Publications

Invasive sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) are controlled in the Great Lakes with 4-nitro-3-(trifluoromethyl)phenol (commonly 3-trifluoromethyl-4-nitrophenol or TFM). The proper amount of TFM must be applied during treatments to effectively kill larval sea lamprey while minimizing impacts to non-target species. In this study, bioassay tests were conducted in May, July, and September in a...

Ecosystem processes in rivers are thought to be controlled more by extrinsic than intrinsic factors, that is, the result of processes that occur upstream or within their watersheds. However, large floodplain rivers have a diverse assemblage of aquatic areas spanning gradients of connectivity with the main channel and internal controls may at times regulate long-term dynamics. When and...

Background Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are often used to model multi-state capture-recapture data in ecology. However, a variety of HMM modeling approaches and software exist, including both maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods. The diversity of these methods obscures the underlying HMM and can exaggerate minor differences in parameterization.Methods In this paper, we describe a...

The eastern migratory population of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) started declining as early as the mid-1970s and seemed to stop declining by the early 2000s; the population now (about 2022) persists at a much-reduced abundance. Stochastic variation in abundance, at levels typical of monarch butterflies and other insects, was assessed to determine whether this population is at...

Most of the world’s river-floodplain ecosystems are simultaneously undergoing modifications to their hydrological regimes and experiencing species invasions, making it unclear whether invasive species are the main drivers of ecosystem change or simply responding to changes in the hydrological regime. We simulated patterns of forest recruitment and succession in a 2500-ha portion of the...

No abstract available.

Common Loons (Gavia immer) winter primarily in marine coastal areas and utilize a forage base that is poorly defined, especially for offshore areas. Information on dive activity is needed for describing foraging strategies and for inferring prey distribution. Archival geolocator tags were used to determine the wintering locations and dive characteristics of adult Common Loons captured...

Although Big Oaks NWR encompasses much diversity in wildlife species, an up-to-date, detailed, and comprehensive map showing vegetation types was lacking. The creation of an updated vegetation map for Big Oaks NWR was approved in early 2019. Digital aerial imagery was collected on November 1, 2019 at a resolution of 0.15 meter per pixel using four spectral bands: red, green, blue, and...

As a generalization of stage-based matrix models, integral projection models (IPMs) have been used to describe the size-based dynamics of wildlife and fisheries populations. Although some matrix models have explicitly included species interactions, few IPMs have expanded beyond single species, which limits their ability to describe the competitive dynamics of co-occuring taxa. We present...

Many forests throughout the world consist of regenerating mature stands. Although these forests differ in many respects from old-growth (with a history of minimal human disturbance), they typically develop similar structural attributes over time. As a result, older mature forests may be of particular conservation value if they contain resources and microhabitats benefitting saproxylic...

Forests contribute to numerous ecosystem functions and services and contain a large proportion of terrestrial biodiversity, but they are being negatively impaced by anthropogenic activities. Forests that have never been clear-cut and have old growth characteristics, termed “near-natural,” often harbor different and richer species assemblages than managed forests. Alternative management...

No abstract available.