James Battin

James Battin
Postdoctoral Research Scientist
Northwest Fisheries Science Center
Seattle, Washington
USA
battinjames at gmail.com

That's the San Francisco Peaks (Flagstaff, AZ) behind me. The child belongs to a friend.

I’m a conservation biologist whose research interests fall into two broad—and somewhat overlapping—areas: (1) animal population dynamics, with an emphasis on modeling population responses to environmental change, and (2) multi-scale habitat selection by animals—again focusing on how animals respond to changes in their environment. I’ve studied these issues in a number of systems, working with both birds and fish. In both areas, I think complex systems approaches could provide significant improvements to current practice. In particular, I’m interested in applying techniques developed for financial risk assessment to population viability modeling and in exploring new approaches to modeling habitat selection at multiple scales.

Currently, I’m finishing a postdoc modeling salmon responses to climate change and habitat restoration. I got my Ph.D. at Northern Arizona University, and I’m looking forward to returning to the beautiful, sunny Southwest.

Answers to Dan's questions:

1. What are your main interests?

My main academic interest is in understanding how organisms respond to rapid environmental change (urbanization, climate change, habitat restoration, etc.). A couple questions that are especially interesting to me are: (1) how do animals select habitat at multiple spatial and temporal scales? and (2) how well do animals do at selecting habitats when confronted with novel environmental conditions?

2. What sorts of expertise can you bring to the group?

I am a jack of few trades, master of none. My background is in ecology and conservation biology. My recent work has involved numerical modeling of fish population dynamics. Although I study complex systems, I have very little background in complex systems science (that’s why I’m here). I did my PhD research in Arizona in an area ecologically similar to Santa Fe, so I have some knowledge of the local flora and fauna (especially the birds) that I’d be happy to share with those who are interested. Anyone want to get up at 0400 to hunt for vireo nests?

3. What do you hope to get out of the CSSS?

I want to get a sense of the techniques available for studying complex systems and the ways in which they might be applied to the questions I’m interested in. I’m especially keen to learn from the economists and other social scientists; I think there’s a lot of potential for applying methods developed for economics and finance to ecological questions.

4. Do you have any possible projects in mind for the CSSS? (Recall that you will all be working in groups on at least one project with the goal of presenting your progress on the last day and finishing up a paper by summer's end.)

My fondest hope is that something I learn here will allow me finally to make sense of some of my frustratingly confounding and confounded data on nesting habitat use by birds. So, no, I have no realistic project ideas.