Current Projects

• Examining complex relationships between environmental stochasticity, prey availability, and aquatic snake demography, population dynamics, and community composition. Collaborators: Chris Winne, J. Whitfield Gibbons, and Melissa Pilgrim.

• Evaluating the risk of invasive Burmese pythons (Python molurus) in the Southeastern United States. Collaborators: Michael Dorcas, J. Whitfield Gibbons, USGS, National Park Service, University of Florida.

• Using aquatic snakes as a case study for developing advanced mark-recapture techniques (robust-design analyses in program MARK) for monitoring secretive species. Collaborators: Chris Winne and Brian Todd.

• Using stable isotopes to explore reproductive allocation strategies in an income breeding snake, Seminatrix pygaea. Collaborators: Chris Winne, Melissa Pilgrim, and Chris Romanek.

• Using occupancy modeling (program PRESENCE) to monitor secretive aquatic snake species on a landscape scale. Collaborators: Andrew Durso and Chris Winne.

Past Projects

• Ellenton Bay aquatic snake studies. Primary Collaborator: Chris Winne.
  • Foraging behavior and habitat use in cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus)
  • Enigmatic decline of eastern kingsnakes (Lampropeltis getula)
  • Drought survival and income breeding in the black swamp snake (Seminatrix pygaea)
  • Interspecific variation in drought survival strategies in aquatic snakes
  • Migration patterns in cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus)

• Impacts of crab trapping on Diamondback Terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin) populations of Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Collaborators: Mike Dorcas, Whit Gibbons.

• Effects of land use on stream salamander populations in North Carolina. Collaborators: Mike Dorcas, Steve Price.
  • Effects of habitat disturbance on stream salamanders: implications for buffer zones
  • Three decades of urbanization in the North Carolina Piedmont: effects on stream salamanders

• Ecology of small fossorial snakes. Collaborators: Chris Winne, Brian Todd, and Mike Dorcas.
  • Southeastern crowned snake (Tantilla coronata)
  • Earth snakes (Virginia valeriae and V. striatula)
  • North Carolina Piedmont small snakes (Carphophis, Diadophis, Storeria, Virginia)

• Development of novel techniques for monitoring reptiles and amphibians. Collaborators: Mike Dorcas, Chris Winne.
  • Book Chapter - Novel Techniques for Snake Ecology and Conservation
  • Book Chapter - Drift Fences, Coverboards, and Traps for Amphibians
  • Size bias in traps for aquatic snakes
  • Snake marking with medical cautery units
  • Optimizing drift fence sampling for herpetofauna
  • Capture and escape of aquatic snakes, Siren, and Amphiuma in minnow traps
  • Aquatic drift fences for amphibians
  • Sampling methods for stream salamanders

• Herpetofaunal Inventories of Southeastern National Parks. Collaborators: Traey Tuberville, Mike Dorcas, Whit Gibbons.

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