Graduate student Sergei Pizyuk examines a
tiger kill. Photo by Ivan Seryodkin, WCS.
WCS has sponsored over 20 undergraduates, graduate students and post-docs over the past 5 years. Our goal is not to produce large numbers of post-grads, but instead to invest in top students who will make substantial contributions in the future. We have been successful in forging long-term working relationships with young biologists, collaborating with them first as graduate students and later as full colleagues.
Some of the graduate student research we are supporting today includes:
- An assessment of survey methods (camera trapping, DNA and fecal analysis, etc.) for estimating tiger densities, with work based in Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve and led by Svetlana Soutyrina, Candidate of Science from Irkustk University and Meghan Riley, M.S. student from U. Wyoming. Meghan and Svetlana worked together to conduct extensive camera-trapping surveys over a total area of about 4000 km2, and also collected hair, scat and blood samples for analysis.
- A three-month pilot study to estimate bear densities from DNA samples collected with hair snags in Sikhote-Alin Reserve, led by graduate students Erin Latham and Sergei Pizyuk. Sergei, who is studying bear behavior for his Candidate of Science degree, is also fully engaged in Amur tiger radio-tracking and snow-tracking activities conducted under the Siberian Tiger Project.
- A four-year study of habitat use and resource selection by Blakiston's fish owls (Ketupa blakistoni), led by Jon Slaght, Ph.D. Candidate from U. Minnesota, in association with S. Surmach, Candidate of Science, Institute of Biology and Soils.
- Camera trapping of Far Eastern leopards, with research completed by Alexander Rybin for his Master’s degree thesis in June, 2008. Alexander will begin research for his Candidate of Science degree this fall, and also works full time as field crew leader for WCS’s leopard research project in SW Primorsky Krai.
Sikhote-Alin Research Center
The Sikhote-Alin Research Center provides
housing and office facilities for graduate students.
Photo by Dale Miquelle, WCS.
The Sikhote-Alin Research Center in Terney is a central component of WCS Russia’s efforts to support the next generation of Russian wildlife biologists and conservationists. This small research facility is designed to support young ecologists, biologists, and conservationists from Russia, the United States, and other countries; and to facilitate development of collaborative relationships between scientists from Russia and abroad. The Center provides high-quality services for graduate students, who have the opportunity to conduct field research in the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve, home to some of the only remaining primary forests in Northeast Asia, while working under the supervision of WCS scientific staff and their own advisors. WCS is still putting the finishing touches on this building, and in the future we hope to construct permanent housing facilities and a conference center, helping to make the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve a world-class field research site.
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