Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center (NOROCK)
Publications
Below is a list of available NOROCK peer reviewed and published science. If you are in search of a specific publication and cannot find it below or through a search, please contact ssoileau@usgs.gov.
To forage or flee: Lessons from an elk migration near a protected area
Alteration of wide-ranging wildlife migrations can drastically impact the structure and function of ecosystems, yet the causes and consequences of shifting migration patterns remain largely unknown. Management decisions made in one portion of a landscape may induce spatial and temporal shifts of wildlife use in another, creating tension among...
Mikle, Nathaniel; Graves, Tabitha A.; Olexa, Edward M. Identifying occupancy model inadequacies: Can residuals separately assess detection and presence?
Occupancy models are widely applied to estimate species distributions, but few methods exist for model checking. Thorough model assessments can uncover inadequacies and allow for deeper ecological insight by exploring structure in the observed data not accounted for by a model. We introduce occupancy model residual definitions that utilize the...
Wright, Wilson; Irvine, Kathryn M.; Higgs, Megan D. Wetland drying linked to variations in snowmelt runoff across Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks
In Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks wetlands offer critical habitat and play a key role in supporting biological diversity. The shallow depths and small size of many wetlands make them vulnerable to changes in climate compared with larger and deeper aquatic habitats. Here, we use a simple water balance model to generate estimates of...
Ray, Andrew M.; Sepulveda, Adam J.; Irvine, Kathryn M.; Wilmoth, Siri K.C.; Thoma, David P.; Patla, Debra A. The effectiveness of non-native fish removal techniques in freshwater ecosystems: a systematic review
In aquatic systems, biological invasions can result in adverse ecological effects. Management techniques available for non-native fish removal programs (including eradication and population size control) vary widely, but include chemicals, harvest regimes, physical removal, or biological control. For management agencies, deciding on what non-...
Rytwinski, Trina; Taylor, Jessica J.; Donaldson, Lisa A.; Britton, J. Robert; Browne, David R.; Gresswell, Robert E.; Lintermans, Mark; Prior, Kent A.; Pellatt, Marlow G.; Vis, Chantal; Cooke, Steven J. Social–ecological mismatches create conservation challenges in introduced species management
Introduced species can have important effects on the component species and processes of native ecosystems. However, effective introduced species management can be complicated by technical and social challenges. We identify “social–ecological mismatches” (that is, differences between the scales and functioning of interacting social and ecological...
Beever, Erik A.; Simberloff, Daniel; Crowley, Sarah L.; Al-Chokhachy, Robert; Jackson, Hazel A.; Petersen, Steven L. Modeling elk‐to‐livestock transmission risk to predict hotspots of brucellosis spillover
Wildlife reservoirs of infectious disease are a major source of human‐wildlife conflict because of the risk of potential spillover associated with commingling of wildlife and livestock. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the presence of brucellosis (Brucella abortus) in free‐ranging elk (Cervus canadensis) populations is of significant...
Rayl, Nathaniel D.; Proffitt, Kelly M.; Almberg, Emily S.; Jones, Jennifer D.; Merkle, Jerod A.; Gude, Justin A.; Cross, Paul C. Comparing clustered sampling designs for spatially explicit estimation of population density
Spatially explicit capture–recapture methods do not assume that animals have equal access to sampling devices (e.g., detectors), which allows for gaps in the sampling extent and nonuniform (e.g., clustered) sampling designs. However, the performance (i.e., relative root mean squared error [RRMSE], confidence interval coverage, relative bias and...
Clark, Joseph D. Forecasting for dry and wet avalanches during mixed rain and snow storm events
Professionals in coastal and some inland mountain ranges regularly face mixed rain-snow events. Professionals in inland ranges frequently deal with persistent slab avalanches failing on old faceted layers buried deep within the snowpack. What happens when you combine these snowpack and weather events? Widespread avalanching involving faceted...
Savage, Scott; Peitzsch, Erich; Trautman, Simon; VandenBos, Benjamin Trophic plasticity and the invasion of a renowned piscivore: A diet synthesis of northern pike (Esox lucius) from the native and introduced ranges in Alaska, U.S.A.
The invasion of non-native fishes is a leading cause of extinction and imperilment of native freshwater fishes. Evidence suggests that introduced species with generalist diets have the potential for greatest impacts through competition and predation even though populations are often comprised of specialist individuals. The northern pike (Esox...
Cathcart, C. Nathan; Dunker, Kristine J.; Quinn, Thomas P.; Sepulveda, Adam J.; von Hippel, Frank A.; Wizik, Andrew; Young, Daniel B.; Westley, Peter A.H. Impacts of nonnative Brown Trout on Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout in a tributary stream
Nonnative trout are a considerable threat to native salmonids, yet our understanding of the mechanisms behind interspecific interactions remains limited. We evaluated the impacts of nonnative Brown Trout Salmo salar on a population of Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout Oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri in Montana. We contrasted diets,...
Al-Chokhachy, Robert K.; Sepulveda, Adam J. Extreme value-based methods for modeling elk yearly movements
Species range shifts and the spread of diseases are both likely to be driven by extreme movements, but are difficult to statistically model due to their rarity. We propose a statistical approach for characterizing movement kernels that incorporate landscape covariates as well as the potential for heavy-tailed distributions. We used a spliced...
Wijeyakulasuriya, Dhanushi A.; Hanks, Ephraim M.; Shaby, Benjamin A.; Cross, Paul C. Keeping the crown of the continent connected: An interagency US2 connectivity workshop report
At over 2.5 million acres, Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness complex form one of the largest protected areas in the continental United States. Straddling the Continental Divide, these two areas form a vital linkage between vast areas of public land to the south towards Yellowstone, and contiguous protected areas north of the US...
Waller, John S.; Graves, Tabitha