Nancy E. McIntyre

Nancy E. McIntyre is an American landscape ecologist. She is a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech University and Curator of Birds at the Natural Science Research Laboratory at the Museum of Texas Tech University. She is known internationally for her research in Landscape ecology and Urban ecology. Her research program uses geospatial tools to address questions about landscape structure, function, and change with a focus on animals (particularly birds and insects). Her work has implications for conservation and natural resource management.

Early life and education

McIntyre received her undergraduate degree in zoology from the University of Georgia in 1991. She earned her M.S. degree in zoology from the University of Georgia in 1993 under the mentorship of Frank B. Golley, examining how forest patches of different sizes supported different bird assemblages, based primarily on migratory strategy. She then went on to earn her Ph.D. in Ecology under the mentorship of John Wiens at Colorado State University in 1998, where she used large-scale field studies and experimental model systems to test theory in landscape ecology, using model organisms (Eleodes beetles) to examine scale-dependent habitat selection and the relative contributions of habitat amount and configuration on movement.

Career and research

After completing her Ph.D., McIntyre worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State University, working in urban ecology on the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-term Ecological Research project. She then joined the faculty at Texas Tech University in 2000.

Her research focuses on organism-environment relationships and how human activities affect those relationships. Much of her research has focused on birds and insects in forests, grasslands, wetlands, and urban ecosystems, examining how anthropogenic land-cover change induces habitat fragmentation, which alters landscape connectivity, with downstream effects on population demography, community diversity, and extinction risk.

McIntyre has published over 100 scientific articles and book chapters, and has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, including Landscape Ecology, Urban Ecosystems, BioScience, and the Journal of Urban Ecology. She served as President-elect of the International Association for Landscape Ecology – North America from 2019 to 2020 and as President of the organization from 2020 to 2022.

Awards and recognition

• Distinguished Service Award from the International Association for Landscape Ecology – North America, 2018
• 2020 Top 2% of most-cited researchers in the world
• President's Excellence in Teaching Award, Texas Tech University, 2013

Selected publications

• Heintzman, Lucas J.; McIntyre, Nancy E. (June 2019). "Quantifying the effects of projected urban growth on connectivity among wetlands in the Great Plains (USA)". Landscape and Urban Planning. 186: 1–12. Bibcode:2019LUrbP.186....1H. doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2019.02.007.
• McIntyre, Nancy E.; Collins, Steven D.; Heintzman, Lucas J.; Starr, Scott M.; van Gestel, Natasja (August 2018). "The challenge of assaying landscape connectivity in a changing world: A 27-year case study in the southern Great Plains (USA) playa network". Ecological Indicators. 91: 607–616. Bibcode:2018EcInd..91..607M. doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.04.051.
• Collins, S.D.; Heintzman, L.J.; Starr, S.M.; Wright, C.K.; Henebry, G.M.; McIntyre, N.E. (October 2014). "Hydrological dynamics of temporary wetlands in the southern Great Plains as a function of surrounding land use". Journal of Arid Environments. 109: 6–14. Bibcode:2014JArEn.109....6C. doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2014.05.006.
• McIntyre, Nancy E; Wright, Christopher K; Swain, Sharmistha; Hayhoe, Katharine; Liu, Ganming; Schwartz, Frank W; Henebry, Geoffrey M (February 2014). "Climate forcing of wetland landscape connectivity in the Great Plains". Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 12 (1): 59–64. Bibcode:2014FrEE...12...59M. doi:10.1890/120369.
• Niemelä, J., J.H. Breuste, T. Elmqvist, G. Guntenspergen, P. James, and N.E. McIntyre, eds. 2011. Urban Ecology: Patterns, Processes, and Applications. Oxford University Press.
• Mcintyre, N. E.; Knowles-Yánez, K.; Hope, D. (2000). "Urban ecology as an interdisciplinary field: differences in the use of 'urban' between the social and natural sciences". Urban Ecosystems. 4 (1): 5–24. doi:10.1023/A:1009540018553.
  • Included in Urban Ecology: An International Perspective on the Interaction Between Humans and Nature (J.M. Marzluff, E. Shulenberger, W. Endlicher, M. Alberti, G. Bradley, C. Ryan, U. Simon, and C. ZumBrunnen, eds.), pp. 49–65. Springer, 2008. [A compilation of the “classic” papers from the field of urban ecology.]
  • Included in Urban Ecology: Critical Concepts in Geography (I. Douglas, ed.). Routledge Publishing, 2015. [A compilation of the “classic” papers from urban ecology and urban geography.]
• McIntyre, Nancy E.; Wiens, John A. (October 1999). "How Does Habitat Patch Size Affect Animal Movement? An Experiment with Darkling Beetles". Ecology. 80 (7): 2261. doi:10.2307/176908. JSTOR 176908.
• McIntyre, Nancy E.; Wiens, John A. (1999). "Interactions between Habitat Abundance and Configuration: Experimental Validation of Some Predictions from Percolation Theory". Oikos. 86 (1): 129–137. Bibcode:1999Oikos..86..129M. doi:10.2307/3546577. JSTOR 3546577.
  • Cited in Essentials of Landscape Ecology (K.A. With). Oxford University Press, 2019. [A textbook of landscape ecology.]

External links

• Nancy E. McIntyre publications indexed by Google Scholar
• Website