I am currently working on my Ph.D. in behavioral ecology, studying how yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) are influenced by rural human development. Specifically, I am interested in whether there are behavioral and fitness differences among marmots that live in developed areas versus those that live in natural, undeveloped areas.

Prey species often rely on visual cues to avoid predation. In developed areas, built structures may act as obstructions to prey visibility, requiring individuals to spend more time observing their surroundings than spending time on fitness-improving behaviors, like foraging or mating. While there is an immediate benefit of being vigilant on surviving predation, there may be longer-term impacts on overall health, resulting in decreased survival down the line.

The Marmot Project is the second-longest study of wild, free-living mammals in the world. Since its establishment in 1962 at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, there have been decades of observations on marmot behavior. These data are invaluable to understand how a social species changes over time and how environmental stressors, such as climate change, impact populations.

From 2024 to 2026, I will be in the field from April to September to collect various data for this project, including observations of sociality and antipredator behaviors and measurements of individual genetics and body condition.