Vicky J. Meretsky | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Cornell University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Conservation Biology, Ecology, Statistics |
| Institutions | Indiana University Bloomington |
Vicky J. Meretsky is an American professor and Director of Environmental Masters Programs at Indiana University Bloomington.
Meretsky received a Bachelor of Sciences at Cornell University in 1980. In 1988, she completed her first Master's degree in Wildlife Ecology at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California and pursued a second Master's degree in Statistics from the University of Arizona in 1993. She completed her Doctorate in 1995 at the University of Arizona, where she studied the foraging ecology of Egyptian vultures in the Negev Desert. [1]
Meretsky is currently a professor at Indiana University Bloomington (IUB), teaching: conservation biology, how climate change impacts on natural resources, and graduate statistics. She has held several adjunct positions in various departments since she became an affiliated faculty member in 1998. Previously, Meretsky taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona from 1996 until 2001.
Outside academia, she has worked as a consultant and specialist for outside universities and governmental organizations, including wetlands consultancy for the Department of Justice. Before her employment at IU, she worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a research biologist studying endangered species and ecosystem management in the Grand Canyon.
Meretsky’s work focuses on both the science and policy aspects of conservationism, studying the effects of anthropogenic climate change on single species as well as broader impacts on ecosystems and whole regions. Her interests include, but are not limited to, "conservation planning, ecology of rare species, integrating ecosystem and endangered species management with adaptive management, and impacts of climate change on each." [2] She sits on the advisory board of the Sycamore Land Trust in Indiana. [3] She has spent time studying numerous species within and outside the US, including Egyptian vultures, the humpback chub, and the California condor and was involved in measuring the effects of the insecticide DDT on condor reproduction. [4]
Meretsky is a five-time winner of the Trustees Teaching Award at IU, three-time winner of the Teaching Excellence Recognition Award, and three-time winner of IU's School of Public Environmental Affairs (SPEA) Outstanding Teaching Award. In addition, she has received several grants for her continued research, including two EPA-funded National Lakes Assessment grants as well as a $400,000 teaching grant from the Department of Education for the funding of a US-Russia Global Environmental Issues Research and Study Program. [5]
Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an interdisciplinary subject drawing on natural and social sciences, and the practice of natural resource management.
Habitat conservation is a management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore habitats and prevent species extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range. It is a priority of many groups that cannot be easily characterized in terms of any one ideology.
Population viability analysis (PVA) is a species-specific method of risk assessment frequently used in conservation biology. It is traditionally defined as the process that determines the probability that a population will go extinct within a given number of years. More recently, PVA has been described as a marriage of ecology and statistics that brings together species characteristics and environmental variability to forecast population health and extinction risk. Each PVA is individually developed for a target population or species, and consequently, each PVA is unique. The larger goal in mind when conducting a PVA is to ensure that the population of a species is self-sustaining over the long term.
The golden-cheeked warbler is an endangered species of bird that breeds in Central Texas, from Palo Pinto County southwestward along the eastern and southern edge of the Edwards Plateau to Kinney County. The golden-cheeked warbler is the only bird species with a breeding range endemic to Texas.
Restoration ecology is the scientific study supporting the practice of ecological restoration, which is the practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human interruption and action. Ecological restoration can reverse biodiversity loss, combat climate change and support local and global economies.
The Colorado River Delta is the region where the Colorado River flows into the Gulf of California in eastern Mexicali Municipality in the north of the state of Baja California in northwesternmost Mexico. The delta is part of a larger geologic region called the Salton Trough. Historically, the interaction of the river's flow and the ocean's tide created a dynamic environment, supporting freshwater, brackish, and saltwater species. Within the delta region, the river split into multiple braided channels and formed a complex estuary and terrestrial ecosystems. The use of water upstream and the accompanying reduction of freshwater flow has resulted in the loss of most of the wetlands of the area, as well as drastic changes to the aquatic ecosystems. However, a scheme is currently in place which aims to rejuvenate the wetlands by releasing a pulse of water down the river delta.
Gary Paul Nabhan is an agricultural ecologist, Ethnobotanist, Ecumenical Franciscan Brother, and author whose work has focused primarily on the plants and cultures of the desert Southwest. He is considered a pioneer in the local food movement and the heirloom seed saving movement.
The Kanab ambersnail, scientific name Oxyloma haydeni kanabense or Oxyloma kanabense, is a critically endangered subspecies or species of small, air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc in the family Succineidae, the amber snails. The common name of the amber snails is based on the shell, which is translucent and when empty usually resembles the color of amber.
The Colorado pikeminnow is the largest cyprinid fish of North America and one of the largest in the world, with reports of individuals up to 6 ft (1.8 m) long and weighing over 100 pounds (45 kg). Native to the Colorado River Basin of the southwestern United States and adjacent Mexico, it was formerly an important food fish for both Native Americans and European settlers. Once abundant and widespread in the basin, its numbers have declined to the point where it has been extirpated from the Mexican part of its range and was listed as endangered in the US part in 1967, a fate shared by the three other large Colorado Basin endemic fish species: bonytail chub, humpback chub, and razorback sucker. The Colorado pikeminnow is currently listed as vulnerable by the IUCN, while its NatureServe conservation status is "critically imperiled".
The environmental impact of fishing includes issues such as the availability of fish, overfishing, fisheries, and fisheries management; as well as the impact of industrial fishing on other elements of the environment, such as bycatch. These issues are part of marine conservation, and are addressed in fisheries science programs. According to a 2019 FAO report, global production of fish, crustaceans, molluscs and other aquatic animals has continued to grow and reached 172.6 million tonnes in 2017, with an increase of 4.1 percent compared with 2016. There is a growing gap between the supply of fish and demand, due in part to world population growth.
A large proportion of living species on Earth live a parasitic way of life. Parasites have traditionally been seen as targets of eradication efforts, and they have often been overlooked in conservation efforts. In the case of parasites living in the wild – and thus harmless to humans and domesticated animals – this view is changing. The conservation biology of parasites is an emerging and interdisciplinary field that recognizes the integral role parasites play in ecosystems. Parasites are intricately woven into the fabric of ecological communities, with diverse species occupying a range of ecological niches and displaying complex relationships with their hosts.
William Wallace (Wally) Covington is an Emeritus Regents' Professor of Forest Ecology at Northern Arizona University (NAU), and the Emeritus Founding Director of the Ecological Restoration Institute at NAU. Covington is known for his research and outreach activities on conservation, forest health, fire ecology, and ecological restoration, drawn from his research since 1970 on the ponderosa pine, aspen, dry mixed conifer, and pinyon-juniper forests and woodlands of the West, particularly those that surround Flagstaff, Arizona. He has been called perhaps the nation's most visible forest scientist, by Science magazine.
Gretchen C. Daily is an American environmental scientist and tropical ecologist. She has contributed to understanding humanity's dependence and impacts on nature, and to advancing a systematic approach for valuing nature in policy, finance, management, and practice around the world. Daily is co-founder and faculty director of the Natural Capital Project, a global partnership that aims to mainstream the values of nature into decision-making of people, governments, investors, corporations, NGOs, and other institutions. Together with more than 300 partners worldwide, the Project is pioneering science, technology, and scalable demonstrations of inclusive, sustainable development.
A vulture restaurant is a site where carrion, decaying flesh from dead animals, is deposited in order to be consumed by vultures, and is sometimes referred to more generally as supplemental feeding or provisioning. These stations can also be referred to as vulture feeding sites, vulture feeding stations, and vulture safe zones. This supplemental feeding practice is used to provide vultures with reliable, non-contaminated food sources or to aid in monitoring schemes. Vulture restaurants have been instituted as a method of vulture conservation in Europe and Africa since the 1960's and 70's, when vulture populations began to decline. This strategy is used because often population declines are attributed to low food availability, food contamination or insufficient nutritional quality, or feeding from human areas leading to conflict. Notably, large vulture population declines in South Asia, referred to as the Asian or Indian vulture crisis, and Africa, referred to as the African vulture crisis, have brought renewed attention to the uses and impacts of vulture restaurants. Vulture restaurants are used in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America for various conservation and management plans. They can help combat food-derived threats to vultures, such as diclofenac or lead contamination or conflict with ranchers and poachers. The first vulture restaurant was built in South Africa in 1966. Vulture restaurants operate in a number of countries, including Nepal, India, Cambodia, South Africa, Eswatini, and Spain.
Robert L. Fischman is the George P. Smith, II Distinguished Professor of Law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law in Bloomington, Indiana. He is also an adjunct professor at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
Sharon J. Hall is an ecosystem ecologist and associate professor at the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on ecosystem ecology and the ways that human activity interacts with the environment.
Erika S. Zavaleta is an American professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Zavaleta is recognized for her research focusing on topics including plant community ecology, conservation practices for terrestrial ecosystems, and impacts of community dynamics on ecosystem functions.
Leah R. Gerber is a conservation biologist and environmental scientist most known for her contributions to the field of biodiversity conservation. She has conducted research on population ecology, conservation decision-making, and the application of innovative quantitative methods in conservation biology.
Ingrid C. "Indy" Burke is the Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. Dean at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. She is the first female dean in the school's 116 year history. Her area of research is ecosystem ecology with a primary focus on carbon cycling and nitrogen cycling in semi-arid rangeland ecosystems. She teaches on subjects relating to ecosystem ecology, and biogeochemistry.
