Index A to Z Apply Now From the Chancellor Visitors Alumni People Finder For the Media For Parents jobs
Southern Illinois University Carbondale Home College of Science
Salukinet SIUC Intranet Athletics Public Events Calendar Weather
Eric Hellgren
Professor
Director of Cooperative Wildlife Research Lab
Office: 251D Life Science II
email: hellgren@siu.edu
Phone: 618-453-6941

Education: Ph.D.,Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Courses taught: Wildlife Seminar

Areas of interest: Wildlife biology, Population and Nutritional Ecology

The research focus of my laboratory revolves around the effects of anthropogenic disturbances on the ecology of wildlife species. With increasing human populations and landscape fragmentation comes a need to understand vertebrate responses to these pressures. Because of my interests in population and nutritional ecology, my students tend to work on demographic and nutritional responses of mammals and reptiles to manipulations (e.g., burning, grazing, fertilization). Within this applied context, I also study basic ecological questions such as competition, resource partitioning, and life-history variation.

For more information on the research program within the Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory and my own research efforts, please see the CWRL webpage.

Recent Publications

Wack CL, Fox SF, Hellgren EC, et al. 2008. Effects of sex, age, and season on plasma steroids in free-ranging Texas horned lizards (Phrynosoma cornutum). General and Comparative Endocrinology 155: 589-596.

Endriss DA, Hellgren EC, Fox SF, et al. 2007. Demography of an urban population of the Texas horned lizard (Phrynosoma cohnutum) in central Oklahoma. Herpetologica 63: 320-331.

Downey PJ, Hellgren EC, Caso A, et al. 2007. Hair snares for noninvasive sampling of felids in North America: Do gray foxes affect success? Journal of Wildlife Management 71: 2090-2094.

Onorato DP, Hellgren EC, Van Den Bussche RA, et al. 2007. Genetic structure of American black bears in the desert southwest of North America: conservation implications for recolonization. Conservation Genetics 8: 565-576.

Ilse, L. M., and E. C. Hellgren. 2007. Indirect interactions among dendrophages: Porcupines predispose pinyon pines to bark beetle attack. Forest Ecology and Management 242: 217-226

Hellgren, E. C., and D. C. Ruthven, III. 2007. Progeny sex ratio in a sexually monomorphic ungulate, the collared peccary (Tayassu tajacu). Journal of Mammalogy 88: 124-128.

Hellgren, E. C. S. L. Bales, M. Gregory, D. M. Leslie, Jr., and J. D. Clark. 2007. Testing a Mahalanobis distance model of black bear habitat use in the Ouachita Mountains of Oklahoma. Journal of Wildlife Management 71: 924-928.

Onorato, D. P., E. C. Hellgren, R. A. Van Den Bussche, D. L. Doan-Crider, and J. R. Skiles, Jr. 2006. Genetic structure of America black bears in the desert southwest of North America: conservation implications for recolonization. Conservation Genetics. Published online 28 Sep 2006.

Servello, F. A., E. C. Hellgren, and S. R. McWilliams. 2005. Techniques for wildlife nutritional ecology. Pages 554-590 in C. Braun, editor. Research and management techniques for wildlife and habitats. The Wildlife Society, Bethesda, Maryland

Bales, S. L., E. C. Hellgren, D. M. Leslie, Jr., and J. Hemphill. 2005. Dynamics of a recolonizing population of black bears in the Ouachita Mountains of Oklahoma. Wildlife Society Bulletin 33:1342-1351.

Horncastle, V. J., E. C. Hellgren, P. M. Mayer, A. C. Ganguli, D. M. Engle, and D. M. Leslie, Jr. 2005. Implications of invasion by Juniperus virginiana on small mammals in the southern Great Plains. Journal of Mammalogy 86:1144-1155.

Moeller, B. A., E. C. Hellgren, D. C. Ruthven, III, R. T. Kazmaier, and D. R. Synatzske. 2005. Temporal differences in activity patterns of male and female Texas horned lizards, Phrynosoma cornutum, in southern Texas. Journal of Herpetology 39:336-339.

Parsons, J. L., E. C. Hellgren, E. E. Jorgensen, and D. M. Leslie, Jr. 2005. Neonatal growth and survival of rodents in response to variation in maternal dietary nitrogen: life-history strategy vs. dietary niche. Oikos 110:297-308.

Clark, J. E., E. C. Hellgren, J. L. Parsons, E. E. Jorgensen, D. M. Engle, and D. M. Leslie, Jr. 2005. Nitrogen outputs of small mammals from fecal and urine deposition: implications for nitrogen cycling. Oecologia 144:447-455.

Hellgren, E. C., D. P. Onorato, and J. R. Skiles, Jr. 2005. Dynamics of a black bear population within a desert metapopulation. Biological Conservation 122:131-140.

Onorato, D. P., E. C. Hellgren, R. A. Van Den Bussche, and J. R. Skiles, Jr. 2004. Paternity and relatedness of American black bears recolonizing a desert montane island. Canadian Journal of Zoology 82:1201-1210.

Onorato, D. P., E. C. Hellgren, R. A. Van Den Bussche, and D. L. D. Crider. 2004. Phylogeographic patterns within a metapopulation of black bears (Ursus americanus) in the American Southwest. Journal of Mammalogy 85:140-147.

Hellgren, E. C., and J. A. Bissonette. 2003. Collared peccary. Pages 867-876 in G. A. Feldhamer and B. Thompson, editors. Wild mammals of North America: biology, management, and economics. Second edition. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

Clark, J. E., E. C. Hellgren, E. E. Jorgensen, S. J. Tunnell, D. M. Engle, and D. M. Leslie, Jr. 2003. Population dynamics of hispid cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) across a nitrogen-amended landscape. Canadian Journal of Zoology 81:994-1003.

Woods, H. A., II, and E. C. Hellgren. 2003. Seasonal changes in the physiology of male Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana): Signs of the dasyurid semelparity syndrome? Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 76:406-417.

Ginger, S.M., E. C. Hellgren, M. A. Kasparian, L. P. Levesque, D. M. Engle, and D. M. Leslie, Jr. 2003. Niche shift by Virginia opossum following reduction of a putative competitor, the raccoon. Journal of Mammalogy 84:1279-1291.