Publications

Determining effectiveness of restoration treatments is an important requirement of adaptive management, but it can be non-trivial where only portions of large and heterogeneous landscapes of concern can be treated and sampled. Bias and non-randomness in the spatial deployment of treatment and thus sampling is nearly unavoidable in the data available for large-scale management trials, and...

Background Linear fuel breaks are being implemented to moderate fire behavior and improve wildfire containment in semiarid landscapes such as the sagebrush steppe of North America, where extensive losses in perennial vegetation and ecosystem functioning are resulting from invasion by exotic annual grasses (EAGs) that foster large and recurrent wildfires. However, fuel-break construction...

Community-type conversions, such as replacement of perennials by exotic annual grasses in semiarid desert communities, are occurring due to plant invasions that often create positive plant–soil feedbacks, which favor invaders and make restoration of native perennials difficult. Exotic annual grass control measures, such as pre-emergent herbicides, can also alter soil ecosystems directly...

Exotic annual grass invasion is a widespread threat to the integrity of sagebrush ecosystems in Western North America. Although many predictors of annual grass prevalence and native perennial vegetation have been identified, there remains substantial uncertainty about how regional-scale and local-scale predictors interact to determine vegetation heterogeneity, and how associations...

Terrestrial wildlife species are important yet often overlooked taxa in the recovery of ecosystems following dam removal. Their presence can shape ecosystem recovery, signal restoration of ecosystem function, and influence food web dynamics and nutrient transfer. We used camera traps to examine seasonal use of two former reservoir beds and an upstream reference reach by the mammalian...

Context Plant communities vary both abruptly and gradually over time but differentiating between types of change can be difficult with existing classification and ordination methods. Structural topic modeling (STRUTMO), a text mining analysis, offers a flexible methodology for analyzing both types of temporal trends.Objectives Our objectives were to (1) identify post-fire dominant...

Charrs (Salvelinus) reach their southernmost distribution in Japan, and are uniquely adapted to the short, steep streams of this island archipelago. Southern Asian Dolly Varden (Salvelinus curilus) occur only in Hokkaido Island, whereas white-spotted charr (Salvelinus leucomaenis) range to southern Honshu. Both species diverged from an ancestral lineage during the late Pliocene/early...

Birds in steppe landscapes change their behaviour over the annual cycle. We used GPS telemetry to track 12 steppe-dwelling adult Ferruginous Hawks (Buteo regalis) to understand how their home ranges varied across the year. Home range sizes of territorial adult hawks showed strong intra-annual variation, being smallest from April to June, and largest from July to October. Patterns in home...

Kazakhstan is a key area for the conservation of the steppe eagle, which is classified as an endangered species by the IUCN. Systematic work on monitoring changes in its number and reproductive success is carried out in protected areas. The remaining steppe spaces are explored sporadically. Our work partially fills this gap. Over 5 years of monitoring the nesting group in the north of...

Terrestrial soils in forested landscapes represent some of the largest mercury (Hg) reserves globally. Wildfire can alter the storage and distribution of terrestrial-bound Hg via reemission to the atmosphere or mobilization in watersheds where it may become available for methylation and uptake into food webs. Using data associated with the 2007 Moonlight and Antelope Fires in California...

Genetic resiliency is the likelihood that populations retain sufficient genetic diversity to respond to environmental change. It is rarely examined through time in conservation genetic studies due to challenges of acquiring and sequencing historical specimens. Focusing on populations of two sibling bumble bee species of conservation concern with different recent patterns of decline, we...

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