Martin-Hugues St-Laurent

Martin-Hugues St-Laurent is a Professor in the Department of Biology, Chemistry and Geography at the University of Quebec in Rimouski (UQAR), where he directs a research program in animal ecology focused on terrestrial wildlife management and conservation. He is also a regular member of the Centre d'études Nordiques (CEN).

His research primarily investigates the impacts of habitat alteration on large mammals including woodland caribou, Gaspésie caribou, gray wolf, moose, and black bear. Using spatial ecology, behavior studies, population dynamics, and landscape ecology as his main tools, Dr. St-Laurent examines how both natural disturbances (forest fires, climate change) and anthropogenic activities (logging, road development, industrial projects) affect wildlife-habitat relationships and predator-prey interactions.

His recent publications reveal a strong focus on caribou conservation, particularly examining how climate change interacts with human disturbances to shape caribou behavior across climate gradients. His work also extends to understanding temporal variations in moose responses to logging and roads, seasonal habitat selection by American martens, and the cumulative impacts of land conversion on wolf habitat connectivity.

• Cercle d'excellence de l'Université du Québec (2024)
• Prix d'excellence de la relève de l'Université du Québec in Natural Sciences category (2018)

Dr. St-Laurent actively supervises numerous graduate students at both master's and doctoral levels, with recent graduates focusing on topics such as caribou responses to predation risk, moose browsing pressure, and functional connectivity for wildlife conservation. His laboratory, the Terrestrial Wildlife Management Laboratory, serves as a hub for research on boreal wildlife conservation, with particular emphasis on mitigating the cumulative impacts of anthropogenic development on endangered species.