Natural History Survey where my research began to expand into disease ecology and agro-ecosystems. Since arriving at USGS in 2008, I have continued to expand my research focus and currently work on science related to the energy-environment nexus, ecosystem services, and applied ecology. For more, please refer to my ResearchGate page.
Education
University of Kansas, Ph.D., (Ecology), 1995
Ohio University, BS, (Wildlife Biology), 1989
Positions Held
2014- Research Scientist and Supervisor, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, USGS, Lakewood, Colorado
2008-2014 Research Scientist, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, USGS, Lakewood, Colorado
2004-2008 Associate Scientist, Illinois Natural History Survey, Champaign, Illinois
1998-2004 Assistant/Associate Professor, San Diego State University, San Diego, California
1995-1998 Postdoctoral research with USGS, University of Miami, Miami, Florida
Science and Products
Using Jupyter Notebooks to tell data stories and create reproducible workflows
Increasingly, USGS scientists seek to share and collaborate while working on data and code. Furthermore, these scientists often require advanced computing resources. Jupyter Notebooks are one such tool for creating these workflows. The files are interactive, code “notebooks” which allow users to combine code and text in one document, enabling scientists to share the stories held within their...
Wind Energy
The United States Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) provides the locations of land-based and offshore wind turbines in the United States, corresponding wind project information, and turbine technical specifications. The creation of this database was jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Wind Energy Technologies Office...
Effects of Energy Development Strategies
Energy is a cornerstone issue for humanity, nations, and individuals. How we create and use energy impacts the consequences it embodies. The critical issue facing humanity involves meeting our massive and growing energy needs, without undermining human and natural capital. Facing the challenge of long-term, sustainable energy for the nation and world requires understanding the consequences of...
Spatial Subsidies: Quantifying Linkages between Human and Natural Systems with Migratory Species
Animal migration occurs because it allows animals to exploit resources where and when they are most abundant by moving seasonally between habitats. Where humans have come to exploit, enjoy or otherwise benefit from migratory species, we too are capitalizing on the seasonal bounty of distant ecosystems. The benefits we derive from migratory species are economically and culturally important;...
Animal Migration and Spatial Subsidies: Establishing a Framework for Conservation Markets
Migratory species may provide more ecosystem goods and services to humans in certain parts of their range than others. These areas may or may not coincide with the locations of habitat on which the species is most dependent for its continued population viability. This situation can present significant policy challenges, as locations that most support a given species may be in effect...
Quantifying the contribution of habitats and pathways to a spatially structured population facing environmental change
The consequences of environmental disturbance and management are difficult to quantify for spatially structured populations because changes in one location carry through to other areas as a result of species movement. We develop a metric, G, for measuring the contribution of a habitat or pathway to network-wide population growth rate in the...
Sample, Christine; Bieri, Joanna A.; Allen, Benjamin L. ; Dementieva, Yulia; Carson, Alyssa; Higgins, Connor; Piatt, Sadie; Qiu, Shirley; Stafford, Summer; Mattsson, Brady J.; Semmens, Darius J.; Diffendorfer, James E.; Thogmartin, Wayne E.Learning from real-world experience to understand renewable energy impacts to wildlife
The project team sought to use real-world data to understand adverse effects to wildlife of renewable energy production that is critical to meeting California’s climate and clean energy goals. The project had three main components. First, a systematic literature review studied 20 peer-reviewed publications and 612 reports from other nonreviewed...
Conkling, Tara J; Vander Zanden, Hannah B.; Poessel, Sharon; Loss, Scott R.; Allison, Taber D; Diffendorfer, James E.; Duerr, Adam E.; Nelson, David M.; Yee, Julie L; Katzner, Todd E.Assessing population-level consequences of anthropogenic stressors for terrestrial wildlife
Human activity influences wildlife. However, the ecological and conservation significances of these influences are difficult to predict and depend on their population‐level consequences. This difficulty arises partly because of information gaps, and partly because the data on stressors are usually collected in a count‐based manner (e.g., number of...
Katzner, Todd E.; Braham, Melissa A.; Conkling, Tara; Diffendorfer, James E.; Duerr, Adam E.; Loss, Scott R.; Nelson, David M.; Vander Zanden, Hannah B.; Yee, Julie L.A continuously updated, geospatially rectified database of utility-scale wind turbines in the United States
Nearly 60,000 utility-scale wind turbines are installed in the United States as of July, 2019, representing over 97 gigawatts of electric power capacity; US wind turbine installations continue to grow at a rapid pace. Yet, until April 2018, no publicly-available, regularly updated data source existed to describe those turbines and their locations...
Rand, Joesph; Kramer, Louisa A.; Garrity, Christopher P.; Hoen, Ben; Diffendorfer, James E.; Hunt, Hannah; Spears, MichaelChallenges for leveraging citizen science to support statistically robust monitoring programs
Large samples and long time series are often needed for effective broad-scale monitoring of status and trends in wild populations. Obtaining those sample sizes can be more feasible when volunteers contribute to the dataset, but volunteer-selected sites are not always representative of a population. Previous work to account for biased site...
Weiser, Emily L.; Diffendorfer, James E.; Lopez-Hoffman, Laura; Semmens, Darius J.; Thogmartin, Wayne E.Is the timing, pace and success of the monarch migration associated with sun angle?
A basic question concerning the monarch butterfly’s fall migration is which monarchs succeed in reaching overwintering sites in Mexico, which fail—and why. We document the timing and pace of the fall migration, ask whether the sun’s position in the sky is associated with the pace of the migration, and whether timing affects success in completing...
Taylor, Orley R.; Lovett, James P; Gibo, David L; Weiser, Emily L.; Thogmartin, Wayne E.; Semmens, Darius J.; Diffendorfer, James E.; Pleasants, John M.; Pecoraro, Samuel; Grundel, RalphChallenges for monitoring the extent and land use/cover changes in monarch butterflies’ migratory habitat across the United States and Mexico
This paper presents a synopsis of the challenges and limitations presented by existing and emerging land use/ land cover (LULC) digital data sets when used to analyze the extent, habitat quality, and LULC changes of the monarch (Danaus plexippus) migratory habitat across the United States of America (US) and Mexico. First, the characteristics,...
Rafael Moreno-Sanchez; James Raines; Diffendorfer, James E.; Drummond, Mark A.; Jessica MankoHistorical land use and land cover for assessing the northern Colorado Front Range urban landscape
We describe historical land-use and land-cover (LULC) maps for the northern Colorado urban Front Range. The Front Range urban landscape is diverse and interspersed with highly productive agriculture as well as natural land cover types including evergreen forest in the Rocky Mountain foothills and Great Plains grassland. To understand the dynamics...
Drummond, Mark A.; Stier, Michael P.; Diffendorfer, James E.Review of indicators for comparing environmental effects across energy sources
Robust, quantitative comparisons of environmental effects across energy sources can support development of energy planning strategies that meet growing demand while managing and minimizing undesirable effects on environmental resources. Multicriteria analyses of energy systems often use a suite of indicators to make such comparisons, but those...
Dorning, Monica; Diffendorfer, James E.; Scott R Loss; Bagstad, Kenneth J.Quantifying source and sink habitats and pathways in spatially structured populations: A generalized modelling approach
The ability to classify habitats and movement pathways as sources or sinks is an important part of the decision making process for the conservation of spatially structured populations. Diverse approaches have been used to quantify the importance of habitats and pathways in a spatial network, however these approaches have been limited by a lack of...
Diffendorfer, James E.; Sample, Christine; Beiri, Joanna A; Allen, Benjamin L. ; Dementieva, Yulia; Carson, Alyssa; Higgins, Connar; Piatt, Sadie; Qiu, Shirley; Stafford, Summer; Mattsson, Brady J.; Semmens, Darius J.; Thogmartin, Wayne E.Impacts to wildlife of wind energy siting and operation in the United States
Electricity from wind energy is a major contributor to the strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel use and thus reduce the negative impacts of climate change. Wind energy, like all power sources, can have adverse impacts on wildlife. After nearly 25 years of focused research, these impacts are much better understood, although...
Taber Allison; Diffendorfer, James E.; Erin Baerwald; Julie Beston; David Drake; Amanda Hale; Cris Hein; Huso, Manuela M.; Scott Loss; Lovich, Jeffrey E.; Dale Strickland; Kate Williams; Virginia WinderWillingness to pay for conservation of transborder migratory species: A case study of the Mexican free-tailed bat in the United States and Mexico
We estimated U.S. and Mexican citizens’ willingness to pay (WTP) for protecting habitat for a transborder migratory species, the Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana), using the contingent valuation method. Few contingent valuation surveys have evaluated whether households in one country would pay to protect habitat in another...
Haefele, Michelle; Loomis, John B.; Merideth, Robert W.; Lien, Aaron M.; Semmens, Darius J.; Dubovsky, Jim; Wiederholt, Ruscena; Thogmartin, Wayne E.; Huang, Ta-Ken; McCracken, Gary; Lopez-Hoffman, Laura; Medellin, Rodrigo; Diffendorfer, James E.Pre-USGS Publications
Learning From Real-World Experience to Understand Renewable Energy Impacts to Wildlife
A comprehensive analysis of how renewable energy facilities affect wildlife could inform efforts to predict and reduce these impacts. A team of researchers was asked to gain a better understanding of the actual environmental impacts of renewable energy generation on sensitive species and habitats in California.
Demographic Consequences of Human Stressors on Wildlife Populations
Predicting the ecological and conservation significances of human influences on wildlife populations is difficult. However, methodological developments can help make the transition from count-based field data on individuals to rate-based demographic estimates.
Examination of Surveys to Measure Renewable Energy Effects on Birds and Bats
Although renewable energy facilities are often required to complete wildlife surveys before and after constructing facilities, there is a lack of published studies that have closely examined the types of surveys and whether they are comparable within and across facilities.
U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Department of Energy Release Online Public Dataset and Viewer of U.S. Wind Turbine Locations and Characteristics
Today, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), in partnership with DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the American Wind Energy Association, released the United States Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) and the USWTDB Viewer to access this new public dataset.
Preliminary Wind Energy Impacts Assessment Methodology Released
USGS has released a preliminary methodology to assess the population level impacts of onshore wind energy development on birds and bats. This wind energy impacts assessment methodology is the first of its kind, evaluating national to regional scale impacts of those bats and birds that breed in and migrate through the United States.