Lisanne Petracca

A (professional!) year in review:

thespeclab.weebly.com/news/2025-a-...

We’ve got another one, folks! @thespeclab.bsky.social has another outstanding student who successfully defended her Masters degree. Alexandria was co-advised by disease ecologist Dr. Alynn Martin. Congratulations, Alexandria!! 🦠 🐆

Congrats to Tori Locke of @thespeclab.bsky.social, who successfully defended her M.S. today! 🐆

Oh what a night! Our team @thespeclab.bsky.social successfully collared another bobcat kitten as part of Tori Locke’s ongoing research into bobcat and ocelot reproduction 🐆

Oh my, @thespeclab.bsky.social just had its first graduate student fly the coop. 🥺 Congrats Tyler!

The American Black Bear (Ursus americanus) as an Apex Predator: Investigating the Ecological Role of the World's Most Abundant Large Carnivore Black bears as apex predators. American black bears can (1) produce top-down effects on ungulates equal to or exceeding those of typical apex predators and (2) modify the spatiotemporal behaviour of ...

Student-lead joint lab paper published today!

Black bears are abundant in North America - this review investigates their trophic role as large omnivores with top-down effects onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 🌎🧪

@johnnettles.bsky.social @pancakesnmegs.bsky.social @davidjachowski.bsky.social

Tyler Bostwick is the first graduate student from @thespeclab.bsky.social to defend her thesis!!! 🧬🐆 She did AWESOME!!! Yay!!! 🎉🍾🎊👯

We at @thespeclab.bsky.social successfully made it to #ICCB2025 in Brisbane, Australia 🇦🇺 & taught our Geospatial Analysis in R Workshop. Next up: four oral presentations and three posters! 🤓

Congratulations to @thespeclab.bsky.social's Tori Locke, MS student, who successfully collared her first bobcat kitten as part of her research into reproduction of bobcats and ocelots. This work will help inform population modeling for both felid species in South Texas. 🐆🤠

Forecasting Dynamics of a Recolonizing Wolf Population Under Different Management Strategies We use a novel spatially explicit projection model to evaluate how different management strategies and system uncertainties affect the recolonization dynamics of wolves. We found that scenarios relat....

🐺🐺🐺 NEW PAPER! 🐺🐺🐺

Recovering wolves in WA tolerate threats except high harvest, high lethal removals, and lack of immigration

With @labgardner.bsky.social, Sarah Converse, & Ben Maletzke

zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Life achievement unlocked: my name made it into Mason’s blog! 🤠 He always does such a great job with these posts!

🧪 Detailed data viz NYT article, out today, on the extent of funding cuts at the National Science Foundation.

This "broken pie chart" is neat & new to me: Powerfully shows the slowdown in new NSF awards across areas.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

A ternary plot showing the traditional hypothesis set in the Diel.Niche R package.

New blog post sharing updates on the latest version of the Diel.Niche R package, which we just released about an hour ago. Interested in quantifying if a species is nocturnal with data? Well it is easier than ever now! 🧪 #rstats #cameratrapping

masonfidino.com/Diel.Niche_u...

Not a bad way to start the day

🐆🐆 Aaaaand we have another M.S. position available!! This position represents an opportunity to study ocelot genomics in the context of an active reintroduction effort. Deadline is June 1 for an August start 🐆🐆

Position posting is here: shorturl.at/o4dTA

🐆🐆 TWO M.S. POSITIONS AVAILABLE IN MY LAB!! Focus will be bobcat and coyote dynamics in an ocelot pre-reintroduction landscape. Come join the fun. Deadline is June 1 for an August start 🐆🐆

Position posting is here: tinyurl.com/5y3uhbf3

This isn’t necessarily true. Ultimately the budget is a congressional decision, not a White House decision. Time will tell what actually happens.

Assistant/Associate Professor in Quantitative Ecology Job TitleAssistant/Associate Professor in Quantitative Ecology Agency Texas A&M University - Kingsville Department Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute Proposed Minimum SalaryCommensurate Job Locat...

We are hiring an Assistant/Associate Prof of Quantitative Ecology! I'm on the Search Committee for this one. If you have any interest in the position & want to learn more about living in this v. cool part of the country, pls reach out!
tinyurl.com/2h6bdece

Are you going to #ICCB2025 in Brisbane? Come take the Geospatial Analysis in R all-day workshop on Saturday, June 14. This workshop was developed by me and @amandacheeseman.bsky.social in the COVID era, and now has some brand-new updates from @thespeclab.bsky.social! Join us! 🗺️🤓🦘

We had SO MUCH FUN hosting the best of the best @labgardner.bsky.social

@thespeclab.bsky.social is out in full force at #TCTWS 🐆 🐾

A classroom with students and other guests

Had an awesome night last night at Catawba College’s Center for the Environment! 🐆 🗺️ 🐾 @catawbacollege.bsky.social

See ya tonight Catawba! @catawbacollege.bsky.social

🐾Meet Barley & Scottie, our incredible scat detection dogs from K9 Conservationists, & their skilled handler, Heather Nootbaar!🐶🔍Together, they’re helping us track carnivore populations—all through the power of scent. We’re lucky to have them on the team!🐕🌿#WildlifeResearch

Mammalian predator co‐occurrence affected by prey and habitat more than competitor presence at multiple time scales The behavior and abundance of sympatric predators can be affected by a complex dominance hierarchy. The strength of antagonistic interactions in predator communities is difficult to study and remains...

First paper from my postdoc is out in #EcologicalMonographs w/ @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social! We looked at patterns of summer co-occurrence among 5 predators at 3 time scales to assess how competition, prey, & habitat affected predator distributions in north Idaho, USA. dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecm....

EXCLUSIVE: NSF starts vetting all grants to comply with Trump’s orders Grantee accounts remain frozen, while union accuses NSF of ignoring rules governing peer review

Exclusive: NSF this week began to search through billions of dollars of grants the agency has already awarded for anything touching on topics that President Donald Trump has criticized. And NSF has blocked grantees and trainees from accessing funds while the review is underway. scim.ag/3El0NZh

mountain lion in brush

mountain lion hissing

mountain lion getting tooth measurements

mountain lion with capture team

I could not be more stoked about our capture of P04 yesterday, an 80-lb, ~3yo female mountain lion captured and GPS-collared as part of the CKWRI South Texas Lion Project. We are investigating lion movement ecology, density, and genetics in the TX-Mexico borderlands.

All hail King Barley! 🙌🏽

King Barley is killing it in tough conditions searching for ocelot scat in Texas. He’s being handled by my coworker Heather as they help @lisannepetracca.bsky.social ‘s lab out.