HUMANS OF TYSON 2021

Tick and Wildlife Ecology

The Tick and Wildlife Ecology team has joined forces with the Wildlife Monitoring team in a cross-collaborative effort this summer. The joined team is interested in learning how humans can interact with their environments in ways that reduce disease risk, conserve wildlife populations, and improve cities to make them better places for humans and wildlife alike.

Focal projects include asking how prescribed fire affects the risk of tick-borne diseases, as well as looking into the prevalence and distribution of emerging tick-borne viruses. The team is also investigating how cultivating residential native plant gardens will affect bird communities along an urban to rural gradient, and how public green spaces along a similar urbanization gradient support mammals and other wildlife. The undergraduate and high school fellows are also learning how to conduct a scientific literature review, and are thinking more deeply about how scientists define urbanization. Finally, the group is continuing their long term monitoring of bats and white-tailed deer at Tyson.

Sparked by the knowledge that we are all products of the environments in which we live, this collaborative team aims to figure out ways of interacting with our landscapes that are both better for us and for biodiversity in the long run.

Explore the team member profiles below to learn more about their perspectives during summer 2021.