Publications
Below are publications associated with the Southwest Biological Science Center's research.
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Filter Total Items: 1512
Identifying bird and reptile vulnerabilities to climate change in the southwestern United States Identifying bird and reptile vulnerabilities to climate change in the southwestern United States
Current and future breeding ranges of 15 bird and 16 reptile species were modeled in the Southwestern United States. Rather than taking a broad-scale, vulnerability-assessment approach, we created a species distribution model (SDM) for each focal species incorporating climatic, landscape, and plant variables. Baseline climate (1940–2009) was characterized with Parameter-elevation...
Authors
James R. Hatten, J. Tomasz Giermakowski, Jennifer A. Holmes, Erika M. Nowak, Matthew J. Johnson, Kirsten E. Ironside, Charles van Riper, Michael Peters, Charles Truettner, Kenneth L. Cole
Energy development Energy development
Large areas of the desert southwest are currently developed or being evaluated for construction of utility-scale renewable energy projects. These projects include numerous solar and wind energy facilities some of which will be massive. Unfortunately, peer-reviewed scientific publications are not yet available to evaluate the potential effects of solar-based utility-scale renewable energy
Authors
Jeffrey E. Lovich
Small-scale barriers mitigate desertification processes and enhance plant recruitment in a degraded semiarid grassland Small-scale barriers mitigate desertification processes and enhance plant recruitment in a degraded semiarid grassland
Anthropogenic desertification is a problem that plagues drylands globally; however, the factors which maintain degraded states are often unclear. In Canyonlands National Park on the Colorado Plateau of southeastern Utah, many degraded grasslands have not recovered structure and function >40 yr after release from livestock grazing pressure, necessitating active restoration. We...
Authors
Stephen E. Fick, Cheryl E. Decker, Michael C. Duniway, Mark E. Miller
Comparing three approaches of evapotranspiration estimation in mixed urban vegetation; field-based, remote sensing-based and observational-based methods Comparing three approaches of evapotranspiration estimation in mixed urban vegetation; field-based, remote sensing-based and observational-based methods
Despite being the driest inhabited continent, Australia has one of the highest per capita water consumptions in the world. In addition, instead of having fit-for-purpose water supplies (using different qualities of water for different applications), highly treated drinking water is used for nearly all of Australia’s urban water supply needs, including landscape irrigation. The water...
Authors
Hamideh Nouri, Edward P. Glenn, Simon Beecham, Sattar Chavoshi Boroujeni, Paul Sutton, Sina Alaghmand, Pamela L. Nagler, Behnaz Noori
A potential predator-prey interaction of an American badger and an Agassiz's desert tortoise with a review of badger predation on turtles A potential predator-prey interaction of an American badger and an Agassiz's desert tortoise with a review of badger predation on turtles
The federally threatened Agassiz’s desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) was listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1990, but thus far, recovery efforts have been unsuccessful (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [USFWS] 2015). Predation has been identified as a contributing factor to declining G. agassizii populations range-wide (e.g., Esque et al. 2010, Lovich et al. 2014)...
Authors
Amanda L. Smith, Shellie R. Puffer, Jeffrey E. Lovich, Laura A. Tennant, Terence R. Arundel, Michael S. Vamstad, Kathleen D. Brundige
Biological soil crusts as soil stabilizers Biological soil crusts as soil stabilizers
Soil erosion is of particular concern in dryland regions, as the sparse cover of vascular plants results in large interspaces unprotected from the erosive forces of wind and water. Thus, most of these soil surfaces are stabilized by physical or biological soil crusts. However, as drylands are extensively used by humans and their animals, these crusts are often disturbed, compromising...
Authors
Jayne Belnap, Burkhard Buedel
Biological soil crusts as an organizing principle in drylands Biological soil crusts as an organizing principle in drylands
Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) have been present on Earth’s terrestrial surfaces for billions of years. They are a critical part of ecosystem processes in dryland regions, as they cover most of the soil surface and thus mediate almost all inputs and outputs from soils in these areas. There are many intriguing, but understudied, roles these communities may play in drylands. These...
Authors
Jayne Belnap, Bettina Weber, Burkhard Budel
Flexible characterization of animal movement pattern using net squared displacement and a latent state model Flexible characterization of animal movement pattern using net squared displacement and a latent state model
Background Characterizing the movement patterns of animals is an important step in understanding their ecology. Various methods have been developed for classifying animal movement at both coarse (e.g., migratory vs. sedentary behavior) and fine (e.g., resting vs. foraging) scales. A popular approach for classifying movements at coarse resolutions involves fitting time series of net...
Authors
Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau, Jonathan Potts, Charles B. Yackulic, Jacqueline L. Frair, Hance Ellington, Stephen Blake
Effects of turbidity on predation vulnerability of juvenile humpback chub to rainbow and brown trout Effects of turbidity on predation vulnerability of juvenile humpback chub to rainbow and brown trout
Predation on juvenile native fish by introduced rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss and brown trout Salmo trutta is considered a significant threat to the persistence of endangered humpback chub Gila cypha in the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. Diet studies of rainbow and brown trout in Glen and Grand canyons indicate that these species eat native fish, but impacts are difficult to assess...
Authors
David L. Ward, Rylan Morton-Starner, Benjamin M. Vaage
The National Wind Erosion Research Network: Building a standardized long-term data resource for aeolian research, modeling and land management The National Wind Erosion Research Network: Building a standardized long-term data resource for aeolian research, modeling and land management
The National Wind Erosion Research Network was established in 2014 as a collaborative effort led by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the United States Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, to address the need for a long-term research program to meet critical challenges in wind...
Authors
Nicholas P. Webb, Jeffrey E. Herrick, Justin W. Van Zee, Ericha M. Courtright, Ted M Hugenholtz, Ted M Zobeck, Gregory S. Okin, Thomas E Barchyn, Benjamin J Billings, Robert A. Boyd, Scott D Clingan, Brad F Cooper, Michael C. Duniway, Justin D. Derner, Fred A Fox, Kris M. Havstad, Philip Heilman, Valerie LaPlante, Noel A Ludwig, Loretta J Metz, Mark A Nearing, M Lee Norfleet, Frederick B Pierson, Matt A Sanderson, Brenton S Sharrat, Jean L Steiner, John Tatarko, Negussie H Tedela, David Todelo, Robert S Unnasch, R Scott Van Pelt, Larry Wagner
Natural recovery of biological soil crusts after disturbance Natural recovery of biological soil crusts after disturbance
Natural recovery of biological soil crusts (biocrusts) is influenced by a number of different parameters, such as climate, soil conditions, the severity of disturbance, and the timing of disturbance relative to the climatic conditions. In recent studies, it has been shown that recovery is often not linear, but a highly dynamic process directly influenced by non-linear external parameters...
Authors
Bettina Weber, Matthew A. Bowker, Yuanming Zhang, Jayne Belnap