Former Lab Member Mark Peaden
About Mark
Mark graduated with a BS from Rogers State University in 2010. As an undergraduate, he formulated and completed an empirically-driven research project studying the benthic macroinvertebrate population of Oklahoma streams and rivers near industrial parks. After graduation, he traveled the United States participating in a wide variety of long-term research projects, most of which focused on species conservation and adaptations in fragmented areas. Mark’s positions gave him a diversity of experience working with most major wildlife taxa, including bats, birds, mesocarnivores, reptiles, and fish communities, each of which posed their own unique conservation and research challenges.
ark completed his PhD in Ecology at UC Davis working in the Todd lab. His dissertation research focused on road ecology, primarily on the direct and indirect effects of roads and possible mitigation techniques throughout the Mojave Desert on the threatened Mojave Desert Tortoise. His research examined mitigation fencing, along with how road networks may have negative demographic effects, alter movement and behavior, and transform landscape use by native wildlife. Mark’s primary goal for his research is to help make informed, science-based management solutions to promote population persistence and conservation as urban sprawl continues to expand. He is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher running the Mojave Desert Tortoise head-starting research program in the Todd lab.
Select publications from his work
Peaden JM, Nowakowski AJ, Tuberville TD, Buhlmann KA, Todd BD. 2017. Effects of roads and roadside fencing on movements, space use, and carapace temperatures of a threatened tortoise. Biological Conservation 214:13-22
Todd BD, Halstead BJ, Chiquoine LP, Peaden JM, Tuberville TD, Buhlmann KA, Nafus MG. 2016. Habitat selection by juvenile Mojave Desert tortoises. Journal of Wildlife Management 80(4):720-728.
Peaden JM, Tuberville TD, Buhlmann KA, Nafus MG, Todd BD. 2015. Delimiting road-effect zones for threatened species: implications for mitigation fencing. Wildlife Research 42:650-659.