Wisconsin Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit Staff Member
Christian Che-Castaldo
Assistant Unit Leader
Phone: (608 264-0809) -
Email: cche-castaldo@usgs.gov
Faculty Email: checastaldo@wisc.edu
News:
Biography
Dr. Che-Castaldo received his Ph.D. in Behavior, Ecology, Evolution and Systematics from the University of Maryland, College Park. He was an IACS Postdoctoral Fellow at Stony Brook University's Institute for Advanced Computational Science, a Research Scientist at the Mount St. Helens Institute and a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University, before joining the Wisconsin Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit in 2023.
Dr. Che-Castaldo is a quantitative ecologist interested in population and community ecology, primary succession, and building pipelines to facilitate species conservation. His research focuses on combining remote sensing with long-term ecological data using Bayesian hierarchical models, with an emphasis on high-performance computing, forecasting, and reproducible science. Dr. Che-Castaldo is a co-developer of the Antarctic Penguin Biogeography Project, an open-access decision support tool designed for Southern Ocean managers, scientists, and the public. He also has a long-standing interest in the ecological recovery of Mount St. Helens following its 1980 volcanic eruption.
Areas of Expertise
Climate Change, Entomology, GIS/Spatial Analysis, Landscape Ecology, Managed Flows/Hydrology, Marine/Coastal Ecology, Movement Ecology, Population Dynamics, Population and Community Ecology, Remote Sensing, Species Distribution Modeling, Statistics and Modelling
Taxon Groups Studied
Amphibians, Coastal/Marine Birds, Invertebrates/Insects, Mussels
Research Publications | Publication Date |
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Şen, B., C. Che-Castaldo, H. J. Lynch, F. Ventura, M. A. LaRue and S. Jenouvrier. 2024. Detecting stochasticity in population time series using a non-parametric test of intrinsic predictability. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 15:1834–1846. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.14423. | Abstract | Download | Publisher Website | August 2024 |
Wu, H., C. Flynn, C. Hall, C. Che-Castaldo, D. Samaras, M. Schwaller and H. J. Lynch. 2024. Penguin colony georegistration using camera pose estimation and phototourism. PLOS ONE 9(10): e0311038. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311038 | Abstract | Download | Publisher Website | October 2024 |
Şen, B., C. Che-Castaldo and H. R. Akçakaya. 2024. The potential for species distribution models to distinguish source populations from sinks. Journal of Animal Ecology, 00:1–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365- 2656.14201 | Abstract | Download | Publisher Website | October 2024 |
Project | Completion Date |
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Antarctic Marine Predators in a Dynamic Climate | December 2024 |
Identifying Population Tipping Points Through Imagery Super-Resolution | May 2025 |
Advancing Trail Camera Monitoring Through Simulation | August 2027 |
Building Ecological Data Pipelines for Listed Species Permit Data | January 2025 |
Presentations | Presentation Date |
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Şen, B., S. Jenouvrier and C. Che-Castaldo. 2024. Quantifying the short- and long-term predictability of Adélie penguin populations. American Geophysical Union Conference, Washington DC. | December 2024 |
DuVivier, A.K., K. Krumhardt, L. Landrum, Z. Sylvester, C. Che-Castaldo, A. Eparvier, M. M. Holland, S. Jenouvrier, S. Labrousse, M. LaRue, C. Nissen, B. Şen and C. M. Brooks. 2025. Quantifying the value of Antarctic polynyas on the ecosystem from phytoplankton to penguins. American Meteorological Society Denver Summit, Denver, CO. | May 2025 |
Che-Castaldo, C., M. Schwaller and H. J. Lynch. 2024. Identifying population tipping points through imagery super-resolution. NASA Biological Diversity and Ecological Conservation Team Meeting, Silver Spring, MD. | July 2024 |
Che-Castaldo, C. and M. Schwaller. 2024. Scaling up: Satellite super-resolution modeling for large-scale penguin population monitoring. International Statistical Ecology Conference, Swansea, Wales, UK. | July 2024 |