Bruce Young

Using citizen science data to support conservation in environmental regulatory contexts

Outside of protected areas, environmental regulation is a vital policy tool for conserving at-risk species. An underappreciated potential for citizen science is to augment locality databases used in regulatory review to provide greater certainty to regulatory decisions.

PublicationJournal Article2019Using citizen science data to support conservation in environmental regulatory contexts

Species Diversity as a Surrogate for Conservation of Phylogenetic and Functional Diversity in Terrestrial Vertebrates Across the Americas

Preserving the evolutionary history and ecological functions that different species embody, in addition to species themselves, is a growing concern for conservation. Recent studies warn that conservation priority regions identified using species diversity differ from those based on phylogenetic or functional diversity.

PublicationJournal Article2019Nature Ecology and Evolution

Conserving Species Diversity also Conserves Evolutionary and Functional Diversity

New study published in prestigious journal

PublicationJournal Article2018Species diversity as a surrogate for conservation of phylogenetic and functional diversity in terrestrial vertebrates across the Americas

Evolutionary Time Drives Global Tetrapod Diversity

Global variation in species richness is widely recognized, but the explanation for what drives it continues to be debated.

PublicationJournal Article2018Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Are pollinating hawk moths declining in the Northeastern United States? An analysis of collection records

Increasing attention to pollinators and their role in providing ecosystem services has revealed a paucity of studies on long-term population trends of most insect pollinators in many parts of the world. Because targeted monitoring programs are resource intensive and unlikely to be performed on most insect pollinators, we took advantage of existing collection records to examine long-term trends in northeastern United States populations of 26 species of hawk moths (family Sphingidae) that are presumed to be pollinators.

PublicationJournal Article2017PLOS ONE