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Publications

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Characterizing Golden Eagle risk to lead and anticoagulant rodenticide exposure: A review Characterizing Golden Eagle risk to lead and anticoagulant rodenticide exposure: A review

Contaminant exposure is among the many threats to Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) populations throughout North America, particularly lead poisoning and anticoagulant rodenticides (AR). These threats may act in concert with others (e.g., lead poisoning and trauma associated with striking objects) to exacerbate risk. Golden Eagles are skilled hunters but also exploit scavenging...
Authors
Garth Herring, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Jeremy A. Buck

Long-term trends in restoration and associated land treatments in the southwestern United States Long-term trends in restoration and associated land treatments in the southwestern United States

Restoration treatments, such as revegetation with seeding or invasive species removal, have been applied on U.S. public lands for decades. Temporal trends in these management actions have not been extensively summarized previously, particularly in the southwestern United States where invasive plant species, drought, and fire have altered dryland ecosystems. We assessed long-term (1940...
Authors
Stella M. Copeland, Seth M. Munson, David S. Pilliod, Justin L. Welty, John B. Bradford, Bradley J. Butterfield

Development of a robust analytical framework for assessing landbird trends, dynamics and relationships with environmental covariates in the North Coast and Cascades Network Development of a robust analytical framework for assessing landbird trends, dynamics and relationships with environmental covariates in the North Coast and Cascades Network

During 2015-2016, we completed development of a new analytical framework for landbird population monitoring data from the National Park Service (NPS) North Coast and Cascades Inventory and Monitoring Network (NCCN). This new tool for analysis combines several recent advances in modeling population status and trends using point-count data and is designed to supersede the approach...
Authors
Chris Ray, James Saracco, Kurt J. Jenkins, Mark Huff, Patricia J. Happe, Jason I. Ransom

Diel variation in detection and vocalization rates of king (Rallus elegans) and clapper (Rallus crepitans) rails in intracoastal waterways Diel variation in detection and vocalization rates of king (Rallus elegans) and clapper (Rallus crepitans) rails in intracoastal waterways

Surveys for secretive marsh birds could be improved with refinements to address regional and species-specific variation in detection probabilities and optimal times of day to survey. Diel variation in relation to naïve occupancy, detection rates, and vocalization rates of King (Rallus elegans) and Clapper (R. crepitans) rails were studied in intracoastal waterways in Virginia, USA...
Authors
Lydia L. Stiffler, James T. Anderson, Amy B. Welsh, Sergio R. Harding, Gary R. Costanzo, Todd E. Katzner

Long-term dynamics and characteristics of snags created for wildlife habitat Long-term dynamics and characteristics of snags created for wildlife habitat

Snags provide essential habitat for numerous organisms and are therefore critical to the long-term maintenance of forest biodiversity. Resource managers often use snag creation to mitigate the purposeful removal of snags at the time of harvest, but information regarding how created snags change over long timescales (>20 y) is absent from the literature. In this study, we evaluated the...
Authors
Amy M. Barry, Joan Hagar, James W. Rivers

Satellite-tagged osprey nearly sets longevity record and productivity response to initial captures Satellite-tagged osprey nearly sets longevity record and productivity response to initial captures

We equipped adult Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) from 24 nests in Oregon/Washington with satellite-tracked battery-powered radios, known as platform transmitter terminals (PTTs), in 1996–1999. These Ospreys from the lower Columbia River (river miles 76–286), and the Willamette Valley in western Oregon were part of a larger study of Osprey fall migration, wintering ecology, and spring...
Authors
Charles J. Henny, Mark S. Martell

Weather-centric rangeland revegetation planning Weather-centric rangeland revegetation planning

Invasive annual weeds negatively impact ecosystem services and pose a major conservation threat on semiarid rangelands throughout the western United States. Rehabilitation of these rangelands is challenging due to interannual climate and subseasonal weather variability that impacts seed germination, seedling survival and establishment, annual weed dynamics, wildfire frequency, and soil...
Authors
Stuart P. Hardegree, John T. Abatzoglou, Mark W. Brunson, Matthew J. Germino, Katherine C. Hegewisch, Corey A. Moffet, David S. Pilliod, Bruce A. Roundy, Alex R. Boehm, Gwendwr R. Meredith

Spectrophotometry of Artemisia tridentata to quantitatively determine subspecies Spectrophotometry of Artemisia tridentata to quantitatively determine subspecies

Ecological restoration is predicated on our abilities to discern plant taxa. Taxonomic identification is a first step in ensuring that plants are appropriately adapted to the site. An example of the need to identify taxonomic differences comes from big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata). This species is composed of three predominant subspecies occupying distinct environmental niches, but...
Authors
Bryce Richardson, Alicia Boyd, Tanner Tobiasson, Matthew J. Germino

Centennial-scale reductions in nitrogen availability in temperate forests of the United States Centennial-scale reductions in nitrogen availability in temperate forests of the United States

Forests cover 30% of the terrestrial Earth surface and are a major component of the global carbon (C) cycle. Humans have doubled the amount of global reactive nitrogen (N), increasing deposition of N onto forests worldwide. However, other global changes—especially climate change and elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations—are increasing demand for N, the element limiting...
Authors
Kendra K. McLauchlan, Laci M. Gerhart, John J. Battles, Joseph M. Craine, Andrew J. Elmore, Phil E. Higuera, Michelle M Mack, Brendan E. McNeil, David M. Nelson, Neil Pederson, Steven Perakis

Seed origin and warming constrain lodgepole pine recruitment, slowing the pace of population range shifts Seed origin and warming constrain lodgepole pine recruitment, slowing the pace of population range shifts

Understanding how climate warming will affect the demographic rates of different ecotypes is critical to predicting shifts in species distributions. Here we present results from a common garden, climate change experiment in which we measured seedling recruitment of lodgepole pine, a widespread North American conifer that is also planted globally. Seeds from a low-elevation provenance had...
Authors
Erin Conlisk, Cristina Castanha, Matthew J. Germino, Thomas T. Veblen, Jeremy M. Smith, Andrew B. Moyes, Lara M. Kueppers

Genetic differentiation and inferred dynamics of a hybrid zone between Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) and California Spotted Owls (S. o. occidentalis) in northern California Genetic differentiation and inferred dynamics of a hybrid zone between Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) and California Spotted Owls (S. o. occidentalis) in northern California

Genetic differentiation among Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis) subspecies has been established in prior studies. These investigations also provided evidence for introgression and hybridization among taxa but were limited by a lack of samples from geographic regions where subspecies came into close contact. We analyzed new sets of samples from Northern Spotted Owls (NSO: S. o. caurina)...
Authors
Mark P. Miller, Thomas D. Mullins, Eric D. Forsman, Susan M. Haig

Dam removal: Listening in Dam removal: Listening in

Dam removal is widely used as an approach for river restoration in the United States. The increase in dam removals—particularly large dams—and associated dam-removal studies over the last few decades motivated a working group at the USGS John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis to review and synthesize available studies of dam removals and their findings. Based on dam...
Authors
Melissa M. Foley, James Bellmore, James E. O'Connor, Jeffrey J. Duda, Amy E. East, Gordon G. Grant, Chauncey W. Anderson, Jennifer A. Bountry, Mathias J. Collins, Patrick J. Connolly, Laura S. Craig, James E. Evans, Samantha Greene, Francis J. Magilligan, Christopher S. Magirl, Jon J. Major, George R. Pess, Timothy J. Randle, Patrick B. Shafroth, Christian E. Torgersen, Desiree D. Tullos, Andrew C. Wilcox
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