Tommy Michot
Thomas Claud Michot currently is retired from the Institute for Coastal and Water Research, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and from the USGS Wetland and Aquatic Research Center (formerly known as National Wetlands Research Center). Thomas does research in Avian Ecology, Marine Biology, Zoology, Coastal Ecology, and Wildlife Management.
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Dr. Michot’s research focus over his career has been on the ecology and management of coastal marshes, mangroves, and seagrass beds in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, and how wintering waterfowl and other birds use those habitats. His projects have investigated: waterfowl foraging ecology along Gulf coast; distribution and abundance of colonial waterbirds and waterfowl in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and Mexico; habitat requirements of ivory-billed woodpeckers; submersed aquatic vegetation in Louisiana and Florida; saltmarsh dieback in coastal Louisiana; coastal emergent marsh, seagrass, and mangrove vegetation communities along the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean coasts; hurricane impacts to coastal habitats in Louisiana, Honduras and Guatemala.
Dr. Michot is considered to be one of the world's foremost experts on the ecology of redheads; he has studied these birds on their breeding grounds in Utah and on their wintering grounds in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, and Mexico. Dr. Michot has given at least 50 scientific presentations and guest lectures on this diving duck and he has produced more than 40 publications on this species, including species accounts in two of the world's premier bird references, The Birds of North America and Oxford University Press' Bird Families of the World. His papers fall under the topics of nesting ecology, nest parasitism, foraging ecology, food and feeding habits, body condition, gut morphology, habitat use, nutrition, contaminants, behavior, time and activity budgets, population ecology, distribution and abundance, feather mineralogy, physiology, moult, courtship, movements, parasitology, and osmotic balance. Dr. Michot's papers were selected twice (1996 and 2013) as “Best Paper” in the Wildlife Category for the Louisiana Association of Professional Biologists.
Dr. Michot lists more than 120 published titles in his career. These include articles in peer reviewed journals, books or book chapters, peer reviewed government reports, and peer reviewed articles in miscellaneous outlets (e.g., fact sheets, Web publications, information bulletins, newsletter articles). Not included in that total are abstracts (140+) published to accompany presentations at scientific meetings (see “Presentations” section). As of November 2023, Dr. Michot’s articles had been read 23,000 times and cited 1250 times, at the rate of about 100 citations per year, with a Research Interest value of 784, which is higher than 91% of all ResearchGate members. Copies of Dr. Michot's papers can be obtained from ResearchGate or from Tommy's Google Scholar page or Orcid page (see contact).
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