Welcome to the Mccleery lab

Our goals are to foster healthy populations and communities of wild animals and to advance the relationship between humans and the environment. Through research and teaching we provide regional and international leadership in mammalian conservation, global change ecology, and endangered species management.

Dr. Robert A. McCleery
314 Newins-Zielger Hall
Gainesville, FL
(352) 846-0566
​ramccleery@ufl.edu

Research Philosophy

The precipitous decline of the planet’s vertebrate diversity has created immense challenges for human well-being and the maintenance of ecological functionality on our rapidly changing planet. Our research program focuses on understanding the influence of large-scale anthropogenic changes to the environment (e.g., urbanization, intensive agriculture, shrub encroachment, defaunation, sea-level rise, invasive species) on wildlife populations and communities. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we work to understand how anthropogenic drivers alter communities and ecological processes that are important to humans. We also work to understand how to recover endangered species and manage wildlife into human-dominated landscapes, such as agricultural and urban settings.​
Voted one of the top 10 most awesome college labs of 2013 by Popular Science!

Teaching Philosophy

Today’s students are increasingly separated from nature, with minimal understanding, experience, skills, and confidence working in natural settings. Without an ability to understand and appreciate the natural processes and recourses needed to maintain biodiversity, feed a growing population, and enhance human well-being, our students will be unprepared to tackle their generation’s most pressing issues. Our students are awash in scientific information, but the challenge is to teach them to comprehend and synthesize this information, foster critical thinking skills, and apply that knowledge to novel situations. Finally, as the spread of information has accelerated the process of globalization, we are increasingly connected to economic, social, and political activity outside of our borders. To thrive in this new reality, our students must be able to work effectively in a cross-cultural and global environment. ​To address these challenges, we believe it is critical to engage students in natural setting, foster active learning and incorporate field activities into our classes. To promote problem solving and engagement, we often use a flipped classroom approach and emphasize experiential learning techniques. To enhance students’ cultural intelligence, we created and continue to lead a study abroad classes to Eswatini and South Africa. Additionally, we have run intensive undergraduate research programs (NSF funded) that pair students with African researchers. Today more than ever we also believe that successful instruction necessitates dynamic teachers. As teachers, we continually adapt and change to our students’ needs, technological advances, job opportunities, and political and social realities.

Recent news

Lab News
February 2021

Marina successfully defended her MS proposal!

November 2020

Zoe defended her dissertation! Congratulations Dr. Nhleko!

Bob received one of 6 regional Excellence in Teaching awards from the U.S Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA)! Read more about this prestigious award here.

October 2020

Congratulations to Katie on her new job as a research scientist with the Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI) in Tallahassee, FL!
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Congratulations to Lorna on her new job with the National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC) in Fort Collins, CO!

September 2020
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We welcome Rebecca McKee to the lab as a new PhD student! Rebecca's research will focus on interactions between mammals and invasive Pythons in the Everglades.

August 2020

Three McCleery Lab members successfully defended last month! Congratulations to Dr. Fezile Mtsetfwa, Dr. Katie Hooker, and Lorna McCallister, MSc!

Click here to watch Katie's exit seminar.
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Click here to watch Fezile's exit seminar.

Alex, Jack, and Maggie successfully defended their proposals and are looking forward to starting their field work.

Bob published an editorial in Science calling for a conservation bailout.

Former McCleery Lab member Karen Bailey co-authored an editorial to Nature calling for equity in recognition of Black women scholars.
Publications
For access to all McCleery Lab publications, click here​
Bold names indicate current and former McCleery lab members 
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Accolades & Awards
Rebecca received a $1000 WEC Jennings Scholarship.

Fezile won the best student presentation award at the Savanna Science Networking Meeting.

Alex was awarded $1000 from the Florida Wildlife Federation Scholarship and received a $1140 grant from the University of Florida Open Access Publishing Fund to pay for open access fees for a recent publication. 

Cat was awarded $1000 from the African Safari Club of Florida Scholarship

Marina received a $1000 WEC Jennings Scholarship.

Cat received a $1000 UF Doris Lowe and Earl and Verna Lowe Scholarship and a $2000 UF Courtney A. Tye Memorial Graduate Student Scholarship.

Our Research

Southeastern Fox Squirrels

We study a variety of aspects of southeastern fox squirrel ecology, including fox squirrel movement (in conjunction with NEON sites), behavior, genetics, and conservation initiatives. You can find out more about how we use NEON sites to transform wildlife research by clicking here.

South African Landscapes

We have ongoing long-term research in South Africa and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) focusing on everything from plant communities to rodent monitoring to megaherbivore impacts on ecosystems.

Invasive pythons

We research the effects of invasive Burmese pythons on mammal communities in the Florida Everglades ecosystem. We partner with various state and federal agencies, along with private landowners to determine how pythons are impacting native animal communities and try to identify novel ways to remove invasive pythons from the ecosystem.
For more information about our research, check out our publications, follow us on Twitter and YouTube, or contact us directly.

Graduate students

Please contact graduate students directly for inquiries about specific research or opportunities to help out on a project
Click here to see McCleery Lab alumni

Alex Potash
degree: phD

Alex is originally from Burlington, VT, and joined the McCleery lab in 2016. He completed his MS in 2018 and continued into a PhD position in the McCleery Lab. Alex is interested in predator-prey relationships, with a focus on understanding how fear of predation affects ecosystem process. 
​
Google Scholar
ResearchGate

​Email: apotash@ufl.edu​

Cat frock
degree: phd

Cat grew up in the mountains of western NC and joined the McCleery lab in 2016 as a Ph.D. student. Cat is interested in animal behavior and landscape ecology, with a focus on applying these topics to conservation efforts.

Website 
Google Scholar
ResearchGate
​ORCID

​Email: cffrock@ufl.edu

jack hartfelder
degree: phd

Jack grew up in Nashville, TN, and joined the McCleery lab in 2018. Jack is interested in African savanna ecology, with a special interest in the ecology of the common hippopotamus. His PhD research focuses on understanding the determinants of hippopotamus distributions, foraging ecology and their impacts on the savanna herbivore community.

Email: jhartfelder@ufl.edu​

maggie jones ​​
​degree: phd

Maggie is from Elkins, WV and started her PhD with the McCleery lab in 2018. She completed her MS in Wildlife Ecology at Iowa State University, where she studied the effects of immunocontraception on feral horse behavior and physiology. Her PhD research centers around plant-herbivore interactions in African savannas, specifically focusing on the effects of different herbivores on savanna tree demography.

​​Email: jones.m@ufl.edu

Marina McCampbell 
​​degree: ms

Marina is from Tallahassee, Florida, and began her masters research in the McCleery lab in 2019. She researches Burmese python and small mammal interactions in the Greater Everglades Ecosystem. Marina is passionate about researching anthropogenic effects on wildlife, especially those stemming from invasive species, environmental contamination, and habitat loss and degradation.

​Email: marinamccampbell@ufl.edu

Paul Taillie
​​degree: post-doc

Paul grew up in upstate New York and received his B.S. from Cornell in 2006.  After several years working seasonally as a field technician, he went to North Carolina State University for his M.S. and PhD, and then joined the McCleery lab at UF at the beginning of 2019. His research addresses how global change affects priority wildlife species and biodiversity more broadly, with a focus on wetland systems and disturbance. 

Website
Google Scholar
ResearchGate

​Email: paultaillie@ufl.edu

Rebecca mckee
​degree: phd

​Rebecca joined the McCleery Lab in the fall of 2020. Originally from the mountains of North Carolina, Rebecca completed her B.S in environmental studies at Davidson College and her M.S. in wildlife ecology and management at the University of Georgia in 2019. She is broadly interested in wildlife ecology and animal behavior. Her PhD research will focus on the interactions of mammals and invasive pythons in the Everglades. 

Website
Google Scholar
ResearchGate

Email: rmckee@ufl.edu

zoe nhleko
​​degree: phd

Zoe is originally from Pietermaritzburg, the capital city of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. When not on campus she works and lives in the Kruger National Park in Mpumalanga SA. She's interested in finding ways to ensure the reproductive success of rhino populations so that the populations can shield themselves against the high levels of poaching they currently face.

​​Email: znhleko@ufl.edu

Contact

  ramccleery@ufl.edu   |   (352) 846-0566            
Feel free to contact Dr. McCleery using the form below. Please contact graduate students directly using their contact information above.
For website issues, please contact Alex Potash

314 newins-ziegler hall
Gainesville, florida
​​"Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language."
-Aldo Leopold