Biography
I grew up in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee (USA) and earned a B.A. from the University of Colorado in 1996 and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with a Minor in Statistics from Iowa State University in 2003. My research interests include landscape ecology, conservation biology, ornithology and quantitative science. I have long-term field research in the Everglades (USA) and in southern Africa, where my team blends applied field ecology with quantitative modeling to address the biodiversity crisis. I have published over 145 scientific articles and am the lead author of the book, Spatial Ecology and Conservation Modeling (2018, Springer). While based at the University of Florida (2007-2024), I received over $12M USD in funding from a wide range of sponsors, including the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Agriculture, and the US Army Corps of Engineers. In 2024, I was the recipient of the Distinguished Landscape Ecologist Award from the International Association of Landscape Ecology. I am a committed teacher and mentor, having mentored over 40 graduate students and postdocs. I moved to Cambridge in 2024 to accept a position as the Miriam Rothschild Professor of Conservation Biology. I am part of the Conservation Science Group in the Conservation Research Institute.
Research
Nearly all aspects of conservation play out in space. Area-based conservation planning, climate change mitigation, strategies to halt the spread of invasive species, restoration and rewilding, and land management all occur across landscapes. It is now well known that explicitly accounting for space in ecology and conservation, or spatial ecology and conservation, is necessary for reliable answers to pressing ecological questions and for providing effective conservation solutions (Fletcher and Fortin 2018). Spatial ecology and conservation has rapidly advanced in recent decades. With innovations in data collection across both broad and fine scales, ‘big data’ are now widely available that are spatially explicit. At the same time, the growth in models, theory, and novel ways to apply spatial data to conservation has been substantial. As the ongoing biodiversity crisis is driven by rapid environmental change that plays out in space and time, these advancements have made, and continue to make, essential contributions to our understanding of biodiversity and its conservation across the planet. The overarching goal of my research program is to improve biodiversity science and conservation by advancing concepts, theory, and quantitative tools in landscape and spatial ecology and applying them to conservation problems to combat the biodiversity crisis.
Our group is part of the Conservation Science Group in the Department of Zoology. We are a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary group, where we work closely with practitioners, engineers, computer scientists, economists, and social scientists to gain more reliable knowledge for conservation. We strive to be inclusive and promote both equity and diversity in our approach to science, training, and conservation.
Publications
(*denotes lab members)
Fletcher, R. J., Jr., T. A. H. Smith*, S. Troy*, N. Kortessis, E. C. Turner, E. M. Bruna, and R. D. Holt. 2024. The prominent role of the matrix in ecology, evolution, and conservation. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 55.
Fletcher, R. J., Jr., M. A. Beatty*, L. Elmquist*, B. M. Jeffery*, C. L. Poli*, and E. P. Robertson*. 2024. An invasive prey and changing climate interact to shape the breeding phenology of an endangered predator. Global Change Biology 30:e17478
Liczner, A. R., R. Pither, J.R. Bennet, J.Bownman, K.R. Hall, R.J. Fletcher, Jr., A.T. Ford, J.L. Michalak, B. Rayfield, J. Wittische, and J. Pither. Advances and challenges in connectivity conservation science. Ecology and Evolution. 14:e70231.
Peniston, J. H., G. A. Backus, M. L. Baskett, R. J. Fletcher, Jr., and R. D. Holt. 2024. Ecological and evolutionary consequences of temporal variation in dispersal. Ecography 2024:e06699.
Ewers, R.M, C. D. Orme, ...R.J. Fletcher, Jr..., G. Reynolds, and C.Banks-Leite (133 authors). Ecological thresholds for adding degraded tropical forests to the conservation estate. Nature 631:808-813.
McCleery, R., R. Guralnick, M. Beatty*, M. Belitz, C. Campbell, J. Idec, M. Jones*, Y. Kang, A. Potash, and R. J. Fletcher, Jr. 2023. Uniting experiments and big data to advance ecology and conservation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 38:970-979.
Vasudev, D.*, R. J. Fletcher, Jr., N. Srinivas, A. J. Marx*, and V. Goswami. 2023. Mapping the connectivity-conflict interface to inform conservation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 120: e2211482119.
Fletcher, R. J., Jr., T. A. H. Smith*, N. Kortessis, E. M. Bruna, and R. D. Holt. 2023. Landscape experiments unlock the relationships among habitat loss, fragmentation and patch-size effects. Ecology 104: e4037.
Candolin, U., R. J. Fletcher, Jr., and A. Stephens. 2023. Animal behaviour in a changing world. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 38:313-315.
Fletcher, R. J., Jr., A. O’Brien*, T. Hall, M. Jones*, A. D. Potash, L. Kruger, P. Simelane, K. Roques, A. Monadjem, and R. A. McCleery. 2023. Frightened of giants: fear responses to elephants approach that of predators. Biology Letters 19: 20230202.
Fletcher, R. J., Jr., M. G. Betts, E. I. Damschen, T. Hefley, J. Hightower*, T. Smith*, M. J. Fortin, and N. M. Haddad. 2023. Addressing the problem of scale that emerges with habitat fragmentation. Global Ecology and Biogeography 32: 828-841.
Fletcher, R. J., Jr., J. A. Sefair, N. Kortessis*, R. Jaffe, R. D. Holt, E. P. Robertson*, S. Duncan, A. J. Marx*, J. D. Austin. 2022. Extending isolation by resistance to predict genetic connectivity. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 13:2463-2477.
Yamaura, Y., R. J. Fletcher Jr., S. J. Lade, M. Higa, and D. Lindenmayer. 2022. From nature reserve to mosaic management: improving matrix survival, not permeability, benefits regional populations under habitat loss and fragmentation. Journal of Applied Ecology 59:1472-1483.
Nunez-Regueiro, M.*, S. F. Siddiqui*, and R. J. Fletcher, Jr. 2021. Effects of bioenergy on biodiversity arising from land-use change and crop type. Conservation Biology 35:77-87.
Hartfelder, J.*, C. Reynolds, R. Stanton*, M. Sibiya*, A. Monadjem, and R. A. McCleery, R. J. Fletcher, Jr. 2020. The allometry of movement predicts the connectivity of communities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 117:22274-22280.
McCleery, R. A., R. J. Fletcher, Jr., L. Kruger, D. Govender, S. Ferreira. 2020. Conservation needs a COVID-19 bailout. Science 369:515-516.
Damschen, E. I., L. A. Brudvig, M. Burt, R. J. Fletcher, Jr., N. M. Haddad, D. J. Levey, J. L. Orrock, J. Resasco, and J. J. Tewksbury. 2019. Ongoing accumulation of plant diversity through habitat connectivity in an 18-year experiment. Science 365:1478-1480.
Nunez-Regueiro, M.*, R. J. Fletcher, Jr., E. Pienaar, L. Branch, J. Volante, and S. Rifai. 2019. Adding the temporal dimension to spatial patterns of PES enrollment. Ecosystem Services 36:100906.
Fletcher, R. J., Jr., T. Hefley, E. P. Robertson, R. A. McCleery, B. Zuckerberg, and B. Dorazio. 2019. A practical guide to combining data for predicting species distributions. Ecology 100:e02710.
Udell, B.*, J. Martin, R. J. Fletcher Jr., M. Bonneau, H. Edwards, T. Gowan, S. K. Hardy, E. Gurarie, C. S. Calleson, C. J. Deutsch. 2019. Integrating encounter theory with decision analysis to evaluate collision risk and optimal configurations of wildlife protection zones. Journal of Applied Ecology 56:1050-1062.
McCleery, R. A., A. Mondjem, B. Baiser, R. J. Fletcher, Jr., K. Vickers, and L. Kruger. 2018. Animal diversity declines with broad-scale homogenization of canopy cover in African savannas. Biological Conservation 226:64-72.
Stanton, R. A., Jr. *, W. W. Boone, J. Soto-Shoender, R. J. Fletcher, Jr., N. Blaum, and R. A. McCleery. 2018. Shrub encroachment and vertebrate diversity: a global meta-analysis. Global Ecology and Biogeography 27:368-379.
Fletcher, R. J., Jr. and M.-J. Fortin. 2018. Spatial Ecology and Conservation Modeling. Springer Publishing. 523 pp.
