Wildlife poaching and trafficking are major threats to economic and food security and human health, as well as to biodiversity and sustainable development. Wildlife trafficking supply networks involve biological, cultural, socioeconomic, and institutional dimensions, as well as involve multiple actors across sectors. Our research leverages advances in the computational and complexity sciences to reveal the structure and dynamics of wildlife trafficking supply networks embedded in a socio-environmental system, towards the ultimate goal to enhance capacity for identifying opportunities to disrupt these networks.

Representative Publications:

• Comparative analysis of illicit supply network structure and operations: cocaine, wildlife, and sand.
  
• Inferring wildlife poaching in southeast Asia with multispecies dynamic occupancy models.
• A conceptual framework for understanding illegal killing of large carnivores.

Header image credit: Michigan State University