RESEARCH
“Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.” – George E.P. Box
I am most interested in combining landscape ecology, population biology, geospatial techniques, and statistics to develop sound conservation initiatives for sensitive species. The best models are those that mirror reality; therefore, I am a firm believer that conservation requires a careful balance of statistical rigor with biological realism.
For my PhD research, I will develop spatially-explicit population models for freshwater turtles in the state of Wisconsin under varying climate change and land use change scenarios. This work is part of an ongoing study of Wisconsin turtle ecology and conservation.
EDUCATION
PhD Wildlife Ecology | U. of Wisconsin, 2019
M.S. Biology | Towson University, 2015
B.S. Organismal Biology | Towson University, 2012
Google Scholar and ResearchGate
Byer*, N.W., E.D. Fountain*, B.N. Reid*, K. Miller, P.J. Kulzer*, S.D. Schoville, and M.Z. Peery (2021). Land use and life history constrain adaptive genetic variation and reduce the capacity for climate change adaptation in turtles. BMC genomics 22(1): 1-16 doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109081
Bougie*, T.A., N.W. Byer*, C.N. Lapin, M.Z. Peery, J.E. Woodford, and J.N. Pauli (2020). Wood Turtle (Glyptemys insculpta) nest protection reduces depredation and increases success, but annual variation influences its effectiveness. Canadian Journal of Zoology 98(11): 715-724.
Byer*, N.W., B.N. Reid*, and M.Z. Peery (2020a). Genetically-informed population models improve climate change vulnerability assessments. Landscape Ecology, 35: 1215–1228. doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-01011-x
Byer*, N.W., B.N. Reid*, R.P. Thiel, and M.Z. Peery (2020b). Strong Climate Associations but No Temporal Trends in Nesting Phenology of Blanding’s Turtles (Emydoidea blandingii). Herpetologica, 76(4): 396-402. doi.org/10.1655/HERPETOLOGICA-D-20-00013
Byer*, N.W., B.N. Reid*, and M.Z. Peery (2019). Implications of slow pace-of-life for nesting behavior in an armored ectotherm. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 73: 47.
Byer*, N.W., B.N. Reid*, R.A. Seigel, and M.Z. Peery (2018). Applying lessons from the avian ecology to herpetological research: Techniques for analyzing nest survival. Herpetological Conservation and Biology 13: 517-532.