Publications

The novel β-coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, may pose a threat to North American bat populations if bats are exposed to the virus through interaction with humans, if the virus can subsequently infect bats and be transmitted among them, and if the virus causes morbidity or mortality in bats. Further, if SARS-CoV-2 became established in bat populations, it could possibly serve as a source for new...

Ecological understanding of host–pathogen dynamics is the basis for managing wildlife diseases. Since 2008, federal, state, and provincial agencies and tribal and private organizations have collaborated on bat and white‐nose syndrome (WNS) surveillance and monitoring, research, and management programs. Accordingly, scientists and managers have learned a lot about the hosts, pathogen, and...

Recent studies using molecular phylogenetics have provided new insight into the composition of and relationships among species in the avian tribe Xolmiini. Key findings include the paraphyly of Xolmis, including the exclusion of X. dominicanus from the Xolmiini, and the apparent paraphyly of Muscisaxicola. We provide a revised classification of the Xolmiini, including a new genus for...

“Foundation species” are widespread, abundant species that play critical roles in structuring ecosystem characteristics and processes. Ecosystem change in response to human activities, climate change, disease introduction, or other environmental conditions may promote the emergence of new foundation species or the decline of previously important foundation species. We present...

Freshwater crabs are the largest macroconsumers in many neotropical headwater streams, but few studies have examined their roles in ecosystem processes such as leaf litter breakdown. As omnivorous macroconsumers, freshwater crabs affect multiple trophic levels. They may directly increase leaf breakdown through fragmentation and consumption or indirectly decrease breakdown by consuming...

Examples like the Grand Canyon story are becoming more common—agencies and stakeholders are increasingly using decision tools to help navigate complex decisions regarding natural resources. Several books and many papers have made the case for the use of decision analysis in natural resource management settings and have described the tools available (Conroy and Peterson 2013; Gregory et...

Many decisions are made in the face of uncertainty that either cannot or will not be reduced, and the challenge to the decision maker is how to manage the risk imposed by that uncertainty. This chapter will introduce the field of risk analysis, focusing on both the scientific tasks (estimating the probabilities and magnitudes of possible outcomes) and the policy-relevant value judgments...

Each year, the Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), with advice from a Fisheries Management Team, allocates funding to support the National Fish Habitat Action Plan. The Service distributes the funds to Fish Habitat Partnerships (FHPs), who, in turn, undertake projects that “protect, restore, or enhance fish and aquatic habitats or otherwise directly support habitat...

Often, a decision maker is faced with a series of linked decisions, rather than an isolated one-off decision. In natural resource management, it is common to make a similar type of decision on a regular basis (e.g., annually). Such linked decisions have two important properties: they are dynamic, that is, the actions taken early on affect immediate outcomes as well as the effects of...

With ongoing habitat loss and degradation, ever-increasing threats to biodiversity, and limited funding for conservation and management, nearly every natural resource manager routinely faces difficult resource allocation problems. Funding and capacity for natural resource management rarely meet the need, and informed resource allocations are increasingly important. These decision...

Coastal wetlands are rich and diverse ecosystems with a wide variety of birdlife and other natural resources. Decision making for coastal wetland management is difficult given the complex nature of these ecological systems and the frequent need to meet multiple objectives for varied resources. Management challenges in the coastal zone are exacerbated by uncertainty about sea level rise...

Byrnes et al. (Geo-Marine Letters 39:265–278, Byrnes et al. 2019) present subsidence data for Barataria Basin located south and west of New Orleans in coastal Louisiana to better inform wetland protection and restoration planning by the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. They measured subsidence using geodetic GPS elevation surveys of rod benchmarks, similar to the...