Publications

Projected increases in wildfire and other climate-driven disturbances will affect populations and communities worldwide, including host–parasite relationships. Research in temperate forests has shown that wildfire can negatively affect amphibians, but this research has occurred primarily outside of managed landscapes where interactions with human disturbances could result in additive or

Many ecological and epidemiological studies occur in systems with mobile individuals and heterogeneous landscapes. Using a simulation model, we show that the accuracy of inferring an underlying biological process from observational data depends on movement and spatial scale of the analysis. As an example, we focused on estimating the relationship between host density and pathogen...

Disturbances are often expected to magnify effects of disease, but these effects may depend on the ecology, behavior, and life history of both hosts and pathogens. In many ecosystems, wildfire is the dominant natural disturbance and thus could directly or indirectly affect dynamics of many diseases. To determine how probability of infection by the aquatic fungus Batrachochytrium...

Northern pike (Esox lucius) are opportunistic predators that can switch to alternative prey species after preferred prey have declined. This trophic adaptability allows invasive pike to have negative effects on aquatic food webs. In Southcentral Alaska, invasive pike are a substantial concern because they have spread to important spawning and rearing habitat for salmonids and are...

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of drought and wildfire. Aquatic and moisture-sensitive species, such as amphibians, may be particularly vulnerable to these modified disturbance regimes because large wildfires often occur during extended droughts and thus may compound environmental threats. However, understanding of the effects of wildfires on amphibians...

To better understand the future spread of chronic wasting disease, we conducted a genetic assessment of mule deer Odocoileus hemionus population structure across the state of Montana, USA. Individual based analyses were used to test for population structure in the absence of a priori designations of population membership across the sampling area. Samples from the states of Wyoming...

The Upper Klamath Basin (UKB) in northern California and southern Oregon supports large hypereutrophic lakes surrounded by natural and artificial shorelines. Lake shorelines contain fringe wetlands that provide key ecological services to the people of this region. These wetlands also provide a context for drawing inferences about how differing wetland types and wave exposure contribute...

Bighorn sheep mortality related to pneumonia is a primary factor limiting population recovery across western North America, but management has been constrained by an incomplete understanding of the disease. We analysed patterns of pneumonia-caused mortality over 14 years in 16 interconnected bighorn sheep populations to gain insights into underlying disease processes. 2. We observed four...

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) has experienced changes in the distribution and availability of grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) food resources in recent decades. The decline of ungulates, fish, and whitebark pine seeds (Pinus albicaulis) has prompted questions regarding their ability to adapt. We examined body composition and diet of grizzly bears using bioelectrical impedance and...

Environmental stochasticity can have profound effects on the dynamics and viability of wild populations, and habitat heterogeneity provides one mechanism by which populations may be buffered against the negative effects of environmental fluctuations. Heterogeneity in breeding pond hydroperiod across the landscape may allow amphibian populations to persist despite variable interannual...

After a hiatus during the 1990s, outbreaks of Brucella abortus in cattle are occurring more frequently in some of the western states of the United States, namely, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. This increase is coincident with increasing brucellosis seroprevalence in elk (Cervus elaphus), which is correlated with elk density. Vaccines are a seductive solution, but their use in wildlife...

The Rocky Mountain Capshell, Acroloxus coloradensis (Henderson, 1930), the only North American member of the basommatophoran family Acroloxidae, is broadly distributed across southern Canada and south into the Rocky Mountains in the USA (Turgeon et al., 1998; Lee and Ackerman, 2000). Despite its wide geographic range, A. coloradensis has been documented from 30 locations, mostly in...