It all started when…

I grew up in San Diego, California regularly visiting the San Diego Zoo and the Birch Aquarium. This budding fascination with the natural world blossomed as I studied abroad in Costa Rica and graduated with a B.A. in Integrative Biology from the University of California Berkeley. After graduating, I studied chimpanzee behavior in the Ivory Coast and social learning amongst the Ba’Aka forest people in the Republic of Congo for the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. I completed my Ph.D. at Duke University where I studied how human disturbance and environmental variability influences forest elephant movement and social ecology.

My research...

My research focuses broadly on how environmental variation influences animal behavior and how human disturbance might disrupt these ecological processes.

The majority of my research is centered around three key questions:

1.   How does the environment and/or human disturbance influence wildlife ecology?

2.   What are the cascading effects of changes in predator distribution on the surrounding environment?

3.   How can remote sensing be leveraged to study shifts in animal behavior and the resulting ecosystem changes globally?

I am compelled by the use of technology (e.g., telemetry, remote sensing, camera traps/BRUVS) to test basic ecological theory and describe difficult to observe ecological processes that can be applied to natural resources and wildlife management. 

What I've written...

My peer-reviewed publications are listed here. Feel free to email me for copies of any of them. 

Contact me…

Email:

ameier3@hawaii.edu

Website:

(under construction…)

Address:

Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology
University of Hawaii at Manoa
PO Box 1346 (for US Postal Service)
46-007 Lilipuna Road (For all other carriers)
Kaneohe, HI 96744 USA

Office:

New Pauly Building, Room 105