A study of nine species of large mammals in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem has revealed that their behavioral responses to summer heat were influenced more by the structure of their environments than by their biological traits or greater temperature increases — a result the Montana State University ecologist who co-authored the study finds encouraging as the region’s climate continues to warm.

Justine Becker, an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology in the College of Letters and Science, is the co-lead author of the study published this month in the journal Ecosphere. Becker and a team of researchers from the University of Wyoming, where Becker was a postdoctoral researcher when the study began, collaborated with the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Geo

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