Author Archives: Nathan Lyle
Developing Metapopulation Connectivity Criteria from Genetic and Habitat Data to Recover the Endangered Mexican Wolf
July 6, 2020
Restoring connectivity between fragmented populations is an important tool for alleviating genetic threats to endangered species. Yet recovery plans typically lack quantitative criteria for ensuring such population connectivity. We demonstrate how models that integrate habitat, genetic, and demographic data can … read more
Posted in Genetics | Tagged Canis lupus baileyi, circuit theory, conservation planning, Endangered Species Act, least-cost distance, metapopulations, population viability
Immigration does not offset harvest mortality in groups of a cooperatively breeding carnivore
July 6, 2020
The effects of harvest on cooperatively breeding species are often more complex than simply subtracting the number of animals that died from the group count. Changes in demographic rates, particularly dispersal, could offset some effects of harvest mortality in groups … read more
Posted in Hunting Wolves | Tagged Canis lupus, compensatory immigration, cooperative breeder, dispersal, gray wolf, social structure
Minnesotans’ Attitudes Toward Wolves and Wolf Management
July 6, 2020
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, in partnership with the University of Minnesota through the Minnesota Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, conducted a survey of Minnesota residents to support the 2020 update to the Minnesota Wolf Management Plan.
Posted in Human Dimensions | Tagged advocate, Deer, Environmentalist, Farmer, Hunter, hunting, management, minnesota, moose, report, values, wildlife, Wolf, wolves
Myths and assumptions about human-wildlife conflict and coexistence
July 6, 2020
Recent extinctions often resulted from humans retaliating against wildlife that threatened people’s interests or were perceived to threaten current or future interests. Today’s subfield of human-wildlife conflict and coexistence (HWCC) grew out of an original anthropocentric concern with such real … read more
Posted in Human Dimensions | Tagged animal damage, bias, biodiversity conservation, implicit value judgments, interventions, planning, policy
Modelling concerns confound evaluations of legal wolf-killing
July 6, 2020
Letter to the editor at https://www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon Liberg et al. (2020)’s interesting article on the effect of legal killing on poaching and disappearance of wolves continued the seminal work of Liberg et al. (2012). However, our eyes were caught by unusual … read more
Posted in Conflicts
Tall willow thickets return to northern Yellowstone
May 31, 2020
Northern Yellowstone National Park provides an example of passive restoration, as wetlands and riparian areas there lost most tall willows in the 20th century, due to intensive herbivory by elk (Cervus canadensis). Following large carnivore restoration in the late 1990s, … read more
Posted in Trophic Cascade | Tagged bison, browsing, Cervus canadensis, passive restoration, Salix, sandbar willow, tall willows, trophic cascade, ungulate herbivory, yellowstone


