This month marks my first as a research assistant in the RECaP Laboratory . I am extremely excited about the work that I will doing. As a research assistant I will have two primary responsibilities; 1) studying aspects of lion ecology and 2) contributing to our community-based conservation initiatives ( Snares to Wares ). In this capacity, I hope to develop solutions to stop the indiscriminant snaring of Uganda’s wildlife. In Murchison Falls National Park, where my current research is based, I am working with Professor Robert Montgomery and Ph.D. student Tutilo Mudumba. We are seeking to understand the proportion of the lion population that has been snared at some time in their life. We believe this number to be surprisingly high, as it is a frequent sight to see a lion with a scar around its neck, a lion that is missing a part of its tail, or even worse, missing a limb. The most famous lion in Murchison named Butcherman was a three-legged lion that somehow managed to maintain his position as alpha male of the Delta Pride for three years after his left hind leg at the knee was taken by a snare. Though Butcherman has now disappeared, the image of his courage and will to survive persists. This animal holds a very special place in my heart.
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I am passionate about wildlife conservation, in large part, because of the place where I come from. I was born and raised inside Queen Elizabeth National Park in South West Uganda. Growing up inside the national park taught me the value of wildlife conservation and the types of conflict that can develop from human-wildlife interaction. There was perhaps no more valuable lesson in these principles than that which my father exposed me to when I was a young girl. My father was a conservationist ahead of his time. He worked as a small-scale agro-pastoralist and kept (as we still do today) a good size herd of cattle. One day when I was just a little girl, my father came home with a Cape buffalo ( Syncerus caffer ) calf. As the story goes, my father was walking home when he heard the miserable cry of this young calf. The animal’s mother had been poached and my father couldn’t bear to see the young animal suffer. So he rescued the calf and brought it home to be raised among our cattle. The calf grew up thinking that it was a cow, but when it matured, it began to wander. I was devastated when news came that someone had poached our semi-tame buffalo.

Whether rescuing this calf after its mother was killed was the right thing to do, can be debated. “Just let nature take its course” would be a logical counterpoint to the decision that my father made to intervene. But it was the hand of man that killed the animal’s mother, so perhaps it was the hand of man that also needed to intervene to help the calf. Regardless, my father was not capable of walking away from that crying buffalo calf. I learned a great deal from this time in my life. I learned that wildlife conservation can be a brutal business where people are forced to make difficult decisions under short and intense timelines. And I learned the depth of compassion that my father felt for wildlife and wild places. Several years ago my father passed away, but this compassion was the greatest gift that he provided me. I do not intend to walk away from wildlife that need help.
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After receiving the news that I would be hired as a research assistant by RECaP I travelled home to my village (KatweKabatoro) to celebrate the news of my research assistantship with my mother. I travelled by bus from Kampala to Kasese town, which took me 7 hours. Then from Kasese town to Katwe Trading Centre, which took me a further 45 minutes, and then I was home. My mother, along with my siblings, still manage the cattle herd that my father started. A new batch of calves had just been born, one of my favorite times of year. My excitement turned into sorrow however, when my mum told me that one of the calves was knocked over by a speeding vehicle as it was resting close to the road which severed his left hind leg at the knee (just like Butcherman). Despite this tragedy, my family was devoted to nursing this little male back to health. Cows graze 5 to 7 kilometres away from home on communal land each day. To maintain their schedule they must set off to graze by 8am. And the cows don’t get back home until 7pm. My mother has decided to keep him close to home and buys him banana peels, among other things, from the local restaurants so that he can survive.

Seeing the situation and knowing the importance of helping, I quickly pitched in. I went to the restaurants and carried peels home for the calf. I monitored his movement and health. For now walking is fair because he is 4 months old and I am hoping that in a years time he will confidently be able to walk on his own. This little calf represents the two-halves of my life; that which was informed by my father taking in the orphaned buffalo calf, and that which I have experienced trying to save lions from snares. We have named this little calf Butcherman in the hopes that he too can find a way to survive and inspire all around him with his courage – with a little help from the Jingo family.

Well, it's early May, which is an exciting time for research laboratories in Fisheries and Wildlife (FW) and many other departments here at Michigan State. Field season is here! Most FW graduate students are already in the field or in the midst of making final preparations for that field work. And during such field seasons students collect substantial amounts of data between now and the start of school in late August. These data collection efforts involve hours spent securing research permits, preparing field equipment, and establishing all data collection protocols. Making the transition from classrooms to the field can be challenging, as students have become adapted to hours in office chairs with minds conditioned to final exams and research papers. These responsibilities can be further masked by the sights, smells, and sounds (or really, lack thereof) on our beautiful campus in early summer. Not to mention the Pavlovian deterrence of most graduate students developed from previous hardships experienced during fieldwork.
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It's debatable whether the actual work in the field or the necessary preparation for field work is more draining. But I think many will agree that no matter how severe a poison ivy rash or how many tsetse fly bites you get, you'd rather be scratching them in the field than when dealing with the prerequisite logistics. Luckily here in RECaP, my fellow students are ahead of the game. Tutilo Mudumba is currently joined by our PI (Bob Montgomery) and new research assistant Sophia Jingo in Murchison Falls National Park, where they are setting things up for his field work focusing on lion conservation, and kicking off the Snares to Wares Initiative . Steve Gray is getting ready to again conquer the hoary frosts of Northern Michigan until and beyond when that frost no longer comes. Last year, Steve made it through a very mentally exhausting field season – I think he’s due for some better fortune this time around. I know Arthur Muneza must be feeling some serious relaxation, as he doesn't have the same load of field work, but has just successfully defended his master's thesis. However, given that he is starting his Ph.D. this January, field work is right around the corner for him. Remington Moll and Waldemar Ortiz have been busy preparing and communicating with personnel at the Cleveland Metroparks, eagerly awaiting another field season in which they will set up even more camera traps throughout the Emerald Necklace this summer. As for me, I couldn't be more excited for my first field season in my new "field" - the RECaP offices.

Alright, I have been working here since August, and my research as an aspiring quantitative ecologist is generally independent of seasonality (you could say certain aspects are slightly correlated … but then you'd be me, dropping statistical puns – you are forewarned). Nevertheless, it is my first summer since 2011 that will not revolve around data collection in Michigan forests, and I am quite geeked about this transition! For one, the field of quantitative ecology is a relatively new discipline blending principles from computer science, mathematics, statistics, and ecology. Of course, ecologists have relied on the fruits of these disciplines for decades now, but the ubiquity of cheap computing power has led to a revolution that enabled a myriad of new techniques for collecting, manipulating, and analyzing all sorts of data. These fundamental changes in the ways we observe and study ecological systems have resulted in a shortage of ecologists who are technically trained to actually use many of these techniques. There are gaps between the quantitative methods available and what is feasible for ecologists to implement in their research. The application of these techniques for ecological problems requires researchers who have a balance of quantitative technical knowledge as well as familiarity with ecological theory and an appreciation for the idiosyncrasies of ecological data.
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My work here in RECaP is characterized by two broad roles; that of i) quantitative ecologist and ii) statistician. As a quantitative ecologist I help investigate questions that require sophisticated quantitative methods or custom programing to assess. In this capacity I can apply my skills in a variety of ways, from assisting a colleague with modeling expertise for a component of their overall research project, to pursuing my own projects! In both scenarios, it is often the case that I will work with data that has already been collected. For example, in my current project I am part of a large team interested in exploring the relationship between moose movement and ambient temperature. This general idea is of interest because many have suggested that rising ambient temperatures associated with global climate change threaten the conservation of moose. Along with colleagues at the Norwegian institute for nature Research we are trying to determine whether there is any evidence of heat influencing moose movement, with implications for their survivability.

Progress in science is a community effort, and when confronted with challenging questions, researchers are often eager to collaborate. In my opinion, this is really one of the most beautiful aspects of the field I’ve entered – data-sharing! This drive to share resources is further intensified by the growing abundance of sophisticated data-collection technologies. From GPS collars that record auxiliary information (like heart rate ) to nationwide sensor networks like the National Ecological Observatory Network ( NEON ), many projects are generating TONS of information to use in models that describe  complex systems. However, there are only so many analyses that can be feasibly performed by a research group in a given amount of time, given methodological limits. In other words, we’re up to our eyeballs in data, and there are many other ways to analyze existing datasets; so many different questions that can be explored! Enter the quantitative ecologist, with the ecological background necessary to explore important questions along with the technical knowledge for selecting and applying the best tools for the job.

The other role I am hoping to play is more akin to the idea of an ecological statistician. As important as furthering ecological theory is the development and testing of the techniques that are used to do so, and there is progress to be me made in expanding our analytical toolboxes to handle such fundamentally different data types and volumes. The age of big-data in ecology is here, and like so many other disciplines, research involving statistical methods in ecology has become highly diversified.
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To translate progress to practice, innovation in design of new analytical methods also requires innovation in implementation of these methods. Open-source statistical software platforms such as R have become the norm for doing so. This is because they are completely FREE! Free in two senses: free as in it does not cost any money to download and use the software; and free as is anyone can access, manipulate, and redistribute the source code. Thus, many of the contributions I hope to make will involve design and documentation of the actual software tools ecologists can use to analyze data. This idea – that I can create packages to be used by researchers in their own projects – is perhaps what I am most excited about. ​

Whether it be exploring new questions in applied ecology, modification of some existing method, development of a new method, or creation of a novel software package, my time spent conducting traditional field studies will likely be minimal, at least in the near future. I find this funny, as I didn’t get into ecological research five years ago because I loved the challenge of programming and mathematics. I was just a kid that said, “What? I can actually get paid to conduct research in some of the most beautiful areas of Michigan? Where do I sign?” I was then off to a good start to pursue one of my truest passions: to be part of the global community working to manage and conserve our natural systems despite immense anthropogenic influence. But in discovering my strengths and weaknesses as an undergraduate, I realized I might have my greatest impact if I can use my quantitative skills to make new methodologies accessible to researchers. I have found my home here at RECaP where I can pursue this goal, trading in my outdoor work for an office and a machine. Together (and with the aid of my trusty Dell monitor!), they act as a portal into the vast reaches of cyberspace that harbor research journal and textbook databases, Q&A forums, blogs, software repositories, and virtually all other sources of information needed to achieve my research objectives. i.e., my new field sites.