Dr. Fernando colchero PhD in Ecology Nicholas School of the Environment Duke University Current address: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research Konrad-Zuse-Str. 1 18057 Rostock, Germany phone: +49 (0)381-2081-113 fax: +49 (0)381-2081-529 email: Colchero@demogr.mpg.de

I am interested in understanding the processes that determine the rates of birth and death in animal species both at the individual and population level. Particularly, I focus on understanding the interactions between these demographic rates and environmental variability to develop models that facilitate predictions of the impact of climate change on population growth and persistence. Due to the multilevel nature of such systems and the complexities of ecological data, I use hierarchical Bayesian models as tools to tackle these questions.

My projects include the analysis of trade-offs between demographic rates for animal species, the implementation of hierarchical Bayesian models for survival analysis, and the estimation of the influence of environmental variability on the mortality rates of long-lived species.

Currently I am working as a research scientist in the Laboratory of Evolutionary Demography at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) with Dr. James Vaupel. Previous to my appointement at the MPIDR I finished my PhD with Dr. James S. Clark at Duke University in May 2008.

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• Colchero, F. and J. S. Clark (In progress) Bayesian inference of age-specific survival for censored and truncated data.
• Colchero, F., O. L. Bass, Jr., R. Zambrano, and J. A. Gore (Submitted) Clustered nesting and vegetation thresholds reduce egg predation in sooty tern.
• Colchero, F., J. S. Clark, O. L. Bass, Jr. and W. B. Robertson, Jr. (Submitted) Weather at birth reduces juvenile life expectancy and increases adult risk of mortality in a long-lived seabird.
• Colchero, F., R. A. Medellin, J. S. Clark, R. Lee, and G. Katul (2009) Predicting population survival under future climate change: density dependence, drought and extraction in an insular bighorn sheep. Journal of Animal Ecology 78(3): 666-673. (publication) (Faculty of 1000 Biology) (Science Daily)
• Schick, R. S., S. R. Loarie, F. Colchero, B. D. Best, A. Boustany, D. A. Conde, P. N. Halpin, L. N. Joppa, C. M. McLellan, and J. S. Clark (2008) Understanding movement data and movement processes. Current and emerging directions. Ecology Letters 11: 1338-1350. (Publication)

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My work has been featured in several general sciences magazines.

• Michael Tennesen, 2008, The shifting season of the sooty tern. National Wildlife 46(1) (link)
• Faculty of 1000 Biology: evaluations for Colchero F. et al. J. Animal Ecology 2009 May 78(3): 666-73 (link)
• Counting sheep in climate change predictions. Science Daily June 2009 (link)

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