UW Researcher to Give Final Talk at UW

A University of Wyoming research scientist will discuss how big-game animals migrate during the final lecture of the season at the UW-National Park Service Research Center Thursday, July 11. The center is located at the AMK Ranch in Grand Teton National Park.

Jerod Merkle, the Knobloch Professor of Migration Ecology and Conservation in the UW Department of Zoology and Physiology, will discuss “How Wyoming’s Big Game Make Their Epic Migrations” at 6:30 p.m. at the AMK Ranch, located north of Leeks Marina.

A barbecue, at a cost of $5 per person, will take place at 5:30 p.m. Reservations are not required. The talk is part of the weekly Harlow Summer Seminars series.

Merkle is a quantitative wildlife ecologist with broad interests in understanding how the movement of animals relates to environmental heterogeneity and change, and how these interactions scale to population- and landscape-level ecological processes. His research includes migration ecology; fitness consequences of behavior; how cognition and innovation influence foraging behavior; and conservation and management of large mammals.

Merkle received B.S. and M.S. degrees in wildlife biology from the University of Arizona and the University of Montana, respectively, and a doctoral degree in biology from Université Laval, Québec, Canada.

The UW-NPS Research Center provides a base for university faculty members and government scientists from throughout North America to conduct research in the diverse aquatic and terrestrial environments of Grand Teton National Park and the greater Yellowstone area.

Formerly called the AMK Ranch Talk Series, the Harlow Summer Seminars program is named after retired UW Department of Zoology and Physiology Professor Hank Harlow, who helped make the UW-NPS Research Center a significant center for research and community outreach. Harlow began the popular weekly public seminars during the summer months.

For more information about the Harlow Summer Seminars, email Brian Barber at bbarber4@uwyo.edu.