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Areas of Interest

Birds
Macroecology
Climate Change
Birds
Macroecology
Climate Change
Spatial Modeling
Birds
Macroecology
Climate Change
Spatial Modeling

I’m a macroecologist that works with large ecological datasets, remote sensing data, and species distribution models to examine how environmental change impacts wildlife across spatiotemporal scales. In my previous position at UW-Madison and collaborating closely with the Cornell lab of Ornithology, I used dynamic SDMs, machine learning methods and citizen science (eBird) data to assess responses of birds to extreme weather over eastern North America. During my PhD at the University of South Florida, I modeled large-scale relationships between climate, weather, species-level traits and wildlife disease prevalence.

In my current position in the Jetz lab, I have been examining how large numbers of bird species use movement to cope with environmental change. In a recently published project, I explored how species track their environmental niche (with regards to temperature, precipitation, and productivity) over space and time, how the extent of niche tracking is driven by species’ functional traits and phylogenetic relationships, and how climate change impacts their ability to track environmental conditions. In ongoing work, I am exploring how species have used range redistributions to limit their exposure to climate change over the past twenty years. I am also exploring the role of grain size in driving estimates of species distributions and biodiversity patterns in birds.

Hobbies

Birding, Photography, Hiking, Baseball, Cats

Cohen J, Jetz W. 2023. Diverse strategies for tracking seasonal environmental niches at hemispheric scale. Global Ecology and Biogeography. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13722

Cohen J, D Fink, B Zuckerberg. 2021. Extreme winter weather disrupts bird occurrence and abundance patterns at geographic scales. Ecography. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05495

Cohen J, D Fink, B Zuckerberg 2020. Avian responses to extreme weather across functional traits and temporal scales. Global Change Biology. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15133

Cohen J, EL Sauer, O Santiago, S Spencer, JR Rohr. 2020. Divergent impacts of warming weather on wildlife disease risk across climates. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abb1702 

Cohen J, ML Lajeunesse, JR Rohr. 2018. A global synthesis of animal phenological responses to climate change. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0067-3

Kobilinsky D. (August 21, 2023). Small, migratory birds may be vulnerable to climate change. The Wildlife Society. https://wildlife.org/small-migratory-birds-may-be-vulnerable-to-climate-change/

Rosen Y, & Choy M. (2020, November 20). Wildlife diseases poised to spread northwards as climate changes: Study. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/climate-change-wildlife-disease/wildlife-diseases-poised-to-spread-northwards-as-climate-changes-study-idUSKBN28008S

Team eBird. (September 4, 2020). eBird data suggests not all North American birds can beat the heat. eBird. https://ebird.org/news/ebird-data-suggests-not-all-north-american-birds-can-beat-the-heat

Kobilinsky D. (September 4, 2020). Bird numbers change with the weather. The Wildlife Society. https://wildlife.org/bird-numbers-change-with-the-weather/

Cassidy E. (2020). How Birds Respond to Extreme Weather. NASA Earth Observatory. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147105/how-birds-respond-to-extreme-weather