Publications

Introduced organisms can cause substantial effects across most landscapes. Island ecosystems, especially tropical islands, are at elevated risk from introduced organisms. The risks are even higher for tropical islands with moderate or high levels of transit, yet this can be minimized by application of appropriate biosecurity requirements. In this study, we examined the potential for non...

Dixie Meadows, Nevada, is a system of geothermal springs and seeps that feed a complex of marshes and wetland meadows that are located within lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Department of Defense (DOD). A previous U.S. Geological Survey report documented variability in satellite imagery-based land cover classifications for seven wetland complexes at near...

Grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) are large, invasive fish that threaten Lake Erie’s economy and ecosystem. Incidental catches of grass carp have occurred since the 1980s in Lake Erie, while multi-day removal events were carried out in 2014 and 2017. To mitigate ecosystem impacts, a large-scale, multi-agency response to remove as many grass carp as possible from the Lake Erie basin (...

6PPD-quinone (6PPDQ), derived from the tire-protectant 6PPD reacting with ozone, is an emerging contaminant of concern owing to its role in coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) deaths via urban runoff mortality syndrome (URMS). Given the impact of 6PPDQ on aquatic life in urban streams, we addressed the acute toxicity of 6PPDQ exposure on coastal cutthroat trout (CCT) (Oncorhynchus clarkii...

Black bass (Micropterus spp.) are the most important warmwater game fishes in the United States. They have high socioeconomic and recreational value and support an important aquaculture industry. Since 2008, fisheries managers have been reporting the observation of hyperpigmented melanistic lesions (HPMLs) on smallmouth bass (M. dolomieu) in different ecoregions of the United States...

Changes in vegetation cover are occurring across sub-Saharan Africa and can have substantial effects on ecological communities, but limited data make understanding status and trends difficult for many taxa. We surveyed birds for several decades across Uganda using point counts. Using time-to-detection analysis in a trait-informed Bayesian multi-species occupancy framework, we model bird...

Biodiversity and its associated genetic diversity are being lost at an unprecedented rate. Simultaneously, the distributions of flora, fauna, fungi, microbes and pathogens are rapidly changing. Novel technology can help to capture and record genetic diversity before it is lost and to measure population shifts and pathogen distributions. Here we report the rapid application of shotgun...

Understanding population genetic structure and patterns of gene flow is important for effective decision making and the preservation of genetic diversity, especially when managing protected species. Historically, Gulf sturgeon have been managed by river system, with early evidence supporting spatially distinct genetic structure across 7 natal populations. However, an increasing number of...

Objective Internal tagging for telemetry studies requires invasive surgery procedures, necessitating sufficient sedation to support animal welfare. Challenges with existing chemical sedatives have resulted in technological alternatives, including electrosedation, with these newer methods less extensively studied. Our primary objective was to understand long-term survival, body-condition...

The interplay of disturbance and stability drives vegetation dynamics. Disturbance reduces vegetation biomass, and stability fosters its development. In riparian systems, natural disturbance is largely manifested through flood-driven fluvial processes, but other forms of disturbance, such as herbivory or fire, may influence vegetation dynamics. We studied the successional trajectories of...

Background Severe fire weather is becoming more common throughout the western United States. Changing conditions demand a better understanding of how prescribed fire treatments perform under extreme burning conditions, including the interactive influence of the age of treatments, vegetation, and fire weather. The Carr Fire of July 2018 burned nearly the entire land area of Whiskeytown...

In 2021, landbird surveys were conducted at Kalaupapa National Historical Park on the island of Molokaʻi to assess changes in species composition, distribution, and population densities since 2005. Point-transect distance sampling surveys were conducted on six transects at 50 landbird monitoring stations within an 1,834-hectare area. A total of nine landbird species were detected, with...