Publications

In conservation paradigms, management actions for umbrella species also benefit co‐occurring species because of overlapping ranges and similar habitat associations. The greater sage‐grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is an umbrella species because it occurs across vast sagebrush ecosystems of western North America and is the recipient of extensive habitat conservation and restoration...

Conservation practitioners are increasingly looking to species translocations as a tool to recover imperiled taxa. Quantitative predictions of where animals are likely to move when released into new areas would allow managers to better address the social, institutional, and ecological dimensions of conservation translocations. Using >5 million California condor (Gymnogyps californianus)...

Plovers of the genus Charadrius and their close allies are a diverse group, numbering 40 species, many with subspecies. They breed on all continents except Antarctica, in open, sparsely vegetated habitats of tundra and grasslands, and along shores of oceans, rivers, and inland lakes. Most are migratory, especially those breeding in arctic and temperate regions; others are partial...

Livestock grazing is the most prevalent land use practice in the western United States and a widespread cause of degradation of riparian vegetation. Riparian areas provide high-quality habitat for many species of declining migratory breeding birds. We analyzed changes in vegetation and bird abundance at a wildlife refuge in southeastern Oregon over 24 years, following cessation of 120...

In response to increasing fire, fuel‐reduction treatments are being used to minimize large fire risk. Although biocrusts are associated with reduced cover of fire‐promoting, invasive grasses, the impact of fuel‐reduction treatments on biocrusts is poorly understood. We use data from a long‐term experiment, the Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project, testing the following fuel...

Ecosystem dynamic models are useful for understanding ecosystem characteristics over time and space because of their efficiency over direct field measurements and applicability to broad spatial extents. Their application, however, is challenging due to internal model uncertainties and complexities arising from distinct qualities of the ecosystems being analyzed. The sagebrush-steppe in...

No abstract available.

We conducted two case studies testing effectiveness of a soil-borne bacteria, Pseudomonas fluorescens strain D7, in controlling Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass) and in affecting the density of sown desirable seedlings. We conducted two case studies testing D7’s ability to control of B. tectorum (cover, biomass and density) when mixed with native seeds sown after a fire and when sprayed on a...

Dispersal among breeding sites in territorial animals (i.e. breeding dispersal) is driven by numerous selection pressures, including competition and spatiotemporal variation in habitat quality. The scale and trend of dispersal movements over time may signal changing conditions within the population or on the landscape. We examined 2,158 breeding dispersal events from 694 male and 608...

Approaches and techniques for control of exotic annual grasses are a high priority in rangelands including sagebrush steppe. Strains of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens have been proposed to be selectively pathogenic to multiple species of exotic annual grasses (“Pf,” weed-suppressive bacteria, “WSB”). However, defensible tests of the target and nontarget effects of these WSB...

Pacific salmon acquire most of their biomass in the ocean before returning to spawn and die in coastal streams and lakes, thus providing subsidies of marine‐derived nitrogen (MDN) to freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. Recent declines in salmon abundance have raised questions of whether managers should mitigate for losses of salmon MDN subsidies. To test the long‐term importance of...

Monitoring population performance in the years following species reintroductions is key to assessing population restoration success and evaluating assumptions made in planning species restoration programs. From 2008–2010 we translocated 90 fishers (Pekania pennanti) from British Columbia, Canada, to Washington's Olympic Peninsula, USA, providing the opportunity to evaluate modeling...