Quresh Latif

Research Wildlife Biologist (Post-doctoral Ecologist)

Phone:(406) 994-3002
Fax:(406) 994-5916
Email:qslatif@fs.fed.us

Address

USDA Rocky Mountain Research Station
1648 South 7th Avenue
Montana State University Campus
Bozeman, MT 59717-2780

Education

• Ph.D., University of California (Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology), 2009
  (Dissertation: The influence of predation on avian nest habitat selection and the processes underlying nest predation patterns)
• B. S., University of California, Davis (Wildlife and Fisheries Biology), 1998

Research Interests

• Application of ecological models to inform wildlife conservation and management
• Interrelationships between avian nest site selection, nest predation risk, and brood parasitism
• Causes and consequences of habitat selection in animals

Current Projects

• Applying species distribution models and occupancy models to describe and understand forest woodpecker distributions.
• Modeling snag persistence in relation to bark beetle outbreaks.
• Combining species distribution models with occupancy models to maximize inference from available presence-only and presence-absence data (manuscript in progress).

Publications

• Latif, Q. S., K. D. Fleming, C. Barrows, and J. T. Rotenberry. In review. Modeling seasonal detection patterns for Burrowing Owl Surveys.
• Latif, Q. S., S. K. Heath, and J. T. Rotenberry. 2011. The response of avian nest site selection to predation risk: testing an "adaptive peak hypothesis." Journal of Animal Ecology. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2011.01895.x.
• Latif, Q. S., S. K. Heath, and J. T. Rotenberry. 2011. An "ecological trap" for Yellow Warbler nest microhabitat selection. Oikos. 120: 1139-1150.
• Latif, Q. S., J. L. Grenier, S. K. Heath, G. Ballard, and M. Hauber. 2006. First evidence of conspecific brood parasitism in song sparrows with comments on methods sufficient to document this behavior. Condor 108: 452-458.