Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program:
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Staff Member

Dr. Bryan Lee Nuse

Dr. Bryan L. Nuse
Post Doc
Phone: (706) 542 - 6183
Email: nuse@uga.edu

Biography

I joined the Georgia Coop Unit early in 2014 as a postdoctoral researcher, after completing my PhD in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia. . I am generally interested in how species and ecological communities relate to habitat, especially through vegetation and hydrology. My dissertation work focused upon birds in wetland habitats. However, my postdoctoral work has brought me back to more basic population ecology, modeling gopher tortoise population processes mainly within a Bayesian analysis framework. I am also working on problems of connectivity among tortoise populations in Georgia's upland pine forests.. I am currently teaching a graduate seminar in the Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources, called Data Manipulation and Management (with R and PostgreSQL). This course aims to expose students to tools and good practices for developing data workflows for ecological and natural resources research, with an emphasis on basic programming in the R language and SQL.

Research Publications Publication Date
Jafari, N., B. L. Nuse, C. T. Moore, B. Dilkina, and J. Hepinstall-Cymerman. 2017. Achieving full connectivity of sites in the Multiperiod Reserve Network Design Problem. Computers and Operations Research 81:119-127. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2016.12.017 | Abstract | Download | Publisher Website May 2017
Project Completion Date
Using Qualitative Knowledge of Life History Traits to Predict Taxon Group Response to Levels of Coarse Woody Debris December 2017
A Spatially Explicit Population Modeling Framework to Support Conservation Decision Making for Gopher Tortoises in Georgia June 2017
Modeling and Optimization to Advance Decision-making for Trust and At-risk Species March 2022
Technical Assistance to Georgia DNR for Nongame Bird Monitoring and Research September 2021
Assess Field- and Landscape-Level Effects of NRCS Conservation Practices on Gopher Tortoise Habitat August 2020
Demographic Estimation and Conservation Modeling for the Loggerhead Sea Turtle June 2020
An Adaptive Landscape Planning and Decision Framework for Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) Conservation June 2018
Validating Gopher Tortoise Habitat and Population Predictions for Georgia December 2016
Presentations Presentation Date
Prebyl, T. J., B. L. Nuse, and C. T. Moore. 2019. A method for estimating gopher tortoise densities at spatial scales relevant for habitat studies. Oral presentation at 41st Annual Gopher Tortoise Council Meeting, 15-17 November 2019, Gulf Shores, AL. November 2019
Nuse, B. L., and C. T. Moore. 2014. (Poster) A Bayesian population model to inform gopher tortoise conservation planning in Georgia. 36th Annual Gopher Tortoise Council Meeting, 17-19 October 2014, Albany, GA. October 2014
Nuse, B. L., N. Jafari, R. L. Bormann, A. D. Wright, C. T. Moore, J. Hepinstall-Cymerman, and M. Elliott. 2016. Accommodating space and demographic uncertainty, in pursuit of gopher tortoise conservation in Georgia. Invited seminar. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia. 27 October 2016 October 2016
Nuse, B. L., N. Jafari, C. T. Moore, J. Hepinstall-Cymerman, and M. Elliott. 2017. Informing reserve design with demography, for gopher tortoise conservation planning in Georgia. 2017 Wildlife Research Meeting, Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resources Division, 8 August 2017, Mansfield, GA. August 2017
Nuse, B. L., M. Elliott, and C. T. Moore. 2017. Estimating bird species' responses to sandhill habitat restoration in the southeastern US: single-visit survey, an unbalanced design, and varying methodologies. The Wildlife Society 24th Annual Conference, 23-27 September 2017, Albuquerque, NM. September 2017
Nuse, B. L., L. L. Smith, and C. T. Moore. 2018. An introduction to the Gopher Tortoise Demography Working Group. 40th Annual Gopher Tortoise Council Meeting, 12-14 October 2018, Lake Placid, FL. October 2018
Nuse, B. L., J. Hepinstall-Cymerman, C. T. Moore, and M. Elliott. 2015. Linking gopher tortoise processes and landscape resistance to assess functional connectivity of gopher tortoise populations in Georgia. Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, 1-4 Nov 2015, Asheville, NC. November 2015
Nuse, B. L., J. Hepinstall-Cymerman, C. T. Moore, and M. Elliott. 2015. Assessing functional connectivity in the face of uncertainty about population processes: a Bayesian modeling approach applied to conservation of the gopher tortoise in Georgia, USA. International Association of Landscape Ecology World Congress, 5-10 July 2015, Portland, OR. July 2015
Nuse, B. L., C. T. Moore, and J. Hepinstall-Cymerman. 2016. Predicting spatial structure in gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) populations in Georgia, USA. US-IALE 2016 Annual Meeting, 3-7 April 2016, Asheville, NC. April 2016
Nuse, B. L., C. T. Moore, N. Jafari, J. Hepinstall-Cymerman, and M. Elliott. 2016. Informing reserve design with demography for gopher tortoise conservation planning in Georgia, USA. The Wildlife Society 23rd Annual Conference, 15-19 October 2016, Raleigh, NC. October 2016
Nuse, B. L., C. T. Moore, N. Jafari, J. Hepinstall-Cymerman, and M. Elliott. 2017. Optimal reserves for spatially structured gopher tortoise populations, under forecast landscape conditions in Georgia, USA. US-IALE 2017 Annual Meeting, 9-13 April 2017, Baltimore, MD. April 2017
Nuse, B. L., C. T. Moore, J. Hepinstall-Cymerman, and M. Elliott. 2015. (Poster) Comparing hypotheses about missed burrows in gopher tortoise line transect surveys: Bayesian distance analysis with data augmentation. 2015 Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, 9-14 August 2015, Baltimore, MD. August 2015
Moore, C., B. Nuse, and B. Crawford. 2018. Conservation research on southeastern at-risk herpetofauna. Southeast Climate Science Center Advisory Committee Meeting, 12-15 March 2018, Raleigh, NC. March 2018
Hepinstall-Cymerman, J., T. Prebyl, B. Nuse, and C. Moore. 2018. Predicting changes in gopher tortoise habitat connectivity in Georgia, USA. Presentation at US-IALE 2018 Annual Meeting, 8-12 April 2018, Chicago, IL. April 2018
Hepinstall-Cymerman, J., T. Prebyl, B. Nuse, and C. Moore. 2017. Predicting gopher tortoise habitat connectivity in Georgia from forest structure, soils, and land cover. The Wildlife Society 24th Annual Conference, 23-27 September 2017, Albuquerque, NM. September 2017
Hepinstall-Cymerman, J., T. Prebyl, B. Nuse, C. Moore, and R. Bormann. 2017. Modeling gopher tortoise habitat and habitat connectivity in Georgia using multi-season Landsat imagery and Circuitscape. US-IALE 2017 Annual Meeting, 9-13 April 2017, Baltimore, MD. April 2017
Hepinstall-Cymerman, J., R. Bormann, B. Nuse, C. Moore, and M. Elliott. 2016. Mapping gopher tortoise habitat in Georgia using multi-season Landsat imagery and multiple statistical modeling techniques. The Wildlife Society 23rd Annual Conference, 15-19 October 2016, Raleigh, NC. October 2016
Gaya, H., B. L. Nuse, and C. T. Moore. 2018. A Bayesian hierarchical model to account for bias in gopher tortoise distance sampling. 40th Annual Gopher Tortoise Council Meeting, 12-14 October 2018, Lake Placid, FL. October 2018
Gaya, H., B. L. Nuse, and C. T. Moore. 2018. An interesting nuisance: a Bayesian hierarchical model for distance sampling when a detection covariate is also a demographic property of interest. The Wildlife Society 25th Annual Conference, 7-11 October 2018, Cleveland, OH. October 2018
Gaya, H., B. L. Nuse, T. J. Prebyl, and C. T. Moore. 2019. Assessing stability of gopher tortoise populations through line-transect distance sampling. Oral presentation at 41st Annual Gopher Tortoise Council Meeting, 15-17 November 2019, Gulf Shores, AL. November 2019
Gaya, H., B. L. Nuse, T. J. Prebyl, and C. T. Moore. 2019. Assessing stability of gopher tortoise populations on working lands through line-transect distance sampling. Oral presentation at Joint Annual Conference of American Fisheries Society and The Wildlife Society, 29 September - 3 October 2019, Reno, NV. September 2019
Bryan Nuse, Anna Tucker, John Sweka, Kristen Anstead, Clinton Moore, James Lyons, David Smith, and Conor McGowan, 2022, Updating the adaptive management plan for horseshoe crab harvest and red knot conservation in Delaware Bay. Joint meeting of the American Ornithological Society and Birds Caribbean, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 27 June - 2 July 2022. June 2022
Bormann, R., J. Hepinstall-Cymerman, B. Nuse, C. Moore, and M. Elliott. 2015. (Poster) Modeling gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) distribution in Georgia. 37th Annual Gopher Tortoise Council Meeting, 16-18 October 2015, Covington, LA. October 2015
Technical Publications Publication Date
Nuse, B. L., R. L. Bormann, J. Hepinstall-Cymerman, and C. T. Moore. 2017. Habitat models and predictions for gopher tortoises in Georgia. Final Report to USGS Cooperative Research Units Program. December 2017