Current Research

My current research focuses on community responses to fire and fuel reduction treatments in Washington and Oregon, with projects examining fungal, avian, small mammal, and arthropod communities in burns of different severity and age. I am also involved with research on the threatened marbled murrelet and studies of its spatial ecology, productivity, and diet in Washington State. To accomplish research objectives I collaborate with researchers across many disciplines and employ a wide range of field techniques, including large-scale telemetry tracking and habitat modeling projects, to fine-scale eDNA sampling and camera trap studies

Research Interests

• Applying behavioral ecology to problems in conservation and management
• Wildlife responses to fire, particularly comparisons of prescribed versus wildfire burns
• Management and conservation of threatened species
• Disturbance and landscape ecology

Past Research

My past research has included studies of songbird communities in the northwestern U.S., small mammal abundance in subalpine forests in Idaho, Washington, and Montana, seed dispersal in whitebark pine, cone production impacts on wildlife community composition, habitat selection Clark's nutcracker, and space use in white-headed woodpecker in managed forests.

Why This Research is Important

Research indicates that we are living through an era of increasingly large and severe wildfires in western North America. In recent years, fires have dominated national news headlines and climate change is expected to increase the severity and extent of these fires. Throughout the U.S. managers are faced with challenges of improving the resiliency of forests to such large-scale disturbance events while providing for natural ecosystem function.  Within this context, I am interested in wildlife responses to fire.  Although many species benefit from fire we lack information on how to best provide habitat for fire-adapted species while balancing the public’s concern for preserving property and other human commodities.  Over the last several decades, many untested hypotheses have developed in this field – for example, many cavity-dependent species are attracted to post-fire habitats but we do not know the extent to which species are responding to increases in arthropod food, reductions in nest predator abundance, or changes in fungal community composition that accelerate wood decay. As such, I conduct comparative studies of arthropod, avian, mammalian, and fungal communities in post-fire habitats.

Education

• University of Idaho, Ph.D. Wildlife Ecology 2014
• Utah State University, M.S. Biology 2009

Featured Publications & Products

• Lorenz, Teresa J.; Sullivan, Kimberly A.; Bakian, Amanda V.; Aubry, Carol A. 2011. Cache-site selection in Clark's Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana).
• Lorenz, Teresa J.; Aubry, Carol; Shoal, Robin. 2008. A review of the literature on seed fate in whitebark pine and the life history traits of Clark s nutcracker and pine squirrels..
• Wells, Gail; Raphael, Martin; Lorenz, Teresa. 2011. Clark s nutcracker and whitebark pine: Can the birds help the embattled high-country pine survive.
• Lorenz, Teresa J.; Sullivan, Kimberly A. 2009. Seasonal differences in space use by Clark's Nutcrackers in the Cascade Range.

Publications

• Lorenz, Teresa J.; Raphael, Martin G. 2018. Declining Marbled Murrelet density, but not productivity, in the San Juan Islands, Washington, USA.
• Vizcarra, Natasha; Lorenz, Teresa. 2017. Woodpecker woes: the right tree can be hard to find.
• Lorenz, Teresa J. 2016. Between-year breeding dispersal by White-headed Woodpeckers: A caution about using color bands to estimate survival.
• Lorenz, Teresa J.; Vierling, Kerri T.; Kozma, Jeffrey M.; Millard, Janet E. 2016. Foraging plasticity by a keystone excavator, the white-headed woodpecker, in managed forests: Are there consequences for productivity.
• Lorenz, Teresa J.; Raphael, Martin G.; Bloxton, Thomas D.; Cunningham, Patrick G. 2016. Low breeding propensity and wide-ranging movements by marbled murrelets in Washington.
• Lorenz, Teresa J.; Raphael, Martin G.; Bloxton, Thomas D.; Hagen, Christian Andrew. 2016. Marine habitat selection by marbled murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratus) during the breeding season.
• Lorenz, Teresa J; Vierling, Kerri T; Vogeler, Jody; Lonneker, Jeffrey; Aycrigg, Jocelyn. 2015. Incorporating shrub and snag specific LiDAR data into GAP wildlife models.
• Lorenz, Teresa J.; Vierling, Kerri T.; Kozma, Jeffrey M.; Millard, Janet E.; Raphael, Martin G. 2015. Space use by white-headed woodpeckers and selection for recent forest disturbances.
• Lorenz, Teresa J.; Vierling, Kerri T.; Johnson, Timothy R.; Fischer, Philip C. 2015. The role of wood hardness in limiting nest site selection in avian cavity excavators.