Publications

Background Climate change is projected to alter the elevation and latitude of treeline globally. Seed germination and seedling survival are critical controls on treeline expansion. Neighbouring alpine plants, either through competition for resources or through altered microclimate, also affect seedlings emerging in the alpine zone. With warming, alpine plant species may interact with...

Multiple restoration actions have been implemented in response to declining salmon populations. Among these is the addition of salmon carcasses or artificial nutrients to mimic marine-derived nutrients historically provided by large spawning runs of salmon. A key assumption in this approach is that increased nutrients will catalyze salmon population growth. Although effects on aquatic...

Invasive predatory lake trout Salvelinus namaycush were discovered in Yellowstone Lake in 1994 and caused a precipitous decrease in abundance of native Yellowstone cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri. Suppression efforts (primarily gillnetting) initiated in 1995 did not curtail lake trout population growth or lakewide expansion. An adaptive management strategy was developed in...

Symbiotic nitrogen- (N) fixing trees can influence multiple biogeochemical cycles by fixing atmospheric N, which drives net primary productivity and soil carbon (C) and N accumulation, as well as by mobilizing soil phosphorus (P) and other nutrients to support growth and metabolism. The soil micronutrient molybdenum (Mo) is essential to N-fixation, yet surprisingly little is known of...

The effects of extreme concentrations of toxic metalloids, such as arsenic (As) and antimony (Sb), on larval amphibians are not well-understood. We sampled Western Toad tadpoles (Anaxyrus boreas) living in As- and Sb-contaminated wetlands throughout their development. Although the tadpoles completed metamorphosis, they accumulated among the highest concentrations of As and Sb ever...

Context Amphibian conservation efforts commonly assume populations are tied to waterbodies that collectively function as a metapopulation. This assumption is rarely evaluated, and there is a need to understand the degree of connectivity among patches to appropriately define, manage, and conserve biological populations.Objectives Our objectives were to quantify local persistence...

To track the illegal pangolin trade from Africa to Asia, we analyzed 1800 DNA samples from 30 seizures of African pangolin scales in Hong Kong during the period 2012–2016. We concluded that all four African pangolin species were present in trade, and that the white-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis) appeared most frequently (88.5%) in our samples. All six previously described...

Conservation planners and resource managers seek information about how the availability and locations of cold-water habitats will change in the future and how these predictions vary among models. We used a physical process-based model to demonstrate the implications of climate change for streamflow and water temperature in two watersheds with distinctive flow regimes: the Snoqualmie...

Drylands encompass over 40% of terrestrial ecosystems and face significant anthropogenic degradation causing a loss of ecosystem integrity, services, and deterioration of social‐ecological systems. To combat this degradation, some dryland restoration efforts have focused on the use of biological soil crusts (biocrusts): complex communities of cyanobacteria, algae, lichens, bryophytes...

Dam operations can affect mixing of the water column, thereby influencing thermal heterogeneity spatially and temporally. This occurs by restricting or eliminating connectivity in longitudinal, lateral, vertical, and temporal dimensions. We examined thermal heterogeneity across space and time and identified potential cold-water refuges for salmonids in a large impounded river in inland

Rangeland managers need tools to control invasive annual grasses, particularly following wildfire. We assessed responses of native and invasive/exotic grasses to the MB906 soil amendment containing live cultures of a purportedly weed-suppressive strain of the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens (“WSB”). MB906 was applied alone and in combination with the pre-emergent herbicide imazapic on...

Executive Summary We evaluate three approaches to accounting for incidental carcasses when estimating an upper bound on total mortality (𝑀) as 𝑀∗ using the Evidence of Absence model (EoA; Dalthorp and others, 2017) to assess compliance with an Incidental Take Permit (ITP) (Dalthorp & Huso, 2015) under a monitoring protocol that includes formal, dedicated carcass surveys that achieve an...