Publications

Moose (Alces alces) populations have recolonized much of their historic range in the northeastern United States in the past 30 years, with their southern range edge extending to southern New England and northern New York. This southerly expansion occurred when certain other populations in the United States were in decline along the southern range edge, with climate change often cited as...

Many state water-quality agencies use biological assessment methods based on lotic fish and macroinvertebrate communities, but relatively few states have incorporated algal multimetric indices into monitoring programs. Algae are good indicators for monitoring water quality because they are sensitive to many environmental stressors. We evaluated benthic algal community attributes along a...

No abstract available.

list 83 coral species as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The petition was based on a predicted decline in available habitat for the species, citing anthropogenic climate change and ocean acidification as the lead factors among the various stressors responsible for the potential decline. The NMFS identified 82 of the corals as candidate species, finding...

Some animals exhibit call-and-response behaviors that can be exploited to facilitate detection. Traditionally, acoustic surveys that use call-and-respond techniques have required an observer's presence to perform the broadcast, record the response, or both events. This can be labor-intensive and may influence animal behavior and, thus, survey results. We developed an automated acoustic...

Butler’s gartersnake (Thamnophis butleri) was previously listed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as a state threatened species. Several key questions associated with species identity, integrity, and hybridization with other gartersnake species needed to be addressed to further refi ne the management plan for this species. The objectives of this research were: 1) to...

More than 90,000 state-endangered lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) have been stocked into the French Broad River, Holston River, and Fort Loudoun Lake in the upper Tennessee River system. Although incidental reports of anglers catching these fish have increased, little is known about their fate after stocking. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate lake sturgeon dispersal...

Blue catfish (Ictalurus furcatus) were first detected in the Altamaha River, Georgia, during an access creel survey in 2005 and subsequently in 2006 during annual ictalurid sampling. Introduction of this species in the Altamaha River is believed to have occurred via escape from normal upstream reservoir releases from Lake Sinclair and Lake Oconee. Relative abundance, as indexed by...

Leptonycteris yerbabuenae is a nectarivore (subfamily: Glossophaginae, family: Phyllostomidae), is found from southern Arizona/southwestern New Mexico to southern Mexico including the Baja California peninsula (Ceballos et al.1997; Cockrum 1991). Leptonycteris yerbabuenae is listed as endangered in the United States (Shull 1988) and threatened in Mexico (SEMARNAT 2002). They migrate up...

Many US states have recreational and commercial fisheries that occur in nursery areas occupied by subadult sharks and can potentially affect their survival. Georgia is one of few US states without a directed commercial shark fishery, but the state has a large, nearshore penaeid shrimp trawl fishery in which small sharks occur as bycatch. During our 1995–1998 investigation of bycatch in...

The establishment of nonnative lake trout Salvelinus namaycush in lakes containing lacustrine–adfluvial bull trout Salvelinus confluentus often results in a precipitous decline in bull trout abundance. The exact mechanism for the decline is unknown, but one hypothesis is related to competitive exclusion for prey resources. We had the rare opportunity to study the diets of bull trout and...

We are studying the impacts of parasites on threatened stocks of Oregon coastal coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch). In our previous studies, we have found high infections of digeneans and myxozoans in coho salmon parr from the lower main stem of West Fork Smith River (WFSR), Oregon. In contrast parr from tributaries of this river, and outmigrating smolts, harbor considerably less...