Rachel Larson, PhD

So amazing our team’s work is getting recognized on @npr.org for our successful bi-national translocation of California red-legged frogs. Was super fun chatting with Nate about the project!

EEB Mentor Match Visit the post for more.

EEB Mentor Match for 2025 is now open!
This is an opportunity for students applying to graduate school in Ecology, Evolution, or Behavior to be matched with a mentor to guide them through the application process. Mentors can sign up too!
eebmentormatch.com

On my way home with my fresh-off-the-needles raccoon socks from the best conference in the world. Hope to see everybody again in 2027 in Milwaukee! #IUWC2025

Now that #UWIN has expanded to include cities in Mediterranean climates around the world (SoCal, Italy, S. Africa) it would be cool to do multi-city comparisons of impacts of urbanization on these high-endemism regions!

a close up of a cat with its mouth open and a baby cat in the background . ALT: a close up of a cat with its mouth open and a baby cat in the background .

From Akinwale Oladimeji (my academic sibling): Patterns of wildlife occurrence in urban Cape Town 🇿🇦 - there are significant species-level differences, but most species responded negatively to impervious cover #IUWC2025

From Shawn Fujioka: A plant talk at a wildlife conference! Increased management effort by park staff leads to increased native plant biodiversity and reduced threats from invasive species #IUWC2025

From Mark Johnston: Powerline right-of-ways as corridors for movement of wildlife through urban landscapes #IUWC2025

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From Nicole Kemon: Bird feeder cleaning is correlated with motives behind feeding birds, with attitudes of care & environmental stewardship leading to more frequent cleaning compared to self-interested feeders #IUWC2025

From @kayleebyers.bsky.social: Based on currently-published literature, we know very little about chronic wasting disease dynamics in urban landscapes #IUWC2025

From Zehidul Hussain: Looking forward to seeing the integration of behavioral videos, collar data, and landscape information to understand urban deer ecology #IUWC2025

From Andrea Darracq: An interesting longitudinal (and ongoing!) dataset of coupled human health & biodiversity data to investigate OneHealth mechanisms #IUWC2025

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From Andrea Flores: More frequent rat sightings reduces the perceived restorative benefits of connection to nature in Chicago’s urban gardens #IUWC2025

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From Marie Lilly: Functional connectivity for deer drives distribution of tick-borne pathogens in New York City #IUWC2025

Ready to (almost) close out the all-day UWIN symposium with my talk on white-footed mice! Come learn about the small warm-fuzzies in the big city! #IUWC2025

Which is fantastic because using Wildlife Insights has cut down in my camera workload drastically

From Amanda Zellmer: AI detection tools work really well to catch most target species for wildlife cameras. They just don’t work as well for smaller species like rats/lizards/songbirds #IUWC2025

From Laura Limonciello: A super interesting overview of the state of urban biodiversity research & urban mammal occupancies in Italy 🇮🇹 #IUWC2025

The author has a BlueSky account! @emilyablackwell.bsky.social

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From Taylor Readyhough: Red fox avoidance of coyotes is dynamic and was significantly impacted by COVID lockdowns in Cleveland #IUWC2025

From @sciencewithtyus.bsky.social: Cat temporal oscillation effect - cats alter their space use throughout the day to maximize access to resources (anthro subsidies in residential areas during day; natural areas at night to hunt prey) #IUWC2025

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From Emily Blackwell: Raccons may be more susceptible to heat stress, given their responses (site occupancy & activity patterns) to urban heat islands #IUWC2025

Looking forward to future camera collar data from @mellamorooster.bsky.social on urban white-tail deer! #IUWC2025

From @urbanzoochory.bsky.social: Mangy coyotes are more likely to occur in cities with milder winters & higher humidity. Thus, mange could become more common in cities at higher latitudes under climate change #IUWC2025

a baby deer is standing in the grass and looking at the camera ALT: a baby deer is standing in the grass and looking at the camera

From Austin Green: Fawning mule deer alter their activity patterns in response to urbanization and coyote presence more strongly than lone deer #IUWC2025

From @testudinidude.bsky.social: cool work emphasizing the importance of species-level variance within bird responses to urbanization #IUWC2025

From Ann Smithson: Even a quirky system is better than no system in the opinions of wildlife management agencies when it comes to conflict reporting systems #IUWC2025

I wonder if the model performs even better when using cities in the same ecoregion/biome? And could work for regional endemics in addition to common species? Could the CA urban nature alliance offer this service to partners before they join?

Cool talk on eco forecasting from @masonfidino.bsky.social predicting urban wildlife distributions in unsampled cities #IUWC2025

So ready for the all day UWIN symposium & learning all about my friends’ and colleagues’ cool research! #IUWC2025

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From @urbanbirdnerd.bsky.social: Different components of urban environments impact song structure & reproduction in different ways in American robins #IUWC2025