Scott Mills ( edit )

My primary research interests revolve around mechanisms and consequences of population fragmentation. My students and I use population models and genetic tools, coupled with field experiments, to infer population and community-level effects of fragmentation and other human-caused perturbations. In the field, recent projects have investigated responses of bird and mammal species to perturbations ranging from highways to fires and thinning regimes and are exploring metapopulation structure in a variety of species. Even relatively low levels of inbreeding depression can substantially lower the persistence of fluctuation populations, which leads to the question of how "connected" isolated populations need to be. There is precious little theoretical work in this area and limited experimental data addressing this vital area of "corridor design", and we are advancing on both fronts. We are also exploring how genetic variation and population growth are affected by population fragmentation. Current systems that we are using to investigate these questions include Olympic marmots in Washington state, bluebirds in Montana, snowshoe hares throughout the western U.S., and small mammal populations bisected by highways.

In related research, we are asking how researchers and managers might be able to identify particular birth and death rates that have the biggest effect on population growth. With such tools we will better be able to focus our management efforts for declining species.

In intensive studies of snowshoe hares and lynx, we have merged field demography, population models, and DNA technology to gain insights into the consequences of forest fragmentation on population structure and dynamics. Our snowshoe hare studies range from Yellowstone National Park to Glacier National Park to north-central Washington state. The lynx sampling included non-invasive genetic sampling (with hair rub pads) on a nationwide scale (16 states) to evaluate distribution and abundance.