Publications

Public land managers often conduct rehabilitation and restoration actions to achieve desired conditions or specific natural resource objectives. These “land treatments” include a variety of techniques, such as biomass removal or manipulation, seeding, and herbicide application. Limited information exists on the costs of conducting many common types of land treatments, but such...

We investigated how visitors to federal, state, and local parks and protected areas (PPAs) respond to weather and air quality conditions in the Pacific Northwest (PNW), United States. Specifically, we modeled the relationship between weekly visitation and mean weekly minimum and maximum temperature, precipitation, Air Quality Index (AQI), and particulate matter 2.5 concentration (PM2.5...

Year-to-year variation in seed crop size (i.e., masting) varies strongly among populations of the same species. Understanding what causes this variation is vital, as masting affects the ability of tree species to regenerate and determines the population dynamics of a wide variety of animals. It is commonly thought that environmental stress is a key driver of masting variability. The...

Habitat features needed by wildlife can change in composition throughout the year, particularly in temperate ecosystems, leading to distinct seasonal spatial-use patterns. Studies of species-habitat associations therefore often focus on understanding relationships within discrete seasonal periods with common goals of prediction (e.g., habitat mapping) and inference (e.g., interpreting...

Human-built structures can provide important habitat for wildlife, but predicting which structures are most likely to be used remains challenging. To evaluate the predictive capabilities of data-driven ensemble modeling approaches, we conducted surveys for bats and signs of bat use, such as urine and guano staining, at bridges across the southwestern United States. We developed a bat...

The use of quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) to monitor pathogens is common; however, quantitative frameworks that consider the observation process, dynamics in pathogen presence, and pathogen load are lacking. This can be problematic in the early stages of disease progression, where low level detections may be treated as ‘inconclusive’ and excluded from analyses. Alternatively, a...

Determining where animals are, and if they are persisting across protected landscapes, is necessary to implement appropriate management and conservation actions. For long-lived animals and those with boom-and-bust life histories, perspective across time contributes to discerning temporal trends in occupancy and persistence, and potentially in identifying mechanisms affecting those...

Aim Beta diversity quantifies the similarity of ecological assemblages. Its increase, known as biotic homogenisation, can be a consequence of biological invasions. However, species occurrence (presence/absence) and abundance-based analyses can produce contradictory assessments of the magnitude and direction of changes in beta diversity. Previous work indicates these contradictions should...

Invasive species are an economic and ecological burden, and efforts to limit their impact are greatly improved with reliable maps based on species distribution models (SDMs). However, the potential distribution of new invaders is difficult to anticipate because they are still spreading with few observations in their invaded habitat. Therefore, an accepted practice in predicting the...

Executive Summary Gaining a better understanding of the human dimensions of waterfowl management to inform the North American Waterfowl Management Plan is a valuable but challenging goal for the future success of waterfowl management. Increasing engagement with key stakeholder groups will lead to more support and effective waterfowl management. Social systems are complex because...

Documentation of successful early detection rapid response (EDRR) efforts is lacking from the scientific literature but is needed to inform invasive species response protocols. The Black and White tegu (Salvator merianae) has become established in several Florida counties and its spread is of significant conservation concern. It is of high priority for state and federal managers to...

Public lands provide diverse resources, values, and services worldwide. Laws and policies typically require consideration of science in public lands decisions, and resource managers are committed to science-informed decision-making. However, it can be challenging for managers to use, and document the use of, science and data in their decisions. To better understand science and data use...