RESEARCH INTERESTS
I’m interested in the demography and behavior of rare and declining species of conservation concern, with a focus on terrestrial vertebrates. I use field research, statistical analyses, and population models to diagnose threats and to help guide effective management. My dissertation research investigated the movement behavior and habitat relations of forest-associated squirrels in response to logging in the Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska. Most recently I’ve been assisting The Nature Conservancy and a consortium of other land managers by conducting demographic analyses to guide recovery of the endangered island fox (Urocyon littoralis) on the California Channel Islands.
I’m currently funded by a David H. Smith conservation research fellowship (http://www.conbio.org/SmithFellows/fellows/2007/bakker/) to develop ways of using population models to improve the efficiency and biological relevance of monitoring and adaptive management plans for rare vertebrates. This work is done in close partnership with my mentors Dan Doak (University of Wyoming), Kevin Crooks (Colorado State University), and Scott Morrison (The Nature Conservancy). Key aspects of this work include: (1) developing methods to reflect the output of advanced demographic analyses in population models, including the direct incorporation of uncertainty, and (2) using probability of extinction or other measures of viability from these population models to inform the specific on-the-ground decisions facing conservation practitioners.
PUBLICATIONS
Doak, D.,V. Bakker, M. Finkelstein, B. Sullivan, R. Lewison, B. Keitt, J. Arnold, J. Croxall, F. Micheli, and M. Sanjayan. 2007. Compensatory mitigation for marine bycatch will do harm, not good. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5:350-351.
Bakker, V. J., D. H. Van Vuren, K. R. Crooks, C. A. Scott, J. T. Wilcox, and D. K. Garcelon. 2006. Serologic survey of the island spotted skunk on Santa Cruz Island.
Western North American Naturalist. 66:456-461.
Bakker, V. J. 2006. Microhabitat features influence movements of red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) on unfamiliar ground. Journal of Mammalogy 87: 124–130.
Bakker, V. J., D. K. Garcelon, E. T. Aschehoug, K. R. Crooks, C. Newman, G. Schmidt, D. H. Van Vuren, and R. Woodroffe. 2005. Current status of the Santa Cruz Island Fox (Urocyon littoralis santacruzae). Proceedings of the Sixth California Islands Symposium, Ventura, California, Dec. 1 – 3, 2003. National Park Service Technical Publication CHIS-05-01, Institute for Wildlife Studies, Arcata, California.
Bakker, V. J. and D. H. Van Vuren. 2004. Gap-crossing decisions by the red squirrel, a forest-dependent small mammal. Conservation Biology 18: 689–697.
Bakker, V. J. and K. Hastings. 2002. Den trees used by northern flying squirrels (Glaucomys sabrinus) in southeastern Alaska. Canadian Journal of Zoology 80: 1623-1633.
Bakker, V. J. and D. A. Kelt. 2000. Scale-dependent patterns in body size distributions of Neotropical mammals. Ecology 81: 3530-3547.
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