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California State University, San Marcos

Department of Biological Sciences

William B. Kristan

Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences.  Ph.D. Biology 2001: University of California, Riverside.  Dr. Kristan has worked on a variety of topics in animal and plant ecology. His research mixes field ecology, landscape ecology, and theoretical population biology. Current student projects include studies of freeloading ravens and crows at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, characteristics of Mexican fan palm invasion of riparian areas of San Diego County, effects of water supplementation on bird and mammalian predator distributions in local shrublands, and perennial pepperweed invasion in the San Dieguito River Park. Additionally, he is involved in modeling invasion risk by cheatgrass and red brome in the Owyhee Uplands of Oregon. Mathematical and statistical projects include improving the predictive power of statistical habitat models, and modeling the effects of habitat-induced correlations in demographic population models. Most of Dr. Kristan's work is aimed at topics with applications in conservation biology.

Representative Publications:

Kristan, W.B. III. 2006. Sources and expectations for hierarchical structure in bird-habitat associations. The Condor 108:5-12.

 

Kristan, W.B. III and J.M. Scott. 2006. Hierarchical models for avian ecologists. The Condor 108:1-4.

 

Cornford, A., W.B. Kristan III, S. Mahove, W.B. Kristan, Jr., and K.A. French. 2006. Functions of the sub-esophageal ganglion in the medicinal leech revealed by ablation of neuromeres in embryos. Journal of Experimental Biology 209:493-503.

 

French, K.A., Chang, J., Reynolds, S., Gonzalez, R., Kristan, W.B. III, and Kristan, W.B. Jr. 2005. Development of swimming in the medicinal leech, the gradual acquisition of a behavior. Journal of Comparative Physiology A. 191:813-821.

 

Kristan, W.B. III, W.I. Boarman, and J. Crayon. 2004. Diet composition of Common Ravens across the urban-wildland interface of the west Mojave Desert. The Wildlife Society Bulletin. 32:244-253.

 

Kristan, W.B. III. 2003. Sources, sinks and ecological traps: effects of habitat choice on population dynamics. Oikos 103:257-468.

 

Kristan, W.B. III and W.I. Boarman. 2003. The spatial distribution of risk of desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) predation by Common Ravens (Corvus corax). Ecology 84:2432-2443.

 

Kristan, W.B. III, A.J. Lynam, M.V. Price, and J.T. Rotenberry. 2003. Alternative causes of edge-abundance relationships in birds and small mammals of California coastal sage-scrub. Ecography 26:29-44.

 

Kristan, W.B. III. 2003. Technological tools: Open-source software for ecologists: a quick introduction to open-source software. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 84:30-33. editor reviewed

 

Chase, M.K., W.B. Kristan III, A.J. Lynam, M.V. Price, and J.T. Rotenberry. 2000. Single species as indicators of species richness and composition in California coastal sage scrub birds and small mammals. Conservation Biology 14:474-487.

 

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