Publications

Energy production in the Williston Basin, located in the Prairie Pothole Region of central North America, has increased rapidly over the last several decades. Advances in recycling and disposal practices of saline wastewaters (brines) co-produced during energy production have reduced ecological risks, but spills still occur often and legacy practices of releasing brines into the...

Targeting conservation actions efficiently requires information on vulnerability of and threats to conservation targets, but such information is rarely included in conservation plans. In the U.S., recently updated State Wildlife Action Plans identify Conservation Opportunity Areas (COAs) selected by each state as priority areas for future action to conserve wildlife and habitats. The...

Executive Summary We surveyed for Least Bell’s Vireos (Vireo bellii pusillus; vireo) and Southwestern Willow Flycatchers (Empidonax traillii extimus; flycatcher) in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers along Big Tujunga Creek in the Hansen Dam Basin in Los Angeles County, California, in 2018. Four vireo surveys were conducted between April 25 and July 17, 2018, and three...

Counts of males displaying on breeding grounds are the primary management tool used to assess population trends in lekking grouse species. Despite the importance of male lek attendance (i.e., proportion of males on leks available for detection) influencing lek counts, patterns of within season and between season variability in attendance rates are not well understood. We used high...

Recent information reporting Pink-footed Shearwater Ardenna creatopus mortality from fisheries bycatch throughout its range has encouraged fisheries managers in Chile to evaluate and consider shearwater foraging behaviors to better evaluate risk. In response, we tracked six chickrearing adult Pink-footed Shearwaters from Isla Mocha, off south-central Chile, from 19 to 28 March 2015 using...

Methylmercury (MeHg) bioaccumulation in freshwater aquatic systems is impacted by anthropogenic stressors, including climate change and nutrient enrichment. The goal of this study was to determine how warmer water temperatures and excess nutrients would alter zooplankton communities and phytoplankton concentrations, and whether those changes would in turn increase or decrease MeHg...

Insect pollinators are critically important for maintaining U.S. food production and ecosystem health. The upper Midwest is home to more than 40 percent of all U.S. honey bee colonies and is considered by many beekeepers to be America’s last beekeeping refuge. Beekeepers come to this region because their honey bees require high-quality grassland and bee-friendly agricultural crops to...

A field study was conducted to estimate survival of fry-sized juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in Lookout Point Reservoir, western Oregon, during 2017. The field study consisted of releasing three groups of genetically marked fish in the reservoir and monthly fish sampling. Fish were released during April 18–19 (43,950 fish), May 30–June 2 (44,145 fish), and on June 28...

Recent studies suggest that about 2 Pg of organic C is stored on floodplains worldwide. The present study indicates the Atchafalaya River, fifth largest river in the United States in terms of discharge, traps 30 mm/y of sediment on average within its floodplain, which is the highest average non‐episodic rate of fluvial deposition on the U.S. Coastal Plain. We installed sediment sampling...

Executive Summary The recovery of endangered Lost River suckers (Deltistes luxatus) in Upper Klamath Lake, south-central Oregon, has been impeded because juveniles are not recruiting into adult spawning populations. Adult sucker populations spawn each spring but mortality of age-0 suckers during their first summer is excessively high, and recruitment of juveniles into adult populations...

The morphodynamics of river-dominated deltas are largely controlled by the supply and retention of sediment within deltaic wetlands and the rate of relative sea-level rise. Yet, sediment budgets for deltas are often poorly constrained. In the Mississippi River Delta, a system rapidly losing land due to natural and anthropogenic causes, restoration efforts seek to build new land through...

In theory parameters of dynamic N-mixture models can be estimated with multiple years of data without the robust design under the assumption of constant detection probability. However, such an assumption can rarely be met in long-term studies, and the consequences of violating this assumption in the inferences of dynamic N-mixture models have not been assessed. In this study we used...