cARLY Marie Wikston

I am interested in broad ecological questions that intersect with theoretical ecology, applied ecology, and wildlife conservation. I earned my BSc in Biology at the University of Waterloo, and my MSc in Environmental and Life Science at Trent University. During my MSc I investigated the impacts of livestock grazing and human recreation on the space use and activity patterns of mammals across north-central Washington State.

As a PhD student in the Pauli lab, I am investigating the energetic landscape of state-endangered American martens to answer questions related to marten survival, recruitment, and population viability under changing habitat and environmental conditions. Through various field experiments, laboratory analyses and analytical methods I am quantifying daily metabolic rate, movement, diet, competition, and prey availability, and comparing these metrics between three populations of martens that are experiencing different environmental conditions and population trajectories.  This work takes place in northern Wisconsin, specifically in the Chequamegon and Nicolet National Forests, and the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. I am also investigating extinction risk and translocation requirements to bolster marten recovery in Wisconsin, while also accounting for overall metapopulation viability and species persistence within the broader Great Lakes Region. In these efforts, I am collaborating closely with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, The National Park Service, The Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Together, we hope to inform and implement scientifically driven American marten recovery strategies and refine our understanding of marten conservation needs within the state of Wisconsin.

Email: cmscott5@wisc.edu

Publications:

Gobin, J., Hossie, T.J., Derbyshire, R.E., Sonnega, S., Cambridge, T.W., Scholl, L., Diaz-Kloch, N., Scully, A., Thalen, K., Smith, G., Scott, C., Quinby, F., Reynolds, J., Miller, H.A., Faithfull, H., Lucas, O., Dennison, C., McDonald, J., Boutin, S., O’Donoghue, M., Krebs, C.J., Boonstra, R., and Murray, D.L. 2022. Functional responses shape node and network level properties of a simplified boreal food web. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution