William Fagan

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Distinguished University Professor

Contact
Email: bfagan@umd.edu
Office Phone: 301.405.4672
Lab: 301.405.4512
Fax: 301.314.9358
Office Address: 1200-A Bio-Psych
                        3235 Bio-Psych
URL: http://www.clfs.umd.edu/biology/faganlab/

Teaching
HONR 238N  Honors Interdisciplinary Seminar:   Extinction Risk: Where Biology, Geography, and Mathematics Meet

BIOL 708T   Theoretical Ecology

BIOL 708U   Practicum in Data Analysis

Graduate Program Affiliations
  • Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Sciences (MEES)
  • BISI - BISI-Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, & Genomics (CBBG)
  • BISI - BISI-Behavior, Ecology, Evolution, & Systematics (BEES)
  • Applied Mathematics & Statistics, and Scientific Computation (AMSC) Program


Research Interests
My research involves meshing field biology with theoretical models to address critical questions in community ecology and conservation biology. I believe that ecological theory will be strengthened if it is forced to help solve real-world problems, and that conservation biology involves difficult choices that demand quantitative approaches. My ongoing research falls in several areas that illustrate this melding of theory and problem-solving, including 1) spatial ecological dynamics, 2) ecoinformatics, biodiversity databases, and conservation planning, and 3) animal movement ecology.


Current Research
Please see my lab website (http://www.clfs.umd.edu/biology/faganlab/) for information on current projects. 
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Recent Publications
  • Thompson, P., W.F. Fagan, and P.P.A. Staniczenko. 2020. Predictor species: Improving assessments of rare species occurrence by modeling environmental co-responses. Ecology and Evolution. 10: 3293-3304.
  • Barry, T., E. Gurarie, F. Cheraghi, I. Kojola, and W.F. Fagan. In press. Does dispersal make the heart grow bolder? Variation in habitat selection across wolf life history. Animal Behavior, in press.
  • Mainali, K., T. Hefley, L. Ries, and W.F. Fagan. In press. What kinds of expert range maps best match predictions from species distribution models? Conservation Biology. In press.
  • Gurarie, E., M. Hebblewhite, K. Joly, A. P. Kelly, J. Adamczewski, S.C. Davidson, T. Davison, A. Gunn, M. Suitor, W. F. Fagan, and N. Boelman. 2020. Tactical departures and strategic arrivals: Divergent effects of climate and weather on caribou spring migrations. Ecosphere. 10: p.e02971.
  • Che-Castaldo, C., C. Crisafulli, J.G. Bishop, E.F. Zipkin, and W.F. Fagan. 2019. Disentangling herbivore impacts in primary succession by refocusing the plant stress and vigor hypotheses on phenology. Ecological Monographs. p.e01389.
  • Fagan, W. F., T. Hoffman, D. Dahiya, E. Gurarie, S. Cantrell, and C. Cosner. 2019. Improved foraging by switching between diffusion and advection: Benefits from movement that depends on spatial context. Theoretical Ecology. p 1-10.
  • Swain, A., and W.F. Fagan. 2019. Group size and decision-making: Experimental evidence for Minority Games in fish behavior. Animal Behavior. 155: 9-19.
  • Noonan, M.J., M.A. Tucker, C.H. Fleming, …52 other coauthors …, W.F. Fagan, T. Mueller, and J.M. Calabrese. 2019. A comprehensive analysis of autocorrelation and bias in home range estimation. Ecological Monographs. 89: p.e01344.
  • Bewick, S., F. Agusto, J. M. Calabrese, E. J. Muturi, and W.F. Fagan. 2016. Epidemiology of La Crosse virus encephalitis emergence, Appalachia Region, United States. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 22: 1921.
  • Bewick, S., P. Staniczenko, B. Li, D. Karig, and W.F. Fagan. 2017. Invasion speeds in microbial systems with toxin production and quorum sensing. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 420: 290-303.
  • Fagan, W. F., E. Gurarie, S. Bewick, A. Howard, S. Cantrell, and C. Cosner. 2017. Perceptual ranges, information gathering, and foraging success in dynamic landscapes. American Naturalist. 189: 474-489.
  • Zhou, J., and W.F. Fagan. 2017. A discrete time model for populations in habitats with time-varying sizes. Journal of Mathematical Biology. 1-56.
  • Bewick, S., R.S. Cantrell, C. Cosner, and W.F. Fagan. 2016. How resource phenology affects consumer population dynamics. American Naturalist, 187: 151-166.
  • Foss-Grant, A. P., E. F. Zipkin, J.T. Thorson, O. P. Jensen, and W.F. Fagan. 2016. Hierarchical analysis of phylogenetic variation in intraspecific competition across fish species. Ecology, 97:1724-1734.
  • Teitelbaum, C., S. Converse, W.F. Fagan, K. Boehning-Gaese, R. O’Hara, A. Lacey, and T. Mueller. 2016. Experience drives innovation of new migration patterns of whooping cranes in response to global change. Nature Communications. 7:12793 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12793
  • Teitelbaum, C., W.F. Fagan, C.H. Fleming, G. Dressler, J.M. Calabrese, P. Leimgruber, and T. Mueller. 2015. How far to go? Determinants of migration distance of land mammals. Ecology Letters. 18: 545-552. (Cover Article)
  • Fleming, C.H., J.M. Calabrese, T. Mueller, K.A. Olson, P. Leimgruber, and W.F. Fagan. 2014. From fine-scale foraging to home ranges: A semi-variance approach to identifying movement modes across spatiotemporal scales. American Naturalist. E154-E167.
  • Mueller, T., R. O'Hara, R. Urbanek, S. Converse, and W. F. Fagan. 2013. Social learning and migratory performance. Science. doi/10.1126/science.1237139. (Cover Article)
  • Fagan, W.F., M. A. Lewis, M. Auger-Méthé, T. Avgar, S. Benhamou, G. Breed, L. LaDage, U. Schlägel, W. Tang, Y. Papastamatiou, J. Forester, and T. Mueller. 2013. Spatial memory and animal movement. Ecology Letters. DOI: 10.1111/ele.12165
  • Fagan, W.F., Y. Pearson, E. Larsen, J.B. Turner, H.J. Lynch, H.Staver, J. Turner, A. E. Noble, S. Bewick, and E. Goldberg. 2013. Phylogenetic prediction of the maximum per capita rate of population growth. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B. 280: 20130523
  • Lynch, H.J., R. Naveen, P.N. Trathan, W.F. Fagan. 2012. Spatially integrated assessment reveals widespread changes in penguin populations on the Antarctic Peninsula. Ecology 93:1367-1377.

Awards
  • Board of Visitors Distinguished Faculty Award. 2020. College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. UMCP.
  •  Best Paper Award, 2019, for the journal Infectious Disease Modeling for 2016-2018
  • Fellow (Elected), Ecological Society of America, 2013.
  • Fellow (Elected), American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2012.
  • University of Maryland Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award, 2010.
  • University of Maryland College of Chemical and Life Sciences Research Award, 2009.
  • Presidential Award, The American Society of Naturalists, for best paper in American Naturalist in 2005 for:  Fagan, W.F., M.A. Lewis, M. Neubert, C. Aumann, J. Apple, and J.G. Bishop. 2005. When can herbivores reverse the spread of an invading plant? A test case from Mount St. Helens. American Naturalist. 166: 669-686.
  • Guggenheim Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 2001-2002. 

Education
Ph.D., University of Washington, 1996. Conservation Biology, Community Ecology, Theoretical Ecology.