Rebecca Rowe
I am interested in questions at the interface of community ecology, historical ecology, and landscape ecology, and in promoting the use of natural history collections data in ecology and conservation. I conduct field surveys and use historical records and geospatial data to investigate the impact of climate change and land use on species’ distributions and community dynamics, and the processes shaping patterns of diversity along both spatial gradients and disturbance gradients. Work to date has focused on small mammals in mountainous regions. My research is motivated by the need for synthesis across ecological disciplines spanning a range of spatial and temporal scales to provide the necessary framework to better understand and forecast the chronic and cumulative effects of anthropogenic environmental change. Central to this work is the question of how patterns of biodiversity, both their detection and attribution, vary across spatial scales.
Research Interests
- Conservation Biology
- Ecology
- Global Change
- Mammalogy
Courses Taught
- NR 603: Landscape Ecology
- NR 642: Introduction to Biogeography
- NR 712: Mammalogy
- NR 712/812: Mammalogy
- NR 903: Approach to Research
Selected Publications
Roy, A., Gough, L., Boelman, N. T., Rowe, R. J., Griffin, K. L., & McLaren, J. R. (2022). Small but mighty: Impacts of rodent-herbivore structures on carbon and nutrient cycling in arctic tundra. FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY, 36(9), 2331-2343. doi:10.1111/1365-2435.14127
Stephens, R. B., Ouimette, A. P., Hobbie, E. A., & Rowe, R. J. (2022). Reevaluating trophic discrimination factors (Delta delta C-13 and Delta delta N-15) for diet reconstruction. ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS, 92(3). doi:10.1002/ecm.1525
Steketee, J. K., Rocha, A. V., Gough, L., Griffin, K. L., Klupar, I., An, R., . . . Rowe, R. J. (2022). Small herbivores with big impacts: Tundra voles (Microtus oeconomus) alter post-fire ecosystem dynamics. ECOLOGY, 103(7). doi:10.1002/ecy.3689
Moore, N. B., Stephens, R. B., & Rowe, R. J. (2022). Nutritional and environmental factors influence small mammal seed selection in a northern temperate forest. ECOSPHERE, 13(4). doi:10.1002/ecs2.4036
Rastetter, E. B., Griffin, K. L., Rowe, R. J., Gough, L., McLaren, J. R., & Boelman, N. T. (2022). Model responses to CO2 and warming are underestimated without explicit representation of Arctic small-mammal grazing. ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS, 32(1). doi:10.1002/eap.2478
Rowe, R. J., & Terry, R. C. (2014). Small mammal responses to environmental change: integrating past and present dynamics. JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY, 95(6), 1157-1174. doi:10.1644/13-MAMM-S-079
Rowe, R. J., Terry, R. C., & Rickart, E. A. (2011). Environmental change and declining resource availability for small-mammal communities in the Great Basin. ECOLOGY, 92(6), 1366-1375. doi:10.1890/10-1634.1
Rickart, E. A., Balete, D. S., Rowe, R. J., & Heaney, L. R. (2011). Mammals of the northern Philippines: tolerance for habitat disturbance and resistance to invasive species in an endemic insular fauna. DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTIONS, 17(3), 530-541. doi:10.1111/j.1472-4642.2011.00758.x
Rowe, R. J., Finarelli, J. A., & Rickart, E. A. (2010). Range dynamics of small mammals along an elevational gradient over an 80-year interval. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY, 16(11), 2930-2943. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.02150.x
Rowe, R. J. (2009). Environmental and geometric drivers of small mammal diversity along elevational gradients in Utah. ECOGRAPHY, 32(3), 411-422. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0587.2008.05538.x
Most Cited Publications