Ankit Raj

Fire and Mammal Communities through Time: Past, Present and Future (PhD Dissertation)

With Prof. Jenny McGuire (Georgia Tech)

• Quantifying how fire, climate, and human activity shaped mammal communities in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem over 17,000 years using multi-site charcoal and fossil records, and extending the analysis across North America
• Reconstructing fire history and mammal change from a single cave deposit (Natural Trap Cave, WY) using charcoal peak detection and Bayesian age–depth modeling
• Comparing past, present, and projected fire regimes using paleofire records and satellite data (MTBS, MODIS burned area and tree cover) to test whether mammal–vegetation relationships hold under future fire
• Applied fire management: modeling fire-spread and wildlife-movement connectivity to design firebreak corridors that limit large fires while keeping wildlife movement pathways open

Disruption in Trait-Environment Relationships in African Large Mammals

With Prof. Jenny McGuire (Georgia Tech) & Dr. Michelle Lawing (Texas A&M)

Quantifying trait-environment relationships using ecometric modeling and evaluating point connectivity using Omniscape connectivity modeling. Developed novel methods for analyzing ecometric anomaly significance.

Patterns of Ecospace Utilization in Marine Invertebrates (MS Thesis)

With Dr. Subhronil Mondal (IISER Kolkata) & Prof. Phillip Novack-Gottshall (Benedictine University)

Quantified ecological diversity using theoretical ecospace framework. Analyzed ecospace structuring in the aftermath of the Permian-Triassic mass extinction and during the Mesozoic Marine Revolution. Used machine learning to classify models of ecological diversification.