Publications

Environmental mercury (Hg) contamination is an urgent global health threat. The complexity of Hg in the environment can hinder accurate determination of ecological and human health risks, particularly within the context of the rapid global changes that are altering many ecological processes, socioeconomic patterns, and other factors like infectious disease incidence, which can affect Hg...

Many different factors influence animal activity. Often, the value of an environmental variable may influence significantly the upper or lower tails of the activity distribution. For describing relationships with heterogeneous boundaries, quantile regressions predict a quantile of the conditional distribution of the dependent variable. A quantile count model extends linear quantile...

Bivalves exhibit an astonishing diversity of sexual systems and sex-determining mechanisms. They can be gonochoric, hermaphroditic or androgenetic, with both genetic and environmental factors known to determine or influence sex. One unique sex-determining system involving the mitochondrial genome has also been hypothesized to exist in bivalves with doubly uniparental inheritance (DUI) of...

Accurate estimates of the age composition of populations can inform past reproductive success and future population trajectories. We examined fall age ratios (juveniles:total birds) of black brant (Branta bernicla nigricans; brant) staging at Izembek National Wildlife Refuge near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, southwest Alaska, USA, 1963 to 2015. We also investigated variation in fall...

We measured total soil CO2 efflux (RS) and efflux from the forest floor layers (RFF) in red pine (Pinus resinosaAit.) stands of different ages to examine relationships between stand age and belowground C cycling. Soil temperature and RS were often lower in a 31-year-old stand (Y31) than in 9-year-old (Y9), 61-year-old (Y61), or 123-year-old (Y123) stands. This pattern was most apparent...

The Prairie Pothole Region, situated in the northern Great Plains, provides important stopover habitat for migratory shorebirds. During spring migration in the U.S. Prairie Potholes, 7.3 million shorebirds refuel in the region's myriad small, freshwater wetlands. Shorebirds use mudflats, shorelines, and ephemeral wetlands that are far more abundant in wet years than dry years. Generally...

A trade-off between competitive ability and stress tolerance has been hypothesized and empirically supported to explain the zonation of species across stress gradients for a number of systems. Since stress often reduces plant productivity, one might expect a pattern of decreasing productivity across the zones of the stress gradient. However, this pattern is often not observed in coastal...

As the chapters in this book describe, the northern pike Esox lucius Linneaus, 1758 is a fascinating fish that plays an important ecological role in structuring aquatic communities (chapter 8), has the capacity to aid lake restoration efforts (chapter 11), and contributes substantially to local economies, both as a highlysought after sport fish (chapter 12) and as a commercial fishing...

Perissodactyla (Schoch 1989) includes tapirs, rhinoceros, wild asses, horses, and zebras. It is the order of hoofed mammals referred to as “odd-toed ungulates” because its members have one to three weight-bearing toes and walk on hoofs or “ungules.” They are herbivores that are specialized to exploit grasslands and brushy habitat (rhinos, horses, asses, zebras) or dense tropical forests...

The health of resident fishes serves as a biologically relevant barometer of aquatic ecosystem integrity. Here, the health of the Ottawa River and Ashtabula River (both within the Lake Erie Basin) were assessed using morphological and immunological biomarkers in brown bullheads (Ameiurus nebulosus) and largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides). Biomarker metrics were compared to fish...

On an annual basis, federal and state agencies are responsible for mapping and removing large expanses of aquatic nuisance vegetation from navigable waterways. This study set out to achieve four primary objectives: (1) utilize recent advancements in remote sensing techniques to classify the extent and distribution of aquatic vegetation in coastal ecosystems using satellite imagery, (2)...

No abstract available.