Our Team

Dr. Stan Boutin’s interests include population dynamics of boreal species and he holds an Alberta Biodiversity Conservation Chair with the objective of providing people with the information and tools necessary to make ecologically-informed land use decisions. The lab is focused on making ecological research relevant to society by tackling pressing conservation issues related to human land use and climate change. Dr. Boutin’s work takes place in the heart of Alberta’s Oil Sands and extends across Western Canada, where conservation challenges are immense and economic stakes are high. This creates an excellent opportunity to study large-scale systems undergoing rapid human-induced change. A “poster child” for this situation is the woodland caribou, whose threatened status and large-scale habitat requirements make it an interesting case that challenges Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA). Through a major effort to build collaborations with industry and government, Alberta now has one of the most comprehensive pictures of woodland caribou population dynamics in the country. The Boutin lab has done foundational research to determine the proximate cause of widespread caribou declines and has proposed innovative conservation actions. Although the core of the project is applied, Dr. Boutin’s group has also tested ecological theory involving predator-mediated Allee effects, apparent competition, and landscape genetics. We are now at a critical stage of the caribou recovery process in Alberta and Western Canada, creating the opportunity to implement and monitor a series of innovative recovery experiments.  

Dr. DeMars is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Alberta and has been conducting research on woodland caribou for the past seven years. Much of his research has focused on the spatial dynamics of caribou and their predators in working, multi-use landscapes. During the last three years, he has worked on developing province-wide predictive maps of boreal caribou habitat for British Columbia and Alberta and has also provided recommendations for implementing a new monitoring program for boreal caribou populations in the Northwest Territories. Craig has given numerous presentations on caribou ecology to various stakeholder groups including industry, government and First Nations and has presented his research findings at professional conferences nationally and internationally.

Natasha’s main role within the Caribou Monitoring Unit is to oversee data collection and management, largely from remote cameras, to satisfy research goals supporting caribou recovery. Natasha also works closely with industry, government and First Nations partners on research design and activities. Natasha master’s research, completed with Dr. Erin Bayne and Dr. Cynthia Paszkowski at the University of Alberta, used autonomous recording units to better understand the impacts of industrial footprint and activity on vocalizing amphibians in northeastern Alberta. Natasha continues to work in bioacoustic research for another branch of the ABMI, the Bioacoustic Unit. Her role with the Bioacoustic Unit complements her work with the Caribou Monitoring Unit, allowing her to crosswalk research activities and use her background with different remote sensors to design projects that best answer ecological questions.

Dr. Lamb’s research focuses on the population dynamics of large mammals to productivity and human influences. He has worked on numerous species (e.g., caribou, grizzly bears, elk, wolverine, and lynx) across western North America over the past decade. An important aspect of his research is working collaboratively to take science through to meaningful action for wildlife and the people who coexist with them. Currently, he is working on mountain and boreal caribou recovery projects, with a specific focus on population ecology. His main project is with the West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations, who, along with a collaborative team of scientists and governments have successfully averted the extirpation of the Klinse-Za caribou herd and doubled its abundance since 2013.

Mateen’s MSc research, completed at the University of British Columbia focused on moose ecology and behavior in response to experimental moose management policies (for mountain caribou recovery) within the Revelstoke Valley, British Columbia. Mateen is an enrolled tribal member of the Wyandotte Nation and is passionate about weaving his Indigenous and Western upbringing within his research engagements and outputs. Prior to his MSc, Mateen completed his BSc in Wildlife Biology at the University of Montana where he worked on multiple large mammal research projects including his undergraduate thesis where he used a remote camera network to estimate calf:cow ratios for a population of elk outside of Banff, Alberta. Mateen’s current work with the CMU and ABMI focuses on supporting Provincial and Indigenous governments to monitor, recover, and manage caribou other culturally significant species such as moose.

Dr. Bruce McLellan is a retired Wildlife Research Ecologist, previously working for the British Columbia Forest Service. For 39 years Bruce has conducted ecological studies of grizzly bears in 6 study areas in BC and for 25 years, mountain caribou across most of their distribution. This research has led him directly into the complex interface between people using the land and conservation of these two challenging species. Bruce was once the president of the International Association for Bear Research and Management, then co-chair of the IUCN Bear Specialist Group, and is now the Red List Authority for the Bear Specialist Group.