Page Klug's Website Home

About Me Education Research Links REU Projects Curriculum Vitae Personal

About Me:

I am currently a PhD student at Kansas State University. I work in the Laboratory for Landscape and Conservation Biology under the the direction of Dr. Kimberly With. My work focuses on the interactions between grassland birds and their snake predators. My approach involves a novel synthesis of technologies derived from landscape ecology and population genetics to elucidate the landscape ecology of a predator-prey interaction that may be exacerbating declines in grassland birds.

Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth is the floor of the sky. -Willa Cather

Education and Professional Experience:

Ph.D. Kansas State University Expected 2009
Dissertation: Interactions between grassland birds and their snake predators: the potential for conservation benefits or conflicts in the tallgrass prairie

Degrees:
MS Biology University of Nebraska at Omaha 2005
Thesis: The effects of local grassland habitat and surrounding landscape composition on the predators of grassland birds

BS Environmental Science and Policy Drake University 2001

Certificates:
Graduate Certificate in Applied Statistics Kansas State University 2007

Dissertation Research Overview:

Landscape modification is a major threat to global biodiversity. Many landscapes do not suffer wholesale habitat destruction but exhibit habitat degradation through human management. The Flint Hills of Kansas represent the largest tract of remaining tallgrass prairie, but despite its immense conservation importance, the region is managed for cattle production with intensive fire and grazing. The Flint Hills appear contiguous but may be functionally fragmented for its native fauna (cryptic fragmentation). Interactions between the native predator and prey may be altered by their differential perception of habitat abundance or connectivity. For example, nest predation in birds often increases in edge habitats where nests are subject to high densities of predators residing in or entering the patch during foraging. With cryptic fragmentation, the inability to define edge habitat a priori requires a species-based approach to model the functional connectivity for the predator and its impact on prey.
I am modeling the landscape to elucidate cryptic fragmentation as perceived by both the predator and the prey. Predation risk is modeled by overlapping the distribution of suitable predator habitat (snakes) and suitable prey habitat (birds). The response of nest predators to landscape heterogeneity may increase incidental encounters with bird nests through increased predator densities or increased foraging efficiency. Snakes do not rely solely on bird nests as prey so the density of snake predators is independent of bird nest density. Still, land management may enhance predator-prey interactions through habitat modifications that force birds to nest in areas that are highly saturated with predators creating ecological traps for birds. The modeling approach gives a spatially-explicit map of suitable snake habitat, but it does not identify how snake populations respond and scale to the heterogeneity. The use of spatial and genetic data will reveal how landscape heterogeneity influences the distribution and gene flow in a predatory snake. Landscape genetics will elucidate landscape connectivity and identify environmental features that impede or facilitate snake movement to influence foraging. If snakes perceive a less fragmented landscape and also overlap in habitat with birds, high densities of snakes can move with less restraint across the landscape to exhibit top-down controls on birds and negatively impact nesting. Landscape genetics will reveal population-level responses of snakes to bridge the gap between fine scale understandings of snakes at the individual level to a population level commensurate with bird studies.