HI, I’M MICHAEL COVE.
I am the Research Curator of Mammalogy for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC. In my role at the museum, I lead the planned expansion and increased utilization and accessibility of our extensive mammalogy collection to scientists and the general public. I also oversee my own ACUTE (Applied Conservation and Urban Terrestrial Ecology) research lab where we focus on translating ecological research into conservation and management applications falling within three broad themes:
Mammal community conservation
The conservation of mammalian communities starts with the assessments of populations, their ecosystem interactions, and short-term versus long-term threats. We can utilize this information to inform conservation and recovery plans, implement monitoring schemes, and then determine adaptive management strategies.
Urban and suburban wildlife
Over half of the world’s population lives in urban and suburban environments and that figure is expected to increase dramatically in the not too distant future. As urban sprawl expands into wild lands there is corresponding growth in areas of research related to human-wildlife conflicts and the conservation value of urban habitats. My interest in urban ecology spawned from a project in which I mentored four undergraduates in research projects examining the influences of coyotes on prey and mesopredator communities in suburban habitats in Central Missouri.
SPECIES
INTERACTIONS
Predation plays a central role in ecology. Nutrient flow, trophic dynamics, and food webs all involve predation to link them from primary to tertiary consumers. Large predators are often keystone species and their occurrence helps promote diversity and facilitates coexistence among prey species. Predators, particularly when introduced or ecologically released, can also exert strong negative effects on prey species, which could have further effects down the trophic web. Better understanding of the role that predation plays in the regulation and conservation of ecosystems is a growing area within my research program as it relates to invasive species management and subsidized native predators.
When I’m not conducting research, I can usually be found spending time in the outdoors with my wife and daughter, Mary and Ursula, and our dogs, Ash and Axel. We work towards sustainable living on our homestead - M&M Ranch and Reserve in Zebulon, NC, where we raise our own livestock and produce and manage the wild spaces for wildlife and healthy natural harvests. We love to travel, camp, hike, hunt, and cook together as a family.