Dr. Thomas Nudds
Professor

Dr. Thomas Nudds

Email: tnudds@uoguelph.ca

Office: SCIE 2448
Ext: 53074
Lab: SCIE 2405/06
Ext: 56307

Education

B.Sc. - Windsor 1974
M.Sc. - Windsor 1976
Ph.D. - Western Ontario 1980

Research

Research in my lab encompasses three broad areas:

  1. behavioural, population and community ecology of waterfowl;
  2. conservation biology, generally, at scales ranging from genetics to landscapes; and
  3. applications of decision analysis and adaptive management to fisheries, forestry and wildlife conservation.

The principal focus of waterfowl ecology continues to be comparative and experimental studies of ecology of duck assemblages in prairie and boreal wetlands, with a long-term view to understanding causes of population fluctuations. Recent work emphasizes large-scale food web manipulations in prairie potholes, and the effect of climate and land use change on distribution, abundance and reproductive success of prairie-nesting ducks. For this work, we link large scale, long term data about land use and species' distribution and abundance. Finally, we advocate and analyze the treatment of resource management policies as hypotheses that can and should be revised in light of management experience, with special reference to Great Lakes fisheries.

Selected Publications

Sæther, B.-E., Lillegård, M., Grøtan, V., Drever, M.C., Engen, S., NUDDS, T.D., K.M. Podruzny. 2008. Geographical gradients in the population dynamics of North American prairie ducks. J. Anim. Ecol. (in press; accepted 03 April 2008)

Gonzales, E., Wiersma, Y.F., Maher, A.I., NUDDS, T.D. 2008. Positive relationship between non-native and native squirrels in an urban landscape. Can. J. Zool. 86: 356-363.

Drever, M.C., NUDDS, T.D., Clark, R.G. 2007. Agricultural policy and nest success of prairie ducks in the United States and Canada. AvianConservation and Ecology - Écologie et conservation des oiseaux 2(2): 5. [online] URL: http://www.ace-eco.org/vol2/iss2/art5/

Sleep, D.J.H., Drever, M.C., NUDDS, T.D. 2007. Statistical versus biological hypothesis testing: response to Steidl. J. Wildl. Manage. 71: 2120-2121.

Simpson, J.W., Yerkes, T.J., NUDDS, T.D., Smith, B.D. 2007. Effects of wetland and upland habitat on mallard duckling survival in the Great Lakes region. J. Wildl. Manage. 71: 1885-1891.

Raeside, A.A., Petrie, S.A., NUDDS, T.D. 2007. Waterfowl abundance and diversity in relation to season, wetland characteristics and land use in semi-arid South Africa. African Zoology 42: 80-90.

Jiao, Y., Reid, K., and NUDDS, T. 2006. Variation in the catchability of yellow perch (Perca flavescens) in the fisheries of Lake Erie using a Bayesian error-in-variable approach. ICES Journal of Marine Science 63: 1695-1704.

Hager, H.A., Gorman, R., NUDDS, T.D. 2006. The relative performance of umbrella species for biodiversity conservation in island archipelagoes of the Great Lakes, North America. EcoScience 13: 475-484.  

Wiersma, Y.F., and NUDDS, T.D. 2006. Conservation targets for viable species assemblages: data independent targets are not appropriate. Biodiversity and Conservation 15: 4555-4567.

Teaching

BIOL*3120 Community Ecology
BIOL*3130 Conservation Biology
IBIO*4500 Research Problems in Integrative Biology I
IBIO*4510 Research Problems in Integrative Biology II
ZOO*4700-series Field Biology
IBIO*6630 Scientific Communication I
IBIO*6640 Scientific Communication II

Grad Students

Beaudoin, Laura (Ph.D.)
Martin, Chris (M.Sc.)
McCarter, Jennifer (M.Sc.)
Shuter, Jennifer (Ph.D.)*

*Co-advised by John Fryxell

Links

The Nudds Lab Homepage