Tara Chestnut - Research & Projects

chestnut@pdx.edu
Ph: 503.725.9076
Fax: 503.725.3834

PhD candidate MES, Ecology and Environmental Policy, The Evergreen State College, 2004. BS, Wildlife Biology, The Evergreen State Collge, 1996.

Tara has been involved in ecological research and environmental policy in the northwest since 1994. She has worked in a variety of settings studying vertebrates, invertebrates and vegetation communities including commercially managed and reserve coniferous forests in the Cascade Mountains; scrub oak communities in the southern Rocky Mountains; remnant prairies, freshwater and marine systems in the Puget Sound Lowlands, shrub steppe in the Columbia and Great Basins, tundra in central Alaska, and the built environment and cubicle land in western Washington.

A two-time alumna of The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, Tara earned her BS in Wildlife Biology in 1996 and MES in Ecology and Environmental Policy in 2004. Her undergraduate thesis investigated habitat associations of wintering raptors in an agricultural setting. Tara examined patterns of sexual selection in the Western Toad (Bufo boreas) for her graduate research. Tara comes to PSU from the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), where she was the region wildlife biologist for the Olympic Peninsula and southern Puget Sound lowlands. Her primary responsibilities were implementing federal environmental policy, such as the Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and Marine Mammal Protection Act. Tara has also worked on projects for the WA Natural Heritage Program, Gifford Pinchot National Forest/Utah State University, Klamath Bird Observatory/Klamath National Forest, and Cascadia Research Collective. Tara's work for WA Natural Heritage Program contributed to the conservation of three priority lands identified by The Nature Conservancy, Ellsworth Creek, Moses Coulee, and South Puget Sound Prairies. Tara also serves on the board of the Society for Northwestern Vertebrate Biology, the oldest scientific association devoted to the study of terrestrial vertebrates in the Pacific Northwest, founded in 1920.

Tara works at the interface of applied ecology and public policy. She is interested in exploring natural and anthropogenic factors that limit species distribution. Her research interests include the mechanisms of range expansion and retraction, and biological invasions. She has published results of amphibian chytrid (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidus, Bd) sampling in central Alaska (.pdf) and is keen to expand on this work, exploring abiotic factors that influence its distribution in extreme environments and modeling invasion potential where Bd is not currently detected. Tara is especially interested in conducting research that guides land management decisions and integrates science and policy. Through her research, Tara seeks to inform policy and decision making at local, regional and global scales. Tara is concerned with making science more approachable to non-scientists, regulators, and policy makers by improving the ways scientists communicate science in non-traditional settings.

Tara also enjoys hiking, growing food, good dogs, and the season of increasing day length. A devoted hunter-gatherer, Tara has been known to schedule meetings on the beach during the razor clam season. Tara celebrates the birthday of the legendary Julia Child every August.