Publications

Global conservation targets aim to expand protected areas and maintain species’ genetic diversity. Whether protected areas capture genetic diversity is unclear. We examined this question using a global sample of nuclear population-level microsatellite data comprising genotypes from 2513 sites, 134,183 individuals, and 176 mammal and marine fish species. The genetic diversity and...

Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) is a widespread and locally dominant shrub throughout many ecosystems in western North America. A. tridentata ssps. tridentata and wyomingensis are two subspecies whose populations occupy the warm-arid regions of the species range and whose trailing edge is threatened by climate change. Previous studies have presented conflicting results in relation...

Despite > 700,000 km of unpaved roads in the western United States, our knowledge of how roads impact instream sediment is unclear. We combined two studies, including (1) a regional analysis linking stream habitat data from a large-scale monitoring program with road density data to identify generalizable relationships between roads and streambed sediment distributions and (2) a targeted...

No abstract available.

No abstract available.

Shorebirds, seabirds, and wading birds (hereafter coastal birds) have experienced considerable losses over the last century and require proactive conservation management to stabilize or grow populations. Habitat loss and/or degradation and human disturbance are among the most urgent threats faced by coastal bird populations. Identifying effective conservation management techniques to...

A comprehensive understanding of fish populations and their interactions is the cornerstone of modern fishery management and the basis for Lake Erie’s Fish Community Objectives (FCOs) developed in 2020 (Francis et al. 2020). The 2024 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Lake Erie Biological Station Annual Report is responsive to these FCOs and the USGS obligations via a Memorandum of...

Typical investigations into the biological consequences of suspected xenobiotics or nutrients introduced in watersheds include analytical chemistry screens of environmental samples—such as periphyton responses or studies of fish condition—which are all costly in terms of equipment, reagents, time, and human resources. An alternative is to assess pollutant effects on waterborne bacteria...

Given the rise in anthropogenic, environmental, and disease events contributing to marine bird mortality, there is a critical need to improve the rigor of mortality assessments. Deficits in data collection and mortality estimation can hinder a manager’s ability to document event scales and inform population level impacts. Therefore, to inform decisions required during activities such as

Greater understanding of the survival, travel time, and spatial distribution of juvenile salmonids among migration routes between their natal streams and the ocean is critical to the recovery of these threatened species. In the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta (Delta), a highly modified estuary in central California, USA, there is a critical need to evaluate how water management (e.g...

Large-scale (e.g., > 1 megawatt capacity) wind and solar energy (hereafter, LSWS) developments are increasing to aid decarbonization. However, LSWS can also negatively affect biodiversity. Planners and other interested parties’ perceptions about the impact of LSWS on biodiversity will thus affect how trade-offs are managed during planning and buildout. We present a survey of...

The nesting ecology of wild bumble bees is not well resolved, but information learned from discovered nests can be of great conservation value.Data collected at nests on foraging patterns, caste-specific behaviour and health (e.g., pathogens) are invaluable for understanding bumble bee behaviour and ecology, but difficult to decipher solely from foraging observations away from the nest...