Loss Lab
Global Change Ecology & Management
Scott R. Loss
Professor & Bollenbach Chair in Wildlife Management
Dept. of Natural Resource Ecology & Management
Oklahoma State University
Welcome to the Loss Lab! We study multiple aspects of global change ecology and management, including effects of climate change on wildlife and habitats, distributions and effects of invasive species, the role of wildlife and land cover change in vector-borne disease transmission, and direct sources of human-caused wildlife mortality like predation by free-ranging cats and bird collisions with structures (e.g., buildings, energy infrastructure & vehicles). Birds are the focus of much of our work, but we also study plants, invertebrates, and wildlife more broadly.
Lab News
March 2026 - Scott is excited to have the opportunity to visit the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's Appalachian Laboratory to give a guest seminar on bird-window collisions!
January 2026 - Welcome Kaidan Capossere, a new MS student in the OSU Department of Biology advised by Dr. Neil Gilbert; we are collaborating with Kaidan, Neil, and Dr. Tim O'Connell on a new study evaluating the distribution and habitat associations of Mountain Plover in western Oklahoma.
December 2025 - Congratulations to Maria Bleitz for successfully completing her MS degree; Maria's research focused on habitat use of migrating shorebirds in the Great Plains under a changing climate.
November 2025 - The Loss Lab is getting lots of media attention around our new research in PLOS ONE, showing that expansion of eastern redcedar into grasslands is facilitating expansion of tick populations.
September 2025 - Loss Lab PhD candidate Holly Todaro has published a new paper in Ornithological Applications showing the factors affecting occupancy of Loggerhead Shrikes in Wyoming!
May 2025 - Congratulations to Riley Lawson for successfully completing his MS degree; Riley's research included several local and national-scale projects focused on bird-window collisions.
January 2025 - Welcome Natalie Becker, a new Loss Lab MS student (co-advised with Dr. Craig Davis) who will be studying effects of climate change on wetland-dependent migratory waterbirds in the Great Plains.
December 2024 - We have 3 lab members graduating after successfully completing their MS degrees - Tucker Taylor, Jozlyn Probst, and Lucas Bobay!
January 2024 - Loss Lab alum Jared Elmore publishes a new paper in Wildlife Biology showing that different shorebird species respond differently to landscape and local wetland characteristics during migration stopovers.
November 2023 - Loss Lab postdoc alum David Londe has published a new paper in Ecological Applications showing that "Climate change causes decliens and greater extremes in wetland inundation in a region important for wetland bird."
August 2023 - Loss Lab members Holly Todaro and Lucas Bobay presented their research at the annual conference of the American Ornithological Society in London, Ontario!
March 2023 - A new review paper led by Scott and including 4 previous Loss Lab members "Citizen science to address the global issue of bird-window collisions" has been published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment!
January 2023 - New paper led by Loss Lab MS student alum Georgia Riggs "Field-testing effectiveness of window markers in reducing bird-window collisions" has been published in Urban Ecosystems!
December 2022 - A new paper led by Loss Lab postdoc Dave Londe "Climate change and wetlands in the Southern Great Plains: How are managers dealing with an uncertain future?" has been published in Environmental Management!
Novemeber 2022 - We've had 2 new papers 1st-authored by Loss Lab MS students published this month, including a study finding that "Bird-building collisions increase with weather conditions that favor nocturnal migration and with inclement and changing weather" (led by Sirena Lao and published in Ornithological Applications) and a study evaluating "Effects of native and non-native earthworms on grassland plant communities and abundance of associated arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (led by Yev Malyutina and published in Biological Invasions).