Research
Nomad’s biologists have contributed to an array of past and ongoing scientific, academic, and historical research and digital mapping projects that range in scope from camera-tracking studies to species-specific studies to data analysis on local and international levels. Our work has appeared in technical reports and accredited, peer-reviewed scientific and academic journals internationally. Among our accomplishments are the following research projects:
Since 2000, Nomad wildlife and conservation biologist Jerry Roe has 
been working with the Snow Leopard Conservancy as an Associate Biologist where he has been involved in ongoing genetic analysis of wild snow leopards, predator-prey relationships, reducing livestock depredation, and camera-trapping snow leopards within the Himalaya, Karakoram and Ladakh mountain ranges in Asia. 
As part of the study, he helped develop standardized protocols for estimating abundance and monitoring population trends using non-invasive monitoring techniques, including sign transects, infrared camera traps, hair snares, and prey censuses in Hemis National 
Park, Ladakh, India, and was the lead author on the Snow Leopard Conservancy’s Estimating Snow Leopard Numbers with Emphasis on Camera Trapping: A Handbook, the first such handbook focused on non-invasively studying snow leopards throughout their range.
Mr. Roe was also a co-founder and instructor for an annual camera-trapping workshop for The Wildlife Society attended by interagency staff, researchers and university students to gain practical hands-on experience of camera trapping using analog, digital and video units, as well as an understanding of study design and data analysis.
Heath Bartosh, Nomad botanist, wetland specialist, and Geographic Information System manager, has played an active role in the analysis and digitization of natural resource data for California’s plants, wildlife, and habitat types. In 2004, he digitized the forty botanical regions of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties and prepared the maps featured in Diane Lake’s Rare, Unusual and Significant Plants of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, Seventh Edition, and is now collaborating on an effort to develop a GIS database for the Bay Area’s rare and unusual plant occurrences collected over the last ten years. He is also compiling and analyzing data on aeolian sand, alkaline soil, and serpentine formation inventories for extant bodies supporting edaphic vegetation associations located within the East Bay.
Nomad’s biologists have access to an extensive library of scientific, academic, and historical literature specific to the natural sciences of California and the Bay Area with an emphasis on the floristics and herpetology of the region. To compliment our library, we maintain a working relationship with the librarians, curators, and biologists associated with libraries and institutions globally such as the California Academy of Sciences; U.C. Berkeley’s Herbarium and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology; and the Jepson Herbarium.
