Research Interests

I am a quantitative large mammal ecologist whose primary research focus is movement and habitat selection of ungulates. I am broadly interested in questions related to how animals deal with change in their environment at multiple temporal scales, either seasonal changes within a year or changes in conditions across years. How animals acclimate their behaviour allows us as ecologists to better predict how individuals and populations will fare as climate changes. I aim to tackle these questions using an individual approach, incorporating individual differences in behaviour among individuals to elucidate the variation in behavioural movement phenotypes within populations. By providing a baseline for heritability, variation in phenotypes provides a vital first step in quantifying how individuals may be able adapt to changing environmental conditions.
 
I am currently an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Wyoming with the Merkle Research Group. I am investigating how forage availability and environmental conditions at fine spatiotemporal scales drive ungulate movement during migration in the context of animals following the green wave of forage availability during spring migration. I’m also investigating how migrants select for forage at different spatial scales and the trade-offs between selection at various scales. I am also involved in a collaborative project looking to document and map global animal migrations.

Academic Background
October 2021–Present: NSERC Post-Doctoral Fellow, Merkle Research Group, University of Wyoming - Jerod Merkle
​Fine-scale drivers of migration and movement in ungulates. Forage selection across spatiotemporal scales, mapping of global ungulate migrations.

January 2016–October 2021: PhD candidate, Wildlife Evolutionary Ecology Lab, Memorial University - Eric Vander Wal
Fitness consequences and individual-level quantification of caribou behavioural reaction norms to changing resource phenology. Thesis successfully defended October 2021.

September 2019-March 2020: Visiting Fulbright Student, Merkle Research Group, University of Wyoming (shortened due to Covid-19) - Jerod Merkle
Plasticity in migration timing and repeatability of green wave surfing behaviour of North American ungulates.

May 2014–December 2015: Research assistant, University of Saskatchewan - Ryan K. Brook
Resource selection and climate-driven range expansion of moose in agro-ecosystems. Phenology of polar bear visitation to field camps in Western Hudson Bay.

January 2012–October 2014: MSc, University of Saskatchewan, Animal Population Ecology Lab - Philip McLoughlin
Scale and grain size in white-tailed deer habitat selection and functional response.

September 2005–April 2010: Honours BSc, University of Saskatchewan
Thesis: Dyadic interaction rate as a function of home-range overlap in elk (Cervus canadensis)
Contact:

Michel Laforge
Department of Zoology and Physiology
University of Wyoming
Biological Sciences 439
1000 E. University Ave.
Laramie, WY
82071
E: m.laforge@mun.ca
T: @MamlSpatialEcol