About
Aimee M. Van Tatenhove
PhD candidate at Utah State University | B.S. Cornell University
I'm a Fritz Knopf fellow at Utah State University, co-advised by Drs. Clark Rushing and Erica Stuber. My doctoral research is focused on American white pelican demography, migratory connectivity, historical population drivers, and airspace use. I work primarily with the population of white pelicans west of the Rocky Mountains, with a focus on white pelicans around Great Salt Lake.
I have a background in seabird nesting ecology and impacts of climate change on avian elevation distributions. I've conducted field work on a number of different systems, in a wide variety of settings, including residential passerine work in upstate New York, nocturnal seabird surveys in rural Japan, and alcid nest searching in remote Alaska.
Unless noted otherwise, all media on this site, including header photos, are my personal work.
Research Interests
Seabird and waterbird movement ecology and migratory connectivity
Population and ecological modeling
Full annual cycles of migratory birds
Broad-scale versus local-scale population drivers
Anthropogenic climate change and impacts on sensitive species
Past Projects
Integrating painted bunting data sources to estimate migratory connectivity and survival [article link]
Montane passerine and sciurid rodent reactions to climate change [article link]
Streaked shearwater predator avoidance behavior [article link] and nesting ecology [article link]
Kittlitz's murrelet nesting ecology [article link]
3D printed nest parasite egg rejection by American robins [article link] [news article with video]