Scott Stoleson

Title: Research Wildlife Biologist
Unit: Sustaining Forests in a Changing Environment
Address: Northern Research Station
PO Box 267
Irvine, PA 16329
Phone: 814-563-1040
E-mail: Contact Scott Stoleson

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Education

• Yale University, Ph.D. Wildlife Ecology, 1996.
• Dartmouth College, A.B. Biological Sciences, 1979

Civic & Professional Affiliations

• American Ornithologists' Union
• Association of Field Ornithologists
• Cooper Ornithological Society
• Ecological Society of America
• Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology
• Roger Tory Peterson Institute
• The Wildlife Society
• Wilson Ornithological Society

Current Research

My research examines the impacts of forest management practices on the distribution, abundance, and demography of vertebrate populations, and quantification of the habitat requirements of wildlife communities and species of special concern on the Allegheny Plateau.

• Assessment of the impact of timber management on the abundance and demography of cerulean warblers
• Understanding the frequency and costs/benefits of use of clearcuts by forest interior birds in the post-fledging period
• Assessment of impacts of an herbicide tank mix on avian, mammal, and herp. Communities in Allegheny hardwood forests.

Why is This Important

Managers of public lands are mandated to manage for multiple objectives, including maintaining biodiversity. Populations of many forest birds have declined in recent decades, raising concerns about their viability in working forest landscapes. Scientifically sound information on the habitat requirements of these species and how they respond to management practices is essential for managers to maintain these species effectively.

Future Research

• Develop silvicultural guidelines for maintaining or enhancing habitat quality for cerulean warblers and other forest bird species of high conservation concern.
• Develop a wildlife community component to the SILVAH decision support system to predict responses of suites of vertebrate species to silvicultural treatments and to better integrate wildlife habitat as a management goal.
• Because not all species are of equal conservation concern, standard metrics such as species counts and diversity indices provide only a partial picture of the impacts of management on natural communities. With partners at the U.S. Aviary, I will develop and implement a conservation value metric as a tool to evaluate the contribution of communities based on existing conservation priority, such as the Partners in Flight prioritization scores or heritage rankings
• Develop a regional assessment of the relative impacts of timber management on vertebrate populations as a function of forest fragmentation and other landscape-level attributes, using a large-scale fragmentation gradient.

Featured Publications

Additional Online Publications