Publications

Population density is an important component of wildlife management decisions, but can be difficult to estimate directly for an itinerant, wide‐ranging species such as the American black bear (Ursus americanus ). In South Carolina, USA, where there has been growth in black bear populations and bear–human‐conflict reports during the past several decades, managers need robust estimates of...

The outbreak of white-nose syndrome (WNS) and the growing awareness of the risks to bats from wind power generating facilities have driven radical changes to North American bat conservation. Over the last decade, formerly common species such as the little brown myotis (Myotis lucifugus) and hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus) have experienced unprecedented mortality rates and are now facing...

Mother Nature was not making it easy. It was February 18, 2009, and winds were gusting, sleet was falling, and temperatures were hovering around 40° F. Our crew of 9 which consisted of personnel from the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station, the Cherokee National Forest, and The University of Tennessee’s Tree Improvement Program, was attempting to establish the first test...

Habitat loss and degradation are leading causes of biodiversity declines, therefore assessing the capacity of created mitigation wetlands to replace habitat for wildlife has become a management priority. We used single season occupancy models to compare the occurrence of larvae of four species of pond‐breeding amphibians in wetlands created for mitigation, wetlands impacted by road...

Like many other salmonids, Bull Trout Salvelinus confluentus migratory life-history expressions are becoming increasingly rare. A critical step in effectively refining management and conservation strategies is a robust assessment of the effectiveness of such strategies and key biological information used in monitoring and recovery planning. To address this need, we integrated a variety...

The costs of invasive species in the United States alone are estimated to exceed US$100 billion per year so a critical tactic in minimizing the costs of invasive species is the development of effective, early-detection systems. To this end, we evaluated the efficacy of adding environmental (e)DNA surveillance to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) streamgage network, which consists of > 8...

Managing pathogen spillover at the wildlife–livestock interface is a key step towards improving global animal health, food security and wildlife conservation. However, predicting the effectiveness of management actions across host–pathogen systems with different life histories is an on-going challenge since data on intervention effectiveness are expensive to collect and results are...

For pathogens known to transmit across host species, strategic investment in disease control requires knowledge about where and when spillover transmission is likely. One approach to estimating spillover is to directly correlate observed spillover events with covariates. An alternative is to mechanistically combine information on host density, distribution, and pathogen prevalence to...

Spillover of a pathogen from a wildlife reservoir into a human or livestock host requires the pathogen to overcome a hierarchical series of barriers. Interventions aimed at one or more of these barriers may be able to prevent the occurrence of spillover. Here, we demonstrate how interventions that target the ecological context in which spillover occurs (i.e. ecological interventions) can

Many freshwater fish populations have been greatly reduced, with particular loss of migratory fishes. Recovering depleted populations is challenging as threats are often plentiful and complex, especially in arid environments where demands for water resources are high. Here, we describe how a collaborative, multifaceted approach has spurred natural reproduction—a major step towards...

A Bayesian model that uses the spatial dependence induced by the river network topology, and the leading principal components of regional tree-ring chronologies for paleo-streamflow reconstruction is presented. In any river basin, a convergent, dendritic network of tributaries comes together to form the main stem of a river. Consequently, it is natural to think of a spatial Markov...

Whitebark pine, a foundation species at tree line in the Western U.S. and Canada, has declined due to native mountain pine beetle epidemics, wildfire, and white pine blister rust. These declines are concerning for the multitude of ecosystem and human benefits provided by this species. Understanding climatic correlates associated with spread is needed to successfully manage impacts from...