Dr. Adcock has worked in the field of threatened and endangered wildlife ecology since 2003. He has conducted work on over 25 federally listed species and many more state listed taxa in Texas and Florida with an emphasis on herpetofauna. His overarching specialties include threatened and endangered species research, surveys, habitat and population assessments, management plan development, and habitat restoration. He is proficient in field and molecular techniques, as well data analysis and technical writing.
Zach’s previous experience includes faunal surveys and restoration of native Florida ecosystems for rare taxa; the development of avian protection plans; permitting and management of mitigation banks; evaluating the effects of water withdrawal on wetland ecology; and natural history research on sirenid salamanders. Zach has worked with Texas herpetofauna since 2013. This has included considerable work providing oversight, surveys, and research on Houston Toads, but has been primarily focused on the federally-listed groundwater salamanders in central Texas. His dissertation was designed to inform the conservation and management of Jollyville Plateau Salamanders (Eurycea tonkawae) through relevant ecological studies, and he developed and validated an environmental DNA (eDNA) assay for use on Texas groundwater salamanders. Zach has surveyed for and researched several species of central Texas salamanders, as well as performed population genetic and phylogenetic studies for the entire clade. He has produced novel research on the reproductive biology, habitat use, parasite prevalence, survey techniques, demographic estimates, and geographic distribution of these salamanders, and his expertise is demonstrated by his contributions to the peer-reviewed literature.
Zach is a Senior Ecologist at Cambrian Environmental where he applies his knowledge on central Texas salamanders to a variety of projects including but not limited to presence/absence surveys, population monitoring and modeling, habitat restoration, and research design and implementation.