Dr. Ferguson’s lab uses statistical models and stakeholder input to study fish and wildlife populations and support natural resource decision making.
We use models to estimate population parameters such as abundance, density, occupancy probabilities, survival probabilities, and movement rates while accounting for imperfect detections (i.e., false negatives when a species is present but not detected or false positives when a species is misidentified). Addressing imperfect detection is essential to generating unbiased parameter estimates with ecological field data. These studies contribute to an understanding of the population’s status and the effects of anthropogenic and environmental features on populations.
These ecological models are combined with stakeholder values to address management and conservation questions. We use decision analysis to identify management objectives and evaluate multiple management decision options. We model the expected outcomes of the decision options and evaluate them relative to stakeholders’ objectives. This process identifies an optimal decision option, the decision option that is most likely to generate outcomes that fulfill management objectives.
