Rate My Professor Bret Pasch

Bret Pasch serves as Associate Professor of Wildlife Conservation and Management in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at The University of Arizona. He holds a PhD in Zoology from the University of Florida (2011), an MS in Wildlife Science from The University of Arizona (2004), and a BS in Biology from Ursinus College (2001). Pasch's research applies principles of animal behavior, communication, and sensory ecology to wildlife conservation and management. His work encompasses bioacoustics, mammalogy, and natural history, with particular focus on vocal production mechanisms and acoustic signaling in rodents, including grasshopper mice, singing mice, and woodrats. He examines gut microbial communities' responses to dietary changes across rodent species, food caching behaviors in mammals, and the use of autonomous recording units for monitoring endangered species such as the Mount Graham red squirrel and western yellow-billed cuckoo. Additionally, Pasch investigates how forest management impacts communication distances in endangered tree squirrels and variation in vocal responses to conspecific and heterospecific advertisement vocalizations in sympatric grasshopper mice.

Pasch has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, including highly cited works such as "Geographic variation in the songs of neotropical singing mice: testing the relative importance of drift and local adaptation" (Evolution, 2010), "Interspecific dominance via vocal interactions mediates altitudinal zonation in neotropical singing mice" (The American Naturalist, 2013), "Androgen-dependent male vocal performance influences female preference in Neotropical singing mice" (Animal Behaviour, 2011), and "Laryngeal airway reconstruction indicates that rodent ultrasonic vocalizations are produced by an edge-tone mechanism" (Royal Society Open Science, 2017). Recent contributions include "Gut bacterial and fungal communities of three rodent species respond uniquely to dietary fiber and protein manipulation" (Journal of Experimental Biology, 2025), "Impact of forest management on the communication distance of an endangered tree squirrel" (Journal of Wildlife Management, 2025), and "Vocal amplitude corresponds to emergence counts in urban bat bridge roosts" (Wildlife Society Bulletin, 2025). He teaches Biology & Conservation of Mammals, Conservation Bioacoustics, and Conservation Behavior, and serves as a member of the graduate faculty.