Publications

We have developed a physically based method for using two acoustic frequencies to measure suspended-silt-and-clay concentration, suspended-sand concentration, and suspended-sand median grain size in river cross sections at 15-minute intervals over decadal timescales. The method is strongly grounded in the extensive scientific literature on the scattering of sound by suspensions of small particles

We investigated the phenology of adult angel lichen moths (Cisthene angelus) along a 364-km long segment of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, using a unique data set of 2,437 light-trap samples collected by citizen scientists. We found that adults of C. angelus were bivoltine from 2012 to 2014. We quantified plasticity in wing lengths and sex ratios among the two generations and ac

The potential influence of seed bank composition on range shifts of species due to climate change is unclear. Seed banks can provide a means of both species persistence in an area and local range expansion in the case of increasing habitat suitability, as may occur under future climate change. However, a mismatch between the seed bank and the established plant community may represent an obstacle t

Glen Canyon Dam (GCD) on the Colorado River in northern Arizona provides water storage, flood control, and power system benefits to approximately 40 million people who rely on water and energy resources in the Colorado River basin. Downstream resources (e.g., angling, whitewater floating) in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (GCNRA) and Grand Canyon National Park are impacted by the operation o

Evaluating environmental effects on fish growth can be challenging because environmental conditions may vary at relatively fine temporal scales compared to sampling occasions. Here we develop a Bayesian state-space growth model to evaluate effects of monthly environmental data on growth of fish that are observed less frequently (e.g., from mark-recapture data where time between captures can range

A new textbook for practitioners and students of wildlife disease is available. Rick Botzler and Richard Brown have provided an excellent addition to the wildlife disease literature with Foundations of Wildlife Diseases. It has been 8 years since the last major wildlife disease book (Wobeser 2006), and over 40 years since the first major wildlife disease compilation (Page 1975), an edited summary

The Colorado River delta is a dramatically transformed landscape. Major changes to river hydrology and morpho-dynamics began following completion of Hoover Dam in 1936. Today, the Colorado River has an intermittent and/or ephemeral channel in much of its former delta. Initial incision of the river channel in the upstream ∼50 km of the delta occurred in the early 1940s in response to spillway relea

Rangeland degradation, typified by extensive bare ground and soil erosion, is a serious problem around the world. In sub-Saharan Africa, rangeland degradation threatens the food security of millions of people who depend on livestock and the region's large mammalian wildlife diversity. We tested the ability of five simple, low-cost erosion barriers to promote grass and forb establishment in a bare

Many drylands, including the south-western United States, are projected to become more water-limited as these regions become warmer and drier with climate change. Such chronic drought may push individual species or plant functional types beyond key thresholds leading to reduced growth or even mortality. Indeed, recent observational and experimental evidence from the Colorado Plateau suggests that

Desert scrublands comprise the lower to mid-elevation portions of four different ecosystems including the Chihuahuan, Great Basin, Mojave and Sonoran Deserts. Together the area inside their outer boundaries includes over 8% of the surface area of the United States. Despite significant differences in the flora and fauna of these bioregions they all share the common trait of being arid shrub-steppe

1. Drylands represent our planet's largest terrestrial biome and, due to their extensive area, maintain large stocks of carbon (C). Accordingly, understanding how dryland C cycling will respond to climate change is imperative for accurately forecasting global C cycling and future climate. However, it remains difficult to predict how increased temperature will affect dryland C cycling, as substanti

Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) consolidate information from varied biodiversity observation sources. Here we demonstrate the links between data sources, EBVs and indicators and discuss how different sources of biodiversity observations can be harnessed to inform EBVs. We classify sources of primary observations into four types: extensive and intensive monitoring schemes, ecological field