Publications

This paper aims at determining how different floristic elements (e.g. cosmopolitan, tropical, and temperate) change with latitude and major climate factors, and how latitude affects the floristic relationships between East Asia and the other parts of the world. The large-scale patterns of phytogeography in East Asia are strongly related to latitude, which covaries with several climatic...

The wolverine (Gulo gulo) is an uncommon, wide-ranging carnivore of conservation concern. We evaluated performance of landscape models for wolverines within their historical range at 2 scales in the interior Northwest based on recent observations (n = 421) from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. At the subbasin scale, simple overlays of habitat and road-density classes were...

Information on the habitat requirements and effects of habitat management on grassland birds were summarized from information in more than 5,500 published and unpublished papers. A range map is provided to indicate the breeding distribution of Greater Prairie-Chicken in the United States and southern Canada. Although birds frequently are observed outside the breeding range indicated, the...

The brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) is an obligate brood parasite whose numbers have increased in recent decades to the potential detriment of the species that they parasitize. Thus, most management efforts focus on discouraging brown-headed cowbird parasitism or controlling brown-headed cowbird populations. Keys to discouraging cowbird parasitism or controlling populations of...

Waterfowl biologists need reliable predictors of brood and duckling survival to accurately estimate recruitment rates. We examined 30-day survival rates of gadwall (Anas strepera) broods (1992-1994) and ducklings (1990-1994) in eastern North Dakota, USA, during years when water conditions ranged from extremely dry to extremely wet. We evaluated effects of several variables on brood...

Mammalian predation is a major cause of mortality for breeding waterfowl in the U.S. Northern Great Plains, and yet we know little about the selection of prairie habitats by predators or how this influences nest success in grassland nesting cover. We selected 2 41.4-km2 study areas in both 1996 and 1997 in North Dakota, USA, with contrasting compositions of perennial grassland. A study...

Mink (Mustela vison) frequently inhabited or traversed a residential, business, and industrial part of the Twin Cities, Minnesota, with little water or natural vegetation. At least one River Otter (Lutra canadensis) also resided on a small pond on a golf course in the area for several winter months.

Diversity-biomass relationships are frequently reported to be hump-shaped over space at a given time. However, it is not yet clear how diversity and biomass change simultaneously and how they are related to each other over time (e.g. in succession) at one locality. This study develops a temporal model based on the projected changes of various community variables in a generalized...

Wolves are some of the world's most charismatic and controversial animals, capturing the imaginations of their friends and foes alike. Highly intelligent and adaptable, they hunt and play together in close-knit packs, sometimes roaming over hundreds of square miles in search of food. Once teetering on the brink of extinction across much of the United States and Europe, wolves have made a

The relationship between vegetation cover and soil seed banks was studied in five different ungulate herbivore-prairie dog treatment combinations at three northern mixed-grass prairie sites in Badlands National Park, South Dakota. There were distinct differences in both the seed bank composition and the aboveground vegetation between the off-prairie dog colony treatments and the on...

Grassland bird populations are declining. Invasive plant species may be contributing to these declines by altering habitat quality. However, the effects of invasive plants on grassland birds are largely unknown. Leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula) is an exotic, invasive weed in the northern Great Plains. We examined the effects of leafy spurge infestation on densities of breeding birds, nest...

No abstract available.