Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Aug 25

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 🐆

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Aug 8

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

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Reposted by Lisanne Petracca

Erin Buchholtz @erinbuchholtz.bsky.social · Aug 5

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

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 ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Jul 9

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

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Jun 16

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! 🤓

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Jun 5

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. 🐆🤠

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · May 27

🐺🐺🐺 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/...

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....

zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · May 24

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

Please reconsider including the number of sampling days as a covariate when estimating detection probabilities in occupancy models

When you flip a fair coin, the probability that you get heads at least once increases with the number of times you flip the coin. This makes intuitive sense. More chances means you are more likely to ...

masonfidino.com

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Reposted by Lisanne Petracca

Dr. David Miller 🏳️‍🌈 @davidimiller.bsky.social · May 22

🧪 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/...

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Reposted by Lisanne Petracca

Mason Fidino, PhD @masonfidino.bsky.social · May 22

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...

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

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · May 8

Not a bad way to start the day

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · May 2

🐆🐆 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

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Apr 30

🐆🐆 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

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Apr 19

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

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Apr 15

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

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...

tinyurl.com

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Apr 9

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! 🗺️🤓🦘

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Mar 26

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

Beth Gardner @labgardner.bsky.social · Mar 26

Had an amazing trip to visit @lisannepetracca.bsky.social, the SPEC lab, and CKWRI @ TAMUK. Saw an ocelot, gained some life list birds, and learned about a lot of exciting research in southern Texas. Thank you all for this fantastic trip (and the sweet CKWRI hat)!!

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Feb 21

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

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Feb 11

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

A classroom with students and other guests

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Feb 10

See ya tonight Catawba! @catawbacollege.bsky.social

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Reposted by Lisanne Petracca

The SPEC Lab @thespeclab.bsky.social · Feb 5

🐾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

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Reposted by Lisanne Petracca

Sarah B. Bassing, PhD @sbassing.bsky.social · Jan 31

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....

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...

dx.doi.org

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Reposted by Lisanne Petracca

Science Magazine @science.org · Jan 30

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

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

scim.ag

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · Jan 24

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.

mountain lion getting tooth measurements

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