Mary E. Cablk, Ph.D.

Associate Research Professor

Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences

Email: Mary.Cablk@dri.edu
Phone/Voicemail: 775-673-7371
2215 Raggio Parkway
Reno, Nevada 89512

The call for handlers for spring 2008 DTK9 teams is out! Applications due no later than February 13, 2008

Downloads: Call for Handlers (PDF) (information / application instructions) and Application form (MS Word)

Education

Research Philosophy

My academic career began as a student of biology with an emphasis in ethology, and has developed in sophistication and focus. My education and other experience have taught me a great deal about the changing nature of the natural world - how individuals, populations, and communities of creatures interact and interface with a variable landscape. Neither wildlife nor landscapes exist independently, and for that reason the collective knowledge we gain from studying each of these individually is of even greater value when linked. Unfortunately, linking disciplines, such as wildlife biology and landscape ecology, is challenging as we struggle to develop quantitative tools that allow us to merge these two fields. I rely heavily on geostatistics and landscape metrics (the two are not the same), remote sensing, image processing, GIS (these three are not the same), and other quantitative methods such as statistics to bridge disciplines. I also incorporate knowledge gained from other experience such as search and rescue operations, climbing, backcountry winter sports, and kayaking. What better means of gaining knowledge of the landscape than to experience its stochasticity firsthand?

In bridging disciplines, my hope is to better evaluate the impacts that humans have on wildlife, the landscape, and the processes involving or driven by these factors. To date I have experience working with colleagues in landscape architecture, economics, sociology, hydrology, botany, soil science, mathematics, computer science, and archeology, among others. At DRI, I am an anomaly as an ecologist with an emphasis on wildlife, but the exposure to other disciplines here such as geology, geomorphology, paleobotany, and atmospheric sciences, is wonderful and has added greater breadth to my research. I encourage students to seek advice from mentors outside their immediate field of study. In addition to the valuable perspective that can be gained from vantage points of different backgrounds, there is intrinsic value in having both depth and breadth to one's studies.

Research

Selected Publications

Heaton, J.S., M.E. Cablk, K.E. Nussear, T.C. Esque, P.A. Medica, J.C. Sagebiel, and
	S.S. Francis. In press. Comparison of human versus wildlife detector dog investigator effects. Submitted to: Southwestern Naturalist.
Cablk, M.E., J.C. Sagebiel, J.S Heaton and C. Valentin. 2008. Olfaction-based detection
	distance: A quantitative analysis of how far away dogs recognize tortoise odor and follow it to source. Sensors. 8(4):2208-2222.
Raumann, C.G.and M.E. Cablk. 2008. Change in the forested and developed landscape
	of the Lake Tahoe basin, California and Nevada, USA 1940-2002. Forest Ecology and Management. 255:3424-3439.
Nussear, K.E., T.C. Esque, J.S. Heaton, M.E. Cablk, K.K. Drake, C. Valentin, J.L. Yee, and
	P.A. Medica. 2008. Are wildlife detector dogs or people better at finding desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii)? Herpetological Conservation and Biology. 3(1):103-115.
Cablk, M.E. and C. Kratt. 2007. A methodology for mapping shrub canopy cover in the
	Great Basin Desert using high spatial resolution satellite imagery. Desert Research Institute publication #41236. July 2007.
Sharpe, S.E., M.E. Cablk, and J.M. Thomas, 2007. The Walker Basin, Nevada and
	California: Physical Environment, Hydrology, and Biology. Desert Research Institute Technical Report #41231, May 2007.
Zhu, J. M.H. Young and M.E. Cablk. 2007 Uncertainty analysis of estimates of ground-
	water discharge by evapotranspiration for the BARCAS study area. Desert Research Institute Technical Report #41234, June 2007.
Cablk, M.E. and J.S. Heaton. 2006. (Downloadable PDF; 234 KB) Accuracy and reliability
	of dogs in surveying for Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agasizii). Ecological Applications. 16(5):1926-1935.
Cablk, M.E. and L.M. Perlow. 2006. (Downloadable PDF; 978 KB) A classification system
	for impervious cover in the Lake Tahoe Basin. Final report to Nevada Water Resources Research Institute #2004NV57B. 23p.
Desert Research Institute. 2006. Evapotranspiration in Smoke Creek Desert, Nevada.
	Desert Research Institute publication No. 41224. 62 pp.
Cablk, M.E. 2005. (Downloadable PDF, 4.5MB) Protecting the threatened desert tortoise:
	A plan for primary survey, management and monitoring in Parashant National Monument and Grand Canyon National Park. Final report to Grand Canyon/Parashant National Park. 22 pp.
Cablk, M.E., and J.S. Heaton. 2005. (Downloadable PDF, 3.6MB) Efficacy and reliability
	of dogs for surveying desert tortoises: Results from the DT-K9 trials, March 28-April 15, 2004. Final report to U.S. Army Research Office. 57 pp.
Minor, T. and M.E. Cablk. 2004. Estimation of Impervious Cover in the Lake Tahoe Basin
	Using Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems Data Integration. Journal of Nevada Water Resources Association. 1(1):58-75.
Cablk, M.E., J.S. Heaton, and J.C. Sagebiel. 2004. (Downloadable PDF, 1.17MB)
	Risk of attracting predators from human and human-dog team wildlife surveys. Prepared for: Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command, Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs Division. Contract #W911NF-04-1-0279. 31p.
Young, M., W. Albright, W. Zachritz, D. Shafer, K. Pohlmann, M. Cablk, S. Zitzer, and
	E. McDonald, 2004. Technical approach for designing alternative covers at Edwards Air Force Base, California. DRI Report, Publication #41192, 58 p.
Cablk, M.E. and T. Minor, 2003. Detecting and discriminating impervious cover with
	high-resolution IKONOS data using principal component analysis and morphological operators. International Journal of Remote Sensing 24(23):4627-4645.
Cablk, M.E., W. Langford, and A. Panorska, 2003. (Downloadable PDF, 483KB)
	Alternative Future Scenarios: Development of a modeling information system. Final Report to DoD: Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program. Report M67399-00-C-0005. 115 p.
Hunter, L.M., De J. Gonzalez G., M., Stevenson, M., Karish, K.S., Toth, R., Edwards, T.C.,
	Lilieholm, R.J., Cablk, M., 2003. Population and land use change in the California Mojave: natural habitat implications of alternative futures. Population Research and Policy Review. 22:373–397.
Cablk, M.E. and S. Spaulding. 2002 Dec. Baseline and initial monitoring assessment
	of Martes americana, the American Marten, at Heavenly Ski Resort, Lake Tahoe, California. U.S. Forest Service, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. 87 p.
Cablk, M.E., and J.S. Heaton, 2002.(Downloadable PDF, 9.9MB) Mojave Fringe-
	Toed Lizard surveys at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, California and nearby lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. California: Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center. Report M67399-00-C-0005. 115 p.
Cablk, M.E., D. White, and A.R. Kiester, 2002.(Downloadable PDF, 769KB) Assessment
	of spatial autocorrelation in empirical models in ecology. In M. Scott, P. Heglund, M. Morrison, J. Haufler, M. Rafael, W. Wall, and F. Samson, eds., Predicting Species Occurrences: Issues of Accuracy and Scale. Island Press, Washington, DC.
Cablk, M.E. 2002.(Downloadable PDF, 10.5MB) Impacts of development in the Coachella
	Valley on Fringe-Toed Lizards and the related implications to Joshua Tree National Park. Final report to Joshua Tree National Park.
Cablk, M.E., J.S. Heaton, R.J. Lilieholm, M. de J. Gonzalez, M. Stevenson, and D. Mouat,
	1999. Military Ecology: The role of the Defense Department in protecting and preserving our biotic resources and challenges for civilian researchers in this realm. Landscape Futures: An international symposium on advances in research for natural resource planning and management across regional landscapes. Armidale, NSW, Australia. 22-25 September 1999.
Stoms, D.M., M.E. Cablk, W.H. Hargrove, L.L. Master, 1998. Comparisons across taxa of
	biophsyical predictors of species richness. In D.M. Stoms, W.A. Kuhn, and F.W. Davis (Eds.), Acquisitions and evaluation of data sets for comparative assessment of risk to biodiversity on a continental scale: Threats to biodiversity. Final report to the EPA. http://www.biogeog.ucsb.edu/projects/epa/epa_rpt.html
Heaton, J.S. and M. Cablk (presenter), 1999. All creosote bushes look alike at a 1m
	spatial resolution: Is airborne videography an appropriate source of data to assess habitat in the Mojave Desert, CA? In Proceedings from the 1999 ASPRS Annual Conference. Portland, OR, May 17-21, 1999.
Cablk, M.E., W.K. Michener, B. Kjerfve, and J. Jensen, 1994. Assessing Hurricane-Hugo
	related forest damage using Landsat TM data. Geocarto International 9:15-24.