Publications

Studies of relationships between seasons and Neotropical carnivore distributions tend to focus on water and prey availability without considering other habitat components such as escape, foraging, and resting cover. Our goal was to evaluate habitat characteristics that may be important for predicting the seasonal (dry or rainy) relative abundance of four commonly captured Neotropical...

Organisms that undergo a shift in ontogeny and habitat type often change their spatial distribution throughout their life cycle, but how this affects population dynamics remains poorly understood.We examined spatial and temporal patterns in Aedes nigripes abundance, a widespread univoltine Arctic mosquito species (Diptera: Culicidae), hypothesizing that the spatial distribution of adults...

Imaging sonar was used to assess the behavior, abundance, and timing of fish at the entrances to the Selective Water Withdrawal (SWW) intake structure located in the forebay of Round Butte Dam, Oregon during the spring of 2021. The purposes of the SWW are (1) to direct surface currents in the forebay to attract and collect downriver migrating juvenile salmonid smolts (Chinook salmon...

No abstract available.

We surveyed for Southwestern Willow Flycatchers (Empidonax traillii extimus; flycatcher) at 33 locations along multiple drainages in San Diego County, including portions of Agua Hedionda Creek, Cottonwood Creek, Escondido Creek, Los Penasquitos Creek, Otay River, San Diego River, San Dieguito River, San Luis Rey River, Sweetwater River, and Tijuana River. Resident flycatchers were only...

Accurately predicting behavioural modes of animals in response to environmental features is important for ecology and conservation. Supervised learning (SL) methods are increasingly common in animal movement ecology for classifying behavioural modes. However, few examples exist of applying SL to classify polytomous animal behaviour from environmental features especially in the context of...

Grasshoppers are major consumers of plant biomass in grassland and shrubland ecosystems. While often considered generalists, grasshopper species have differing habitat preferences and interactions with other consumers in grasslands. There are conflicting accounts of how prairie dog colonies and differences in vegetation impact grasshopper abundance and composition. We conducted a...

Invasive plants such as Asiatic bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus Thunb.) are a significant problem for land managers as they impact plant species composition, disrupt nutrient dynamics and structure of native ecosystems, and are difficult to eradicate. As a result of the increasing abundance of Asiatic bittersweet across the eastern U.S., we have been investigating underlying factors...

The St. Croix National Scenic Riverway (SACN) has been the site of propagation and restoration efforts for two federally endangered unionid mussels: Higgins’ Eye, Lampsilis higginsii and Winged Mapleleaf (WML), Quadrula fragosa. Since about 2000, government agencies have collaboratively developed techniques to successfully propagate Higgins’ Eye and reintroduce the captive-reared...

Helminth infections are cryptic and can be difficult to study in wildlife species. Helminth research in wildlife hosts has historically required invasive animal handling and necropsy, while results from noninvasive parasite research, like scat analysis, may not be possible at the helminth species or individual host levels. To increase the utility of noninvasive sampling, individual hosts...

Population models, using empirical survival rates estimates for different life stages, can help managers explore whether various management options could stabilize a declining population or restore it to former levels of abundance. Here we used two decades of data on five life stages of the Cedar River, USA Sockeye Salmon, Oncorhynchus nerka, population to create and parameterize a life...

The primary source of chronic exposures to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in humans is through the ingestion of contaminated foods and drinking water, with fish and other seafood being a major contributor. Nevertheless, there is scant literature on the dietary exposure to PFASs for the general United States (U.S.) population. The Tampa Bay (Florida, USA) region has the...