Currently, I'm a PhD student in Dr. Tom Gehring's 'Wildlife Lab.' My dissertation research focuses on marsh bird conservation, with an emphasis on rails.
I'm focusing on conducting field-focused research that helps to conserve biodiversity. Specifically, my scientific goals are to 1.) identify habitat requirments of at-risk wildlife species, 2.) evaluate established and emerging wildlife monitoring methods, and 3.) determine the effectiveness of management actions meant to benefit ecosystem health. I've recently focused on birds in urban and wetland ecosystems, though look forward to broadening my experience.
A secondary interest of mine is to analyze functions and characteristics of vocalizations of wildlife, especially when doing so can improve monitoring efforts and/or create a more harmonious human-wildlife interface.
Below are a list of my published, peer-reviewed scientific articles, as well as some articles that are in the works.
Published
Dinehart, R. M., D.E. Brewer, T.M. Gehring, K.L. Pangle, D.G. Uzarski. 2023. Ecologically-scaled responses of marsh birds to water-level fluctuations and invasive Phragmites expansion. Waterbirds.
Liu, Ming, Q. Sun, D. E. Brewer, T. M. Gehring, and J. Eickholt. 2022. An ornithologist’s guide for including machine learning in a workflow to identify a secretive focal species from recorded audio. Remote Sensing.
Brewer, D.E. 2022. The vocal repertoire of Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata): spectrographic snapshots and suggested nomenclature. Wilson Journal of Ornithology. (pdf available upon request)
Brewer, D.E. and A.M. Fudickar. 2022. A preliminary comparison of a songbird’s song repertoire size and other song measures between an urban and a rural site. Ecology and Evolution.
Brewer, D.E. and R. Risch. In 2021. Viability of a Florida Scrub-jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) population in north-central Florida. Florida Field Naturalist.
Brewer, D.E. and A.M. Fudickar. 2020. Perceived wintering latitude determines timing of song output in a migratory bird. Ecology and Evolution.
Brewer, D.E. and A.M. Fudickar. 2019. American Robin (Turdus migratorius) feeds a nestling carcass to nestlings in an urban environment. Urban Naturalist.
In Review
Brewer, D.E., T.M. Gehring, M.M. Garcia, B.T. Shirkey, J.W. Simpson, A.M.V. Fournier. King rail (Rallus elegans) home range and microhabitat characteristics in western Lake Erie coastal marshes. Ecology and Evolution.
Brewer, D.E., A.R. Mahon, M.J. Wirick. Using radio-telemetry to validate eDNA as a tool for detecting a rare secretive marsh bird.
Brewer, D.E., T.M. Gehring, B.T. Shirkey, J.W. Simpson. King Rail (Rallus elegans) response to audio playback: implications for population estimation, monitoring methodology, and trapping approach. Journal of Field Ornithology.