I am an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Studies Department at Wofford College. My research interests include tropical ecology, conservation biology, and sustainability in human-modified ecosystems. My current field sites are located in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, Pantanal, and Cerrado biomes, where I use large mammal habitat use patterns as conservation proxies for evaluating changing tropical ecosystems.
PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences
Vanderbilt University
MS in Earth Science
University of California, Santa Barbara
BSc in Geology
College of Charleston
Tropical ecosystems regulate global climate, act as carbon sinks, and contain some of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world. Yet, they are also among the most threatened ecosystems on the planet. Thus, knowledge of their evolution and response to changing conditions is of critical importance.
Large mammals provide an interesting angle through which to evaluate changing tropical ecosystems, as they have unique top-down effects and can directly moderate ecosystem services, species diversity and abundance, and amount of suitable habitat for other organisms. My research combines techniques from conservation biology, computer modeling, landscape ecology, stable isotope geochemistry, and movement ecology to understand how large mammals access and utilize their environments and how aspects of their biology, including diet and movement, vary in fragmented and agricultural ecosystems. Analyzing these large mammal habitat use patterns provides information on how ecosystems may be altered in the future in response to anthropogenic alteration.
Please click on the links below to learn more about specific projects
*Modeling habitat-use patterns as conservation proxies
Assessing aspects of large mammal diet in response to changing environmental conditions
Assessing aspects of large mammal movement in response to land use change
Jorge MLSP, Keuroghlian A, Bradham J, Oshima J, Ribeiro M. 2019. White-lipped peccary movement and range in agricultural lands of Central Brazil. Page in R. Reyna-Hurtado and C. A. Chapman, editors. Movement Ecology of Neotropical Forest Mammals.
Bradham, J., Jorge, M. L. S., Pedrosa, F., Keuroghlian, A., Costa, V. E., Bercê, W., & Galetti, M. (2019). Spatial isotopic dietary plasticity of a Neotropical forest ungulate: the white-lipped peccary(Tayassu pecari). Journal of Mammalogy, 100(2), 464-474.
Bradham JL, DeSantis LRG, Jorge MLSP, Keuroghlian A. 2018. Dietary variability of extinct tayassuids and modern white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) as inferred from dental microwear and stable isotope analysis. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 499:93–101.
Bradham, J., Flynn, J. J., Croft, D. A., & Wyss, A. R. (2015). New notoungulates (Notostylopidae and basal toxodontians) from the early Oligocene Tinguiririca Fauna of the Andean Main Range, central Chile. American Museum Novitates, 2015(3841), 1-25.
Jorge, M., Bradham, J., Oshima, J., Ribeiro, M., and Keuroghlian, A. in prep. Well-connected patches of forest still needed for a highly mobile social ungulate in Neotropical agricultural lands. To be subitted to the Brazilian Journal of Nature Conservation.
Bradham, J., Yip, C., Jorge, M., Gilligan, J., Oshima, J., Keuroghlian, A., and Ribeiro, M. in prep. Linking individual-based modeling and high-resolution animal movement data to evaluate habitat use in fragmented ecosystems: a case study in central Brazil. To be submitted to Landscape Ecology.
Bradham, J., Maeterns, T., Jorge, M., and Keuroghlian, A. in prep. Ecosystem consequences of altered movement and habitat use patterns from a Neotropical ungulate. To be submitted to Conservation Biology.