Publications

Background Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and animal telemetry have become important tools for understanding the relationships between aquatic organisms and their environment, but more information is needed to guide the development and use of AUVs as effective animal tracking platforms. A forward-facing acoustic telemetry receiver (VR2Tx 69 kHz; VEMCO, Bedford, Nova Scotia)...

Background Predictive models of post-fire tree and stem mortality are vital for management planning and understanding fire effects. Post-fire tree and stem mortality have been traditionally modeled as a simple empirical function of tree defenses (e.g., bark thickness) and fire injury (e.g., crown scorch). We used the Fire and Tree Mortality database (FTM)—which includes observations of...

The oil and gas industry has been a powerful driver of economic change in coastal Louisiana for the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st. Yet, the overall impact of the industry on the economic well-being of host communities is varied, both spatially and temporally. While the majority of Louisiana’s oil and gas production now occurs offshore, processing the extracted product...

No abstract available.

Hydroclimatic changes associated with global warming over the past 50 years have been documented widely, but physical landscape responses are poorly understood thus far. Detecting sedimentary and geomorphic signals of modern climate change presents challenges owing to short record lengths, difficulty resolving signals in stochastic natural systems, influences of land use and tectonic...

The western purple martin (Progne subis arboricola), an avian insectivore, is a species of conservation concern throughout the Pacific Northwest. Compared to the well-studied eastern subspecies (Progne subis subis), little is known of the life history and biology of the western subspecies. Availability of breeding habitat is believed to be a major limiting factor for western purple...

Quantifying the distribution of animals and identifying underlying characteristics that define suitable habitat are essential for effective conservation of free-ranging species. Prioritizing areas for conservation is important in managing a geographic extent that has a high level of disturbance and limited conservation resources. We examined the potential use of a species distribution...

The Younger Dryas (YD, 12.9–11.7 ka) is the most recent, near-global interval of abrupt climate change with rates similar to modern global warming. Understanding the causes and biodiversity effects of YD climate changes requires determining the spatial fingerprints of past temperature changes. Here we build pollen-based and branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether-based temperature

Lead poisoning, mainly through incidental ingestion of lead ammunition in carcasses, is a threat to scavenging and predatory bird species worldwide. In Australia, shooting for animal control is widespread, and a range of native scavenging species are susceptible to lead exposure. However, the prevalence of lead exposure in Australia's scavenging and predatory birds is largely unknown. We...

Gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus (Schreber, 1775)) populations in portions of the eastern United States have experienced declines whose trajectories differ from those of other mesocarnivore populations. One hypothesis is that gray fox declines may result from interspecific interactions, particularly competition with abundant coyotes (Canis latrans Say, 1823). Alternatively, gray foxes...

Invasive species negatively affect enterprises such as fisheries, agriculture, and international trade. In the Laurentian Great Lakes Basin, threats include invasive sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) and the four major Chinese carps. Barriers have proven to be an effective mechanism for managing invasive species but are detrimental in that they also limit the migration of desirable...

Animals living in the Anthropocene search for mates facing a barrage of pollutants. Few studies consider pheromones from invasive species as pollution, but their central role in the lives of many animals indicates cross-reaction among historically allopatric relatives has potentially damaging impacts. We hypothesized the sex pheromone of sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), an invasive fish...