RESEARCH INTERESTS

  1. Individual variation in reproductive tactics and reproductive "trajectory" (history) in vertebrates
    1. The influence of age (e.g., senescence) on life history traits and the covariation between traits
    2. Alternative behavioral tactics associated with reproduction, age-related changes in tactics
  2. The influence of environmental variation on life histories and the response of individuals to this variation
    1. The evolutionary consequences of this variation
    2. The relationship between individual response and population dynamics or the dynamics of subdivided populations
  3. The response of ecological communities to environmental change

Most of the questions I am interested in require data from individually marked animals or lists of species (and use if the species ID as conceptually equivalent to a tag), and multiple sample occasions. I use capture-mark-recapture approaches to estimate population- or community-level vital rates, address covariation with environmental factors, and test ecological or evolutionary hypotheses. Most of my work focusses on vertebrates (birds). However, I am not interested in a specific type of habitat or specific taxa: the availablity of relevant data to address specific hypotheses is what matters.

Population-level studies

The main questions I have worked on concern correlations between fitness components and the influence of age on life history traits in long-lived species. I also focussed on the influence of early conditions and alternative behavioral tactics before recruitment on reproductive "trajectory". I am currently working on individual variation in fitness components in wild animal populations, and the consequences of such individual heterogeneity on demography and population dynamics (Individual variation in life history traits). I am using data from a long-lived species collected in Brittany (France): the same data are used by several other investigators (the kittiwake project). This work has theoretical implications in the areas of life history theory, evolutionary ecology,demography, population dynamics and regulation, and also implications for conservation and wildlife management.

Community-level studies

The main questions I worked on can be classified in 2 groups:

  1. Use of capture-recapture models to address ecological hypotheses
    1. The influence of urbanization on the degree of completeness of avian communities
    2. Disentangling the 2 components underlying species-area relationships (sampling "artifacts" and genuine variation in species richness)
  2. Use of capture-recapture models to estimate community-level vital rates
    1. Estimation of species richness using species-accumulation data
    2. Inferences about nested subsets


WHERE AND WITH WHOM?

PUBLICATIONS

  1. Cam, E., Hines, J.E., Monnat, J.Y., Nichols, J.D. and Danchin, E. 1998. Are adult nonbreeders prudent parents? The Kittiwake model. Ecology 79: 2917-2930
  2. Cam, E. and Monnat, J.Y. 2000. Apparent inferiority in first-time breeders in the kittiwake: the role of heterogeneity among age-classes. Journal of animal Ecology 69: 380-394
  3. Cam, E. and Monnat, J.Y. 2000. Stratification based on reproductive success reveals contrasting patterns of age-related variation in demographic parameters in the kittiwake. Oikos 90: 560-574.
  4. Cam, E., Nichols, J.D., Sauer, J.R., Hines, J.E., and Flather, C.H. 2000. Estimation of relative species richness for assessing the degree of completeness of ecological communities: avian communities and urbanization in the Mid-Atlantic states. Ecological Applications 10: 1196-1210.
  5. Cam, E, Nichols, J.D., Hines, J.E., and Sauer, J.R. 2000. Inference methods for addressing nestedness in ecological communities. Oikos 91:428-434
  6. Cam, E., W.A. link, Cooch, E.G. Monnat, J.Y., Danchin, E. 2002. Individual covariation between life-history traits: seeing the trees despite the forest. American Naturalist 159: 96-105
  7. Cam, E., J. D. Nichols, J.E. Hines J. R. Sauer, R. Alpizar-Jara, and C. H. Flather. 2002. Disentangling sampling and ecological explanations underlying species-area relationships. Ecology 83: 1118-1130
  8. Cam, E. Nichols, J.D., Hines, J.E., Sauer, J.R. 2002. On the estimation of species richness from species-accumulation data. Ecography 63: 81-94
  9. Cam, E., Cadiou, B. Hines, J., Monnat, J.Y. 2002. Influence of behavioral tactics on recruitment and reproductive trajectory in the Kittiwake. Journal of Applied Statistics 29: 163-185.
  10. Cam, E., Sauer, J.R., Nichols, J.D., Hines, J.E. and Flather, C.H. 2002. Geographic analysis of species richness and community attributes of forest birds from survey data in the Mid-Atlantic integrated assessment region. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 63: 81-94
  11. Cooch, E.G., Cam, E. and Link, W.A. 2002. Occam’s Shadow: levels of analysis in evolutionary ecology - where to next? Journal of Applied Statistics 29: 19-48
  12. Link, W.A., Cooch. E.G., Cam. E. 2002. Model-based estimation of individual fitness. Journal of Applied Statistics 29: 207-224
  13. Danchin, E and Cam, E. 2002. Can nonbreeding be a cost of breeding dispersal. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 51: 153-163
  14. Nisbet, I.C. and Cam, E. 2002. Test for age-specificity of common tern survival rates: analysis of capture-recapture data from multiple locations. Journal of Applied Statistics 29: 65-83
  15. Link, W.A., Cam, E., Nichols, J.D. and Cooch, E.G. 2002. Of BUGS and birds. Markov chain Monte Carlo for hierarchical modeling in wildlife research. Journal of Wildlife Management 66: 277-291
  16. Cam, E., Monnat J.Y. and Hines, J.E. 2003. Long term fitness consequences of early conditions in the kittiwake. Journal of Animal Ecology 72: 411-424.
  17. Cam, E. Lougheed, L. Bradley, R. and Cooke, F. Demographic assessment of a Marbled Murrelet population from capture-recapture data. Conservation Biology 1118-1126.
  18. Cam E., Monnat J.-Y., Royle J. A. 2004. Dispersal and individual quality in a long lived species. Oikos 106:386-398
  19. Cam E., Oro D., Pradel R., and Jimenez, J. 2004. Assessment of hypotheses about dispersal in a long-lived seabird using multistate capture-recapture models. Journal of Animal Ecology 73: 723-736
  20. Cam E. Le Garff B., and Monnat J.-Y. 2004. Adult survival and temporary emigration in the common toad. Canadian Journal of Zoology 82: 859-872
  21. Oro, D., Cam, E., Pradel, R. and Martinez-Abrain, A. 2004. Influence of food availability on demography and local population dynamics in a long-lived seabird. Proceedings of the Royal Society London, Series B 271: 387-396
  22. Wintrebert C. M. A., Zwinderman A. H., Cam E.,Pradel R. and van Houwelingen J. C. 2005. Joint modelling of breeding and survival in the kittiwake using frailty models. Ecological Modelling, in press
  23. Cam, E. Cooch, E., and Monnat, J.-Y. 2005. Earlier recruitment or earlier death? On the assumption of homogeneous survival in capture-recapture estimation of recruitment. Ecology, In press.
  24. Parker, N., Cam, Lank, D. B.,. and Cooke, F. Post-fledging survival of juvenile Marbled Murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratus) as determined by radio-telemetry in Desolation Sound, British Columbia). Marine Ornithology, in press

LINKS TO SOFTWARE ARCHIVES

All the papers listed above required use of statistics packages commonly used in population modeling, sociological and educational sciences, or biomedical sciences:

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