Publications

Reduction in wildlife mortality is often cited as a potential advantage to repowering wind facilities, that is, replacing smaller, lower capacity, closely spaced turbines, with larger, higher capacity ones, more widely spaced. Wildlife mortality rates, however, are affected by more than just size and spacing of turbines, varying with turbine operation, seasonal and daily weather and...

Recent country and continental-scale digital soil mapping efforts have used a single model to predict soil properties across large regions. However, different ecophysiographic regions within large-extent areas are likely to have different soil-landscape relationships so models built specifically for these regions may more accurately capture these relationships relative to a ‘global’...

No abstract available.

Shifts between the alternate stable states of sea urchin barren grounds and kelp forests correspond to sea urchin density. In the Aleutian Archipelago, green sea urchins Strongylocentrotus polyacanthus are the dominant herbivores that graze kelp forests. Sea urchin recruitment is an important driver that influences sea urchin density, particularly in the absence of top-down control from...

The tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus) occurs throughout the eastern United States, from Canada to south Florida and westward to eastern New Mexico, central Colorado, and western Texas. In this study, we document the first record of P. subflavus for both Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Culberson County, Texas. Our record extends the range of P. subflavus into the Trans-Pecos...

Incorporating spatial and temporal scales into greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) population monitoring strategies is challenging and rarely implemented. Sage-grouse populations experience fluctuations in abundance that lead to temporal oscillations, making trend estimation difficult. Accounting for stochasticity is critical to reliably estimate population trends and...

Animal movements are major determinants of energy expenditure and ultimately the cost–benefit of landscape use. Thus, we sought to understand those costs and how grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) move in mountainous landscapes. We trained captive grizzly bears to walk on a horizontal treadmill and up and down 10% and 20% slopes. The cost of moving upslope increased linearly with speed and...

The role of pyrogenic carbon (PyC) in the global carbon cycle is still incompletely characterized. Much work has been done to characterize PyC on landforms and in soils where it originates or in “terminal” reservoirs such as marine sediments. Less is known about intermediate reservoirs such as streams and rivers, and few studies have characterized hillslope and in-stream erosion control...

Climate warming will alter photosynthesis and respiration not only via direct temperature effects on leaf biochemistry but also by increasing atmospheric dryness, thereby reducing stomatal conductance and suppressing photosynthesis. Our knowledge on how climate warming affects these processes is mainly derived from seedlings grown under highly controlled conditions. However, little is...

The virus that causes COVID‐19 likely evolved in a mammalian host, possibly Old‐World bats, before adapting to humans, raising the question of whether reverse zoonotic transmission to bats is possible. Wildlife management agencies in North America are concerned that the activities they authorize could lead to transmission of SARS‐CoV‐2 to bats from humans. A rapid risk assessment...

Multidisciplinary approaches to conservation and wildlife management are often effective in addressing complex, multi-factor problems. Emerging fields such as conservation physiology and conservation behaviour can provide innovative solutions and management strategies for target species and systems. Sensory ecology combines the study of ‘how animals acquire’ and process sensory stimuli...

Poaching is a global problem causing the decline of species worldwide. Optimizing the efficiency of ranger patrols to deter poaching activity at the lowest possible cost is crucial for protecting species with limited resources. We applied decision analysis and spatial optimization algorithms to allocate efforts of ranger patrols throughout a national park. Our objective was to mitigate...