Publications

Climate change is rapidly altering fisheries supporting aquatic ecosystems. The implications for food security depend not only on harvest biomass but also concentrations of nutrients and toxins in fish. Using brook trout from Adirondack lakes (New York, USA), we tested whether ongoing lake deoxygenation trends will affect fish muscle omega-3 fatty acids, selenium, and mercury...

The Dragonfly Mercury Project is a collaborative initiative that utilizes dragonfly larvae as biosentinels to monitor mercury concentrations across 180 national parks and other protected lands, including Grand Canyon National Park (GRCA). These indicators serve as surrogates for environmental risk and can indicate where fish consumption could pose health risks through exposure to mercury...

Mercury bioavailability and biomagnification in freshwater systems can be highly variable; thus, tissue data from biosentinel taxa can be useful to assess risk. Dragonfly larvae have emerged as biological indicators of mercury impairment, yet their mercury biodynamics over time and across exposure levels are not well understood. Evaluating these attributes using controlled experimental...

In 2023, an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza occurred among critically endangered California condors (Gymnogyps californianus), and >21 died. We evaluated safety, immunogenicity, vaccination strategies, and correlates of antibody response of an influenza vaccine for poultry in black vultures (Coragyps atratus) and then California condors. We noted differences in antibody...

An ecological threshold is the point at which a comparatively small environmental change triggers an abrupt and disproportionately large ecological response. In the face of accelerating climate change, there is concern that abrupt ecosystem transformations will become more widespread as critical ecological thresholds are crossed. There has been ongoing debate, however, regarding the...

Public land managers often conduct rehabilitation and restoration actions to achieve desired conditions or specific natural resource objectives. These “land treatments” include a variety of techniques, such as biomass removal or manipulation, seeding, and herbicide application. Limited information exists on the costs of conducting many common types of land treatments, but such...

Genetic diversity is essential for species to adapt to environmental changes. In restoration efforts, such as those after large wildfires in the sagebrush steppe of the Great Basin, commercially produced native seeds are used to revegetate the burned areas. While native seed certification and procurement protocols assure that genetically appropriate seeds are used for restoration, how...

Soil organic carbon ('SOC') in drylands comprises nearly a third of the global SOC pool and has relatively rapid turnover and thus is a key driver of variability in the global carbon cycle. SOC is also a sensitive indicator of longer-term directional change and disturbance-responses of ecosystem C storage. Biome-scale disruption of the dryland carbon cycle by exotic annual grass...

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...

Water column hypoxia is a key process influencing methylmercury (MeHg) production and availability in waterbodies worldwide. During seasonal destratification, large, short-lived pulses of aqueous MeHg may be released into the subsequently mixed water column, but little is known about the fate of these pulses, particularly whether there are concomitant increases in MeHg uptake into...

As the impacts of climate change continue to intensify, humans face new challenges to long-term survival. Humans will likely be battling these problems long after 2100, when many climate projections currently end. A more forward-thinking view on our science and its direction may help better prepare for the future of our species. Researchers may consider datasets the basic units of...

Effective conservation of migratory birds requires gathering of information about their population trends, often acquired using migratory bird counts. These schemes ideally operate at migratory bottlenecks, through which a significant portion of the counted migratory populations is funneled. Yet it is rare to validate the conservation value of the data from these counts. Here we perform...