Gopher Tortoises are a threatened species throughout the southeast US, where their leading threat is habitat loss from urbanization and agriculture. South Florida's tortoises are at the forefront of impacts from urbanization, and live in the warmest part of the range - where impacts from climate change will appear first. Our work with tortoises is aimed at developing strategies to protect tortoise populations in urban areas, and to understand impacts from warming climates. Gopher Tortoises are ecosystem engineers - creating burrows that are used by hundreds of other species - and protecting the tortoises helps protect other species that rely on them.

American Flamingos are a cultural icon of south Florida. Historic populations of flamingos lived and likely nested in Florida Bay and the Florida Keys, but were wiped out by hunting pressures in the late 1800s. Their presence was long forgotten, and wildlife biologists considered flamingos to be non-native throughout the 20th century. Our work has corrected the narrative, and seeks to foster the recovery of these iconic birds in south Florida.

Amphibians are the most threatened group of vertebrates, and since the 1980s amphibians have been declining globally from the emergence of the Amphibian Chytrid Fungus. Many species of amphibians have been lost from the impacts of this pathogen, and many other species remain perilously close to extinction. In collaboration with the Universidad de Costa Rica, I have been working for years to help understand and mitigate this loss of amphibian biodiversity.

Modern zoos are in transition from animal-based entertainment venues to important institutions for biodiversity conservation. Yet most zoos do not have existing infrastructure to best take advantage of their conservation research potential. The living collections of rare and endangered species in zoos, along with associated data, are an invaluable resource to understand biology of their counterparts in the wild. I'm working with a network of colleagues throughout the US to realize a vision where zoos and aquariums become a unique and valued component of the national biodiversity research infrastructure.