South American Ecoregions are an Important Biodiversity Hotspot and Carbon Sink. Preserving them is vital to conservation efforts on a global scale.

White-lipped peccary photographed at the Fazenda Barranco Alto, June 2025

White-lipped peccaries exhibit unusual social habits, which is important given its position as an ecosystem engineer.

Figure showing the relationship between habitat type and average herd size across tropical ungulate species. (A) All tropical ungulates (Afrotropical, Indo-Malayan, and Neotropical species). (B) Neotropical ungulates only. Points represent species means, color-coded by dietary guild (grazers = squares, mixed feeders = diamonds, browsers = circles, omnivores = triangles). The white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), highlighted with a red symbol, consistently exhibits the largest average herd sizes among Neotropical ungulates, comparable to the largest herding species in the Old-World tropics. Black curves represent fitted trend lines illustrating the general relationship between habitat openness and herd size, with larger herds tending to occur in more open habitats.

Check back for more updates!

Past Research

Foraging Behavior In Bats

My current research is taking place on Fort Campbell Military Installation along the border of Kentucky and Tennessee just Northwest of Clarksville, TN. As a part of the Haase Lab at Austin Peay State University, my project is being overseen and advised by Dr. Catherine Haase. I am currently studying the effects of perceived increased predator presence on the foraging behavior of local species.

Leah Crowley walks past a threatened tricolor bat during a cave survey

Predation has direct and indirect effects..

Not only do predators directly affect populations by taking individuals for consumption, but they can affect their behavior in ways that can be detrimental. Fear may cause them to change their foraging behavior by foraging less or abandoning fruitful sites for subpar sites to mitigate predation risk. This can have a negative effect on overall populations, but we don’t have a good grasp on how bats respond to predators. This is the study of fear driven ecology.

This work is taking place at the Fazenda Barranco Alto, an ecolodge located in the Pantanal. The Pantanal is the world’s largest tropical wetland, spanning ~150,000 sq km of Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia.

Knowing all we can about factors influencing bat populations will be vital to their conservation, including predation.

To test the the temporal and spatial changes bats may make to mitigate predation risk we designed an experiment which will manipulate the natural environment of bats by increasing the perception that predators may be present. We accomplished this through broadcasting pre-recorded calls of nocturnal predators and using predator decoys as visual cues. Each site was sampled for two weeks, week one as control, week two as treatment.

Update

MANUSCRIPT IS CLOSE TO PUBLICATION AS OF 9/2025

Currently the manuscript for this research is undergoing review by Ft. Campbell, KY as a requirement for submission to the Journal of Behavioral Ecology.

FIELD SEASON ENDED, 10/06/2023….

Over the summer I sampled 10 sites on Ft Campbell, KY, and ended up with over 250,000 data points. After running the raw data through analytic software, over 45,000 data points were identified as bats. In May 2024 I defended my thesis and submitted it to the Graduate School of APSU. The manuscript is currently being revised for publication.

Plot at APSU Farm: Several plots were laid out for each site, pictured above is one that had been treated with a predator decoy and a sound box, that would broadcast predator calls at specific times.

*Handling bats can be dangerous. Do not try this at home! All research is conducted under the proper federal and state permits, and approved under IACUC 23.008 from Austin Peay State University. Members of the lab have been properly trained and immunized to handle chiroptera species.