Publications

The invasion of non-native plants in the Wyoming Basins Ecoregional Assessment (WBEA) area is a major economic and ecological stress, with invasions thought to be hastened by energy developments. Given the potential impacts of nonnative invasive plants and the rapid changes in land use in the WBEA, broad-scale assessments and predictive models of nonnative invasive plant distribution are...

Small mammal communities living in sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) may be sensitive to habitat isolation and invasion by exotic grass species. Yet there have been no spatially explicit models to improve our understanding of landscape-scale factors determining small mammal occurrence or abundance. We live-trapped small mammals at 186 locations in the Wyoming Basin Ecoregional Assessment area...

We conducted an ecoregional assessment of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems in the Wyoming Basins and surrounding regions (WBEA) to determine broad-scale species-environmental relationships. Our goal was to assess the potential influence from threats to the sagebrush ecosystem on associated wildlife through the use of spatially explicit occurrence and abundance models. These models...

No abstract available.

The Wyoming Basins are one of the remaining strongholds of the sagebrush ecosystem. However, like most sagebrush habitats, threats to this region are numerous. This book adds to current knowledge about the regional status of the sagebrush ecosystem, the distribution of habitats, the threats to the ecosystem, and the influence of threats and habitat conditions on occurrence and abundance...

The Wyoming Basins Ecoregional Assessment (WBEA) area in the western United States contains a number of important land cover types, including nearly one-fourth of the sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) in North America. Although relatively unappreciated until recent decades, the broad open landscapes dominated by sagebrush communities have received increasing attention for their ecological value...

Selection of species of concern is a critical early step in conducting broad-scale ecological assessments for conservation planning and management. Many criteria can be used to guide this selection, such as conservation status, existing knowledge base, and association with plant communities of interest. In conducting the Wyoming Basins Ecoregional Assessment (WBEA), we followed a step...

The boundary for the Wyoming Basins Ecoregional Assessment (WBEA) was largely determined by the co-occurrence of some of the largest tracts of intact sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) remaining in the western United States with areas of increasing resource extraction. The WBEA area includes two ecoregions in their entirety, Wyoming Basins and Utah-Wyoming Rocky Mountains, and portions of two...

Less than half of the original habitat of the Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus uropha-sianus) currently exists. Some has been perma-nently lost to farms and urban areas, but the remaining varies in condition from high quality to no longer adequate. Restoration of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) grassland ecosystems may be pos-sible for resilient lands. However, Greater Sage-Grouse require a...

Cattle (Bos taurus) numbers on national forests are allocated based on allotment grazing capacity, but spatial patterns of timing and density at smaller scales are difficult to assess. However, it is often in meadows or riparian areas that grazing may affect hydrology, biodiversity, and other important ecosystem characteristics. To explore real-time animal presence in montane meadows we

Several polybrominated biphenyl ether (PBDE) congeners were found in all 175 osprey (Pandion haliaetus) eggs collected from the Columbia River Basin between 2002 and 2009. ΣPBDE concentrations in 2008–2009 were highest in osprey eggs from the two lowest flow rivers studied; however, each river flowed through relatively large and populous metropolitan areas (Boise, Idaho and Spokane...

Maintaining elk (Cervus elaphus roosevelti) herds that frequent Lewis and Clark National Historical Park (NHP) is central to the park’s purpose of preserving the historic, cultural, scenic, and natural resources. Elk were critical to sustaining the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition by providing food and clothing over the winter of 1805-1806. Today, elk viewing opportunities in...