Publications

The invasive American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) and a variety of non‐native sport fish commonly co‐occur in lowland lentic habitats of the western United States. Both invasive taxa are implicated in declines of native amphibians in this region, but few long‐term studies of communities exist. Further, field studies of invasive–native interactions are complicated by confounding...

Situated in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain of the Gulf Coast Prairie Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GCP LCC), the Chitimacha Tribe is one of four federally recognized tribes in Louisiana. The Tribal seat, trust lands/ reservation, and adjacent Tribal owned lands are located near Charenton, Louisiana, totaling nearly 1,000 acres. The Chitimacha, with a population of approximately 1...

Plant sexual reproduction is an important driver of plant community maintenance, dispersal, and recovery from disturbance. Despite this, sexual reproduction in habitats dominated by clonally spreading perennial species, such as salt marshes, is often ignored. Communities dominated by long-lived perennial species can still depend on sexual reproduction for recolonizing large disturbed...

Infectious diseases are causing catastrophic losses to biodiversity globally. Iridoviruses in the genus Ranavirus are among the leading causes of amphibian disease-related mortality. Polymorphisms in major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes are significantly associated with variation in amphibian susceptibility to pathogens. MHC genes encode diverse cell-surface molecules that can...

Recently introduced unmarked spatial capture–recapture (SCR), spatial mark–resight (SMR), and 2‐flank spatial partial identity models (SPIMs) extend the domain of SCR to populations or observation systems that do not always allow for individual identity to be determined with certainty. For example, some species do not have natural marks that can reliably produce individual identities...

Residents in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) can play an important role in reducing wildfire’s negative effects by performing wildfire risk mitigation on their property. This report offers insight into the wildfire risk mitigation activities and related considerations, such as attitudes, experiences, and concern about wildfire, for people with homes in select communities in Montezuma...

Context: Diadromous fish populations in the Pacific Northwest face challenges along their migratory routes from declining habitat quality, harvest, and barriers to longitudinal connectivity. These stressors complicate the prioritization of proposed management actions intended to improve conditions for migratory fishes including anadromous salmon and trout. Objectives: We describe a multi...

The Department of the Interior and the U.S. Geological Survey have made it a priority to train the next generation of scientists and resource managers. The Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CSC) and consortium institutions are working to contribute to this initiative by supporting and building a network of students across the U.S. interested in the climate sciences and climate...

Most marine mammals rely on swimming as their primary form of locomotion. These animals have evolved specialized morphologies, physiologies, and behaviors that have enabled them to efficiently move through an aquatic environment (Williams 1999). Such adaptations include body streamlining, modified plantar surfaces for propulsion, and abilities to remain submerged for extended durations...

Fine scale maps of soil properties enable efficient land management and inform earth system models. Recent efforts to create soil property maps from field observations tend to use similar tree-based machine learning interpolation approaches, but often deal with depth of predictions, validation, and uncertainty differently. One of the main differences in approaches is whether to model...

Conservation decisions are challenging, not only because they often involve difficult conflicts among outcomes that people value, but because our understanding of the natural world and our effects on it is fraught with uncertainty. Value of Information (VoI) methods provide an approach for understanding and managing uncertainty from the standpoint of the decision maker. These methods are...

Roadside amphibian citizen science (CS) programmes bring together volunteers focused on collecting scientific data while working to mitigate population declines by reducing road mortality of pond‐breeding amphibians. Despite the international popularity of these movement‐based, roadside conservation efforts (i.e. “big nights,” “bucket brigades” and “toad patrols”), direct benefits to...