Dr. Todd Jones-Farrand, CHJV Science Coordinator.

Summer 2009

The Central Hardwoods Joint Venture welcomes Dr. Todd Jones-Farrand as our new Science Coordinator. Todd has been working as a post-doc under Dr. Frank Thompson, Project Leader of the USDA Forest Service Research Station in Columbia, MO for the past three years. During his tenure with Frank, and in collaboration with staff associated with the US Geological Survey and the Lower Mississippi Joint Venture, he developed habitat suitability models for 40 priority forest and grass-shrubland birds for the Central Hardwoods and West Gulf Coastal Plain Bird Conservation Regions (BCR), and designed and coordinated surveys to gather empirical data needed to validate and refine the models. In addition, he did a formal comparison of four modeling approaches thought useful for conservation design at BCR scales, and developed a model to predict the effects of urban and ex-urban growth on populations of the Central Hardwoods BCR’s priority bird species.

Jones-Farrand also has experience modeling the effects of Farm Bill programs on water quality and bird and small mammal populations, and worked with The Wildlife Society to develop technical reviews of benefits to fish and wildlife from Farm Bill Conservation Programs. He will be employed by the American Bird Conservancy but continue to be housed in Thompson’s laboratory, where he’ll work with other scientists to incorporate the habitat suitability models and other data layers into a landscape simulation tool that will allow us to predict the outcomes of various agents of habitat and population change separately or in combination within and across the Central Hardwoods BCR.