Rob’s research interests include effects of habitat fragmentation on wildlife, population and community ecology of mammals, spatial ecology, plant-herbivore interactions, and wildlife damage management. He relies on mathematical, experimental, and comparative approaches to address the importance of spatial structure for behavioral and ecological processes affecting the conservation and management of vertebrates. A goal of his work is to develop quantitative tools for informing policy makers and stakeholders of the consequences of land-use change for biodiversity and species conservation. Rob’s research group currently is exploring the possible consequences of climate change for conservation and management of plant and wildlife resources.

Selected Publications:

Moore, J. E., A. B. McEuen, R. K. Swihart, T. A. Contreras, and M. A. Steele. 2007. Determinants of seed removal distance by scatter-hoarding rodents in deciduous forests. Ecology 88: (10) 2529-2540.

Moore, J. E. and R. K. Swihart. 2007. Toward ecologically explicit null models of nestedness. Oecologia 151:663-664.

Beever, E. A., R. K. Swihart and B. T. Bestelmeyer. 2006. Linking the concept of scale to studies of biological diversity: evolvng approaches and tools. Diversity and Distributions 12: 229-235.

Swihart, R. K., J. J. Lusk, J. E. Duchamp, C. E. Rizkalla and J. E. Moore. 2006. The roles of landscape context, niche breadth, and range boundaries in predicting species responses to habitat alteration. Diversity and Distributions 12: 277-287.

DeWoody, Y., Z. Feng, and R. K. Swihart. 2005. Merging spatial and temporal structure within a metapopulation model. American Naturalist 166:142-155.