S1 E4: Ecosystem Engineers with Laura Prugh
Laura Prugh is a wildlife community ecologist with the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. Research in her lab use a combination of intensive fieldwork, modeling, meta-analyses, and interdisciplinary approaches to study the response of wildlife communities to global change.
Recently, Prugh was lead author on a study published in the journal Science. Researchers at the University of Washington, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Spokane Tribe of Indians found that bobcats and coyotes were more than three times likely to die from human activity than from the claws and jaws of cougars and wolves, illustrating how humankind’s growing footprint is changing interactions among other species.
On this episode of FieldSound, Prugh discusses her pursuit to understand connections in the environment, and highlights her work with the critically endangered Kangaroo Rats - the “ecosystem engineers” of the Carrizo Plain National Monument in Southern California.
Laura Prugh is the current holder of the John C. Garcia Term Professorship. Prugh Lab research is supported by the Wildlife Dynamics and Conservation Research Fund.
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