Publications

Revisions to the California Forest Practice Rules since 1974 were intended to increase protection of water quality in streams draining timber harvest areas. The effects of improved timber harvesting methods and road designs on sediment loading are assessed for the Panther Creek basin, a 15.4 km2 watershed in Humboldt County, north coastal California. We compute land use statistics...

Transparency in resource management decisions requires a proper accounting of uncertainty at multiple stages of the decision‐making process. As information becomes available, periodic review and updating of resource management protocols reduces uncertainty and improves management decisions. One of the most basic steps to mitigating anthropogenic effects on populations is determining if a

Current goals for prescription burning are focused on measures of fuel consumption and changes in forest density. These benchmarks, however, do not address the extent to which prescription burning meets perceived ecosystem needs of heterogeneity in burning, both for overstory trees and understory herbs and shrubs. There are still questions about how closely prescribed fires mimic these...

Traits, such as resprouting, serotiny and germination by heat and smoke, are adaptive in fire-prone environments. However, plants are not adapted to fire per se but to fire regimes. Species can be threatened when humans alter the regime, often by increasing or decreasing fire frequency. Fire-adaptive traits are potentially the result of different evolutionary pathways. Distinguishing...

How best to predict the effects of perturbations to ecological communities has been a long-standing goal for both applied and basic ecology. This quest has recently been revived by new empirical data, new analysis methods, and increased computing speed, with the promise that ecologically important insights may be obtainable from a limited knowledge of community interactions. We use...

This 'Terrestrial Forest Management Plan for Palmyra Atoll' was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Palmyra Program to refine and expand goals and objectives developed through the Conservation Action Plan process. It is one in a series of adaptive management plans designed to achieve TNC's mission toward the protection and enhancement of native...

The project was initiated in April 2010, and to date has included four sampling events of surface water (April, May, June/July, and August 2010) and five sampling events of biota (April, May, June/July, August, and September 2010) and three sampling events for surface sediment (May, June/July, and August 2010). This annual report briefly summarizes our progress to date.

The autumn migration routes of bar-headed geese captured before the 2008 breeding season at Qinghai Lake, China, were documented using satellite tracking data. To assess how the migration strategies of bar-headed geese are influenced by environmental conditions, the relationship between migratory routes, temperatures, and vegetation coverage at stopovers sites estimated with the...

Low elevation grasslands in California long have been dominated by Mediterranean grasses, but many areas still have large native forb populations. Alien forbs invade these grasslands, displacing both native and other alien species. Italian thistle is a noxious alien herb that has recently invaded these grasslands, including ungrazed blue oak (Quercus douglassii) and interior live oak...

Many species of snakes display arboreal behavior and are often found in vegetation many meters above ground. Mojave Desert snake species rarely get very far above the ground surface and are perhaps limited by predominantly low growing vegetation. Coluber flagellum piceus is considered strictly diurnal and although may ascend vegetation while active, is thought to retreat to subterranean...

We investigated intra-seasonal variation in foraging behavior of chick-rearing Adélie penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae, during two consecutive summers at Cape Hallett, northwestern Ross Sea. Although foraging behavior of this species has been extensively studied throughout the broad continental shelf region of the Ross Sea, this is the first study to report foraging behaviors and habitat...

The San Francisco Bay estuary is highly urbanized, but it supports the largest remaining extent of tidal salt marshes on the west coast of North America as well as a diverse native bird community. San Francisco Bay tidal marshes are occupied by more than 113 bird species that represent 31 families, including five subspecies from three families that we denote as tidal-marsh obligates. To...