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Publications

This is a list of publications written by Patuxent employees since Patuxent opened in 1939.  To search for Patuxent's publications by author or title, please click below to go to the USGS Publication Warehouse.

Filter Total Items: 8233

A comparison of direct & indirect survey methods for estimating colonial nesting waterbird populations

Population estimates derived from monitoring efforts can be sensitive to the survey method selected, potentially leading to biased estimates and low precision relative to true population size. While small unmanned aerial systems (UAS) present a unique opportunity to survey avian populations while limiting disturbance, relatively little is known about how this method compares with more traditional
Authors
Diann Prosser, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Christopher J. Gilbert, David F. Brinker, Peter C. McGowan, Carl R. Callahan, Ben Hutzell, Laurence E. Smith

Context-dependent representation of within- and between-model uncertainty: Aggregating probabilistic predictions in infectious disease epidemiology

Probabilistic predictions support public health planning and decision making, especially in infectious disease emergencies. Aggregating outputs from multiple models yields more robust predictions of outcomes and associated uncertainty. While the selection of an aggregation method can be guided by retrospective performance evaluations, this is not always possible. For example, if predictions are co
Authors
Emily Howerton, Michael C. Runge, Tiffany L. Bogich, Rebecca K. Borchering, Hidetoshi Inamine, Justin Lessler, Luke C Mullany, William J.M. Probert, Claire P. Smith, Shaun Truelove, Cècile Viboud, Katriona Shea

Structured decision making to prioritize regional bird monitoring needs

Conservation planning for large ecosystems has multiple benefits but is often challenging to implement because of the multiple jurisdictions, species, and habitats involved. In addition, decision making at large spatial scales can be hampered because many approaches do not explicitly incorporate potentially competing values and concerns of stakeholders. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, estab
Authors
Auriel M. V. Fournier, R. Randy Wilson, Jeffrey S. Gleason, Evan M. Adams, Janell M. Brush, Robert J. Cooper, Stephen J. DeMaso, Melanie J. L. Driscoll, Peter C. Frederick, Patrick Jodice, Mary Ann Ottinger, David B. Reeves, Michael A. Seymour, Stephanie M. Sharuga, John M. Tirpak, William G. Vermillion, Theodore J. Zenzal, James E. Lyons, Mark S. Woodrey

Drivers and facilitators of the illegal killing of elephants across 64 African sites

Ivory poaching continues to threaten African elephants. We (1) used criminology theory and literature evidence to generate hypotheses about factors that may drive, facilitate or motivate poaching, (2) identified datasets representing these factors, and (3) tested those factors with strong hypotheses and sufficient data quality for empirical associations with poaching. We advance on previous analys
Authors
Timothy Kuiper, Res Altwegg, Colin Beale, Thea Carroll, Holy Dublin, Severin Hauenstein, Mrigesh Kshatriya, Carl Schwarz, Chris Thouless, Andy Royle, E.J. Milner-Gulland

Red knot stopover population size and migration ecology at Delaware Bay, USA, 2022

Red Knots (Calidris canutus rufa) stop at Delaware Bay on the mid-Atlantic coast of North America during northward migration to feed on eggs of horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus). In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the number of Red Knots found at Delaware Bay declined from ~50,000 to ~13,000. Horseshoe crabs have been harvested for use as bait in eel (Anguilla rostrata) and whelk (Busycon) fish
Authors
James E. Lyons

Environmental implications of Ptolemaic Period rodents and shrews from the Sacred Falcon Necropolis at Quesna, Egypt (Mammalia: Muridae and Soricidae)

BackgroundAssemblages of mummified and preserved animals in necropoleis of Ptolemaic Period Egypt (ca. 332–30 BC) document some aspects of the ceremonial and religious practices of the ancient Egyptians, but study of these animal remains can also provide insight into the local environments in which the animals and humans lived.ResultsExcavations of the Sacred Falcon Necropolis at Quesna in the Nil
Authors
Neal Woodman, Salima Ikram, Joanne Rowland

Sharing land via keystone structure: Retaining naturally regenerated trees may efficiently benefit birds in plantations

Meeting food/wood demands with increasing human population and per-capita consumption is a pressing conservation issue, and is often framed as a choice between land sparing and land sharing. Although most empirical studies comparing the efficacy of land sparing and sharing supported land sparing, land sharing may be more efficient if its performance is tested by rigorous experimental design and ha
Authors
Yuichi Yamaura, Akira Unno, Andy Royle

Note to Banders, December 2022

Note to All Banders was a special extra communication with more urgent information relevant to banders. This Note to All Banders was sent to U.S. bird banders on December 20, 2022. This note includes holiday greetings and a review of the 2022 successes at the Bird Banding Laboratory. Throughout 2022, the BBL increased communication, engagement, and collaboration, within the Eastern Ecological Scie
Authors
Antonio Celis-Murillo

GPS data from 2019 and 2020 campaigns in the Chesapeake Bay region towards quantifying vertical land motions

The Chesapeake Bay is a region along the eastern coast of the United States where sea-level rise is confounded with poorly resolved rates of land subsidence, thus new constraints on vertical land motions (VLM) in the region are warranted. In this paper, we provide a description of two campaign-style Global Positioning System (GPS) datasets, explain the methods used in data collection and validatio
Authors
Gabrielle Troia, Sarah Stamps, R. Russell Lotspeich, James M. Duda, Kurt J. McCoy, William Moore, Philippe Hensel, Ryan Hippenstiel, Thomas McKenna, David C. Andreasen, Charles Geoghegan, Thomas P Ulizo, Madeline Kronebusch, Joel A. Carr, David Walters, Neil Winn

Effects of release techniques on parent-reared whooping cranes in the eastern migratory population

Reintroduction of an Eastern Migratory Population (EMP) of whooping cranes (Grus americana) in the United States by release of captive-reared individuals began in 2001. As of 2020, the EMP has approximately 21 breeding pairs and has had limited recruitment of wild-hatched individuals, thus captive-reared juveniles continue to be released into breeding areas in Wisconsin to maintain the population.
Authors
Hillary L. Thompson, M. Susanna Mann, Marianne Wellington, Kim H. Boardman, Glenn H. Olsen

Preliminary evidence of anticoagulant rodenticide exposure in American kestrels (Falco sparverius) in the western United States

Although there is extensive evidence of declines in the American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) population across North America, the cause of such declines remains a mystery. One hypothesized driver of decline is anticoagulant rodenticide (AR) exposure, which could potentially cause mortality or reduced fitness. We investigated AR exposure in wild American Kestrels in Utah, USA. We collected and teste
Authors
Evan R. Buechley, Dave Oleyar, Jesse Watson, Jennifer Bridgeman, Steven Volker, David A. Goldade, Catherine E. Swift, Barnett A. Rattner

A practical guide to understanding and validating complex models using data simulations

Biologists routinely fit novel and complex statistical models to push the limits of our understanding. Examples include, but are not limited to, flexible Bayesian approaches (e.g. BUGS, stan), frequentist and likelihood-based approaches (e.g. packages lme4) and machine learning methods.These software and programs afford the user greater control and flexibility in tailoring complex hierarchical mod
Authors
Graziella Vittoria DiRenzo, Ephraim Hanks, David A. W. Miller
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