Silverio Avila

Areas of Expertise

• Rangeland Habitat Management
• UAV Remote Sensing and Landscape Ecology
• Range and Livestock Management

Professional Summary

Dr. Silverio Avila is an Assistant Professor and Extension Range Specialist serving Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and Borderlands Research Institute. In this role, he helps plan, conduct, and evaluate educational programs in Rangeland Management and develops research programs in rangeland restoration, soil-plant communities, and plant community response to grazing.

He obtained his B.S. in Forestry from Universidad Autonoma Agraria Antonio Narro in Saltillo, Mexico, where he learned about the ecology, business and management of forest and rangeland ecosystems. During his B.S., he focused his thesis work on vegetation changes following a wildfire in an arid ecosystem. He obtained an M.S. in Range and Wildlife and a Ph.D. in Wildlife and Rangeland Sciences from Texas A&M University-Kingsville with the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute. His M.S. research focused on looking at the effects of summer and winter prescribed burning on Gulf prairies and marshes vegetation. His dissertation work focused on the effects of livestock grazing and how it affects the spatial arrangement of the vegetation at the pasture scale to enhance bobwhite habitat. He did this by using traditional vegetation sampling methods and UAV imagery to model fine-scale 3D vegetation structure, and by looking at the abundance of bobwhites under the effects of flexible stocking rates in semi-arid ecosystems of South Texas. During his Ph.D., he developed an interest in UAV remote sensing and how it is used to monitor and manage rangelands and survey wildlife. He developed a feasibility study for the detection of bobwhites through thermal sensors attached to UAVs.

In general, his research interest has been in range ecology and management for livestock and wildlife, rangeland fire ecology and prescribed burning, rangeland remote sensing, landscape ecology, and the use of UAV technologies for range and wildlife management.

Publications

• View publications on Google Scholar