About

David Wilcove is the Henry W. Putnam Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the High Meadows Institute, as well as a Professor of Public Affairs at Princeton University. His research team, known as The Drongos, focuses on how to best protect biodiversity in an increasingly hot, hungry, and crowded world. Their work draws from conservation biology, ecology, and social sciences to address pressing issues related to threatened species and ecosystems. The team has conducted fieldwork across every continent except Antarctica, studying a wide range of organisms including birds, reptiles, mammals, fish, coral, dung beetles, and plants, with a focus on understanding biodiversity and conservation strategies.

Research topics

• Biology
• Ecology
• Geography
• Environmental resource management
• Environmental science
• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Engineering
• Cartography
• Environmental planning
• Business
• Environmental protection
• Socioeconomics
• Aerospace engineering
• Remote sensing

Selected publications

• Reply to: Overestimating outsourced biodiversity loss may misguide policy

  Nature · 2026-04-29

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• A “demand and supply” approach to monitoring habitat and population changes of migratory birds

  Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · 2026-03-12

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Habitat loss and degradation threaten thousands of migratory bird species worldwide. Yet, because the distributions of migratory birds change throughout the year, quantifying the impacts of threats and identifying key sites for conservation attention have proved challenging. We suggest that the wider application of two key metrics could substantially improve current knowledge: (1) the intensity of birds’ habitat use at a site, representing the demand from the birds’ perspectives; and (2) the carrying capacity of the site, as measured by the supply of food or other resources for the birds. At local scales, the demand‐to‐supply ratio provides insights into priorities for conservation attention, even in the absence of comparable information from other sites. When scaled‐up to multiple sites across entire flyways, this approach provides a much more comprehensive understanding of the constraints on bird populations than is currently available, thereby facilitating coordinated, efficient habitat protection at a flyway scale .

  PublisherDOI

• Factors influencing survival of rescued Amazonian manatees ( <i>Trichechus inunguis</i> ) during clinical rehabilitation in Peru

  Conservation Science and Practice · 2026-01-20

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract The Amazonian manatee ( Trichechus inunguis) , a vulnerable species native to the Amazon River Basin, is threatened by habitat loss, illegal hunting, and pollution. Rehabilitation centers rescue, rear, and release manatees negatively impacted by human activities. Factors characterizing the survival of rescued manatees at these rehabilitation centers remain unclear. We analyzed data from 54 rescued manatees at a rehabilitation center in the Peruvian Amazon, assessing factors hypothesized to be predictors of the probability of survival during the rehabilitation process. We found that initial weight at intake and the rate of weight gain while at the center were significantly associated with a higher probability of survival. Intestinal obstruction, often linked to inappropriate diets prior to rescue, was the leading cause of death while in rehabilitation (13 of 54 individuals; 24%). Early intervention to transport orphaned calves to rescue centers and equipping local authorities with resources for short‐term care until transportation is possible could improve rescue outcomes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Assessing the effectiveness of riparian buffers in protecting biodiversity: a meta-analysis

  Nature Communications · 2026-03-19

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Riparian buffers – vegetation strips retained or established along waterways – are mandated in many countries for water and soil protection, yet their role in biodiversity conservation remains unclear. Our global meta-analysis compares forested riparian buffers with converted riparian zones in human-modified landscapes across forest biomes. We find that forested riparian buffers support higher animal biodiversity than converted riparian zones at both local and landscape scales, particularly in agricultural areas. This pattern is consistent across most freshwater and riparian taxa, in both tropical and temperate regions. Forested riparian buffers also harbor, on average, 32% more reference species (i.e., species found in continuous riparian forests) than do converted riparian zones. Optimum forested buffer width estimates for species conservation are roughly an order of magnitude wider for birds and mammals (200-380 m on each river side), than for amphibians (20-50 m) and invertebrates (6-50 m). Our findings support forested riparian buffers as an important global strategy for conserving biodiversity in forest biomes. Riparian buffers are widely used to protect watercourses, but their value for conserving biodiversity is uncertain. This global meta-analysis supports forested riparian buffers as a key conservation strategy in human-modified landscapes worldwide.

  PublisherDOI

• Trajectories of biodiversity loss and extinction from trade globalization

  Current Biology · 2025-08-04 · 2 citations

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  PublisherDOI

• Assessing the effectiveness of riparian buffers in protecting biodiversity

  Research Square · 2025-05-26

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Global biodiversity loss from outsourced deforestation

  Nature · 2025-02-12 · 39 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Safeguarding global terrestrial vertebrate species from future sea-level rise

  Research Square · 2025-07-02

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Direct mortality due to humans threatens migratory shorebirds

  Nature Ecology & Evolution · 2025-09-09 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The potential and limitations of turtle farming to contribute to conservation in the Brazilian Amazon

  Biological Conservation · 2025-03-01 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Martin Wikelski

  University of Konstanz

  121 shared

• Marilyn Ramenofsky

  101 shared

• Susanne Åkesson

  101 shared

• Nir Sapir

  University of Haifa

  101 shared

• Peter P. Marra

  Wayne State University

  101 shared

• Anders Hedenström

  Lund University

  101 shared

• Judy Shamoun‐Baranes

  University of Amsterdam

  101 shared

• Thomas Kunz

  Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology

  100 shared