Publications

At high latitudes, climatic shifts hypothetically initiate recurrent episodes of divergence by isolating populations in glacial refugia—ice-free regions that enable terrestrial species persistence. Upon glacial recession, populations subsequently expand and often come into contact with other independently diverging populations, resulting in gene flow. To understand how recurrent periods...

Recent interest in the potential effects of climate change has prompted studies of air temperature and precipitation associations with water temperatures in rivers and streams. We examined associations between summer surface water temperatures and both air temperature and discharge for 5 reaches of the Upper Mississippi River during 1994–2011. Water–air temperature associations at a...

Telemetry data for 59 Northern Leopard Frogs (Lithobates pipiens) breeding in ponds in Houston and Winona Counties, MN; 2001-2002. Agricultural intensification is causing declines in many wildlife species, including Northern Leopard Frogs (Lithobates pipiens). Specific information about frog movements, habitat selection, and sources of mortality can be used to inform conservation-focused...

The American pika is a thermally sensitive, alpine lagomorph species. Recent climate-associated population extirpations and genetic signatures of reduced population sizes range-wide indicate the viability of this species is sensitive to climate change. To test for potential adaptive responses to climate stress, we sampled pikas along two elevational gradients (each ~470 to 1640 m) and...

Forster’s terns (Sterna forsteri), historically one of the most numerous colonial-breeding waterbirds in South San Francisco Bay, California, have had recent decreases in the number of nesting colonies and overall breeding population size. The South Bay Salt Pond (SBSP) Restoration Project aims to restore 50–90 percent of former salt evaporation ponds to tidal marsh habitat in South San...

The rapid conversion of grasslands into shrublands has been observed in many arid and semiarid regions worldwide. Studies have shown that fire can provide certain forms of reversibility for shrub-grass transition due to resource homogenization and shrub mortality, especially in the early stages of shrub encroachment. Field-level post-fire soil resource redistribution has rarely been...

Aeolian processes are important drivers of ecosystem dynamics in drylands, and important feedbacks exist among aeolian—hydrological processes and vegetation. The trapping of wind‐borne sediments by vegetation canopies may result in changes in soil properties beneath the vegetation, which, in turn, can alter hydrological and biogeochemical processes. Despite the relevance of aeolian...

The environmental fate, persistence, and non-target animal impacts of traditional molluscicides for zebra, Dreissena polymorpha, and quagga, D. bugensis, mussel control led to the development of the biomolluscicide Zequanox. Although previous research has demonstrated the specificity of Zequanox, one study indicated sensitivity of salmonids and lake sturgeon, Acipenser fulvescens...

Land cover is an important determinant of aquatic habitat and is projected to shift with climate changes, yet climate-driven land cover changes are rarely factored into climate assessments. To quantify impacts and uncertainty of coupled climate and land cover change on warm-water fish species’ distributions, we used an ensemble model approach to project distributions of 14 species. For...

The red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus) is considered an indicator of forest health. The range of the species covers much of the eastern and central US, and is often locally abundant where it occurs, primarily in deciduous forest. While there are expectations that changes in climate will result in changes in forest ecosystems, the ability of a forest indicator such as the red...

Nurse sharks have not previously been known to migrate. Nurse sharks of the Dry Tortugas (DRTO) mating population have a highly predictable periodic residency cycle, returning to the Dry Tortugas Courtship and Mating Ground (DTCMG) annually (males) or bi- to triennially (females) during the June/July mating season. For 23 years we have followed the movements of 76 recaptured adults of a...

Temperature is an important factor that shapes biogeography and species composition. In southern Florida, the tolerance of nonnative freshwater fishes to low temperatures is a critical factor in delineating their geographic spread. In this study, we provide empirical information on experimentally derived low-temperature tolerance limits of Banded Cichlid Heros severus and Spotfin Spiny...