Publications

Defining and identifying changes to seasonal ranges of migratory species is required for effective conservation. Historic sightings of migrating whooping cranes (Grus americana) have served as sole source of information to define a migration corridor in the Great Plains of North America (i.e., Canadian Prairies and United States Great Plains) for this endangered species. We updated this...

1. Conservation managers rely on accurate estimates of disease parameters, such as pathogen prevalence and infection intensity, to assess disease status of a host population. However, these disease metrics may be biased if low-level infection intensities are missed by sampling methods or laboratory diagnostic tests. These false negatives underestimate pathogen prevalence and overestimate...

Altitude measurements from wildlife tracking devices, combined with elevation data, are commonly used to estimate the flight altitude of volant animals. However, these data often include measurement error. Understanding this error may improve estimation of flight altitude and benefit applied ecology. There are a number of different approaches that have been used to address this...

Background: GPS telemetry has revolutionized the study of animal spatial ecology in the last two decades. Until recently, it has mainly been deployed on large mammals and birds, but the technology is rapidly becoming miniaturized, and applications in diverse taxa are becoming possible. Large constricting snakes are top predators in their ecosystems, and accordingly they are often a...

Chelonid alphaherpesvirus 5 (ChHV5) is a herpesvirus associated with fibropapillomatosis (FP) in sea turtles worldwide. Single-locus typing has previously shown differentiation between Atlantic and Pacific strains of this virus, with low variation within each geographic clade. However, a lack of multi-locus genomic sequence data hinders understanding of the rate and mechanisms of ChHV5

Large fluctuations in animal body mass in relation to life-history events can influence contaminant concentrations and toxicological risk. We quantified mercury concentrations in adult northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) before and after lengthy at sea foraging trips (n = 89) or fasting periods on land (n = 27), and showed that mercury concentrations in blood and muscle...

Megalonaias is the most geographically widespread genus of the subfamily Ambleminae and is distributed across much of the eastern half of North America, from Minnesota to Nicaragua. Despite the large geographic distribution, the species-level diversity of Megalonaias is quite depauperate (2 spp.), suggesting the genus may not be constrained by the same physical, ecological, or...

Objective Marijuana (Cannabis spp.) growing operations (MGO) in California have increased substantially since the mid-1990s. One environmental side-effect of MGOs is the extensive use of anticoagulant rodenticides (AR) to prevent damage to marijuana plants caused by wild rodents. In association with a long-term demographic study, we report on an observation of brodifacoum AR exposure in...

Emerging infectious diseases are an increasingly common threat to wildlife. Chytridiomycosis, caused by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), is an emerging infectious disease that has been linked to amphibian declines around the world. Few studies exist that explore amphibian-Bd dynamics at the landscape scale, limiting our ability to identify which factors are...

Accurate taxonomic placement is vital to conservation efforts considering many intrinsic biological characteristics of understudied species are inferred from closely related taxa. The rayed creekshell, Anodontoides radiatus (Conrad, 1834), exists in the Gulf of Mexico drainages from western Florida to Louisiana and has been petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act. We set...

To improve understanding of the distribution of ecologically important, ephemeral wetland habitats across the Great Plains, the occurrence and distribution of surface water in playa wetland complexes were documented for four different years across the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC) region. This information is important because it informs land and wildlife...

The greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter GRSG) has been a focus of scientific investigation and management action for the past two decades. The 2015 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listing determination of “not warranted” was in part due to a large-scale collaborative effort to develop strategies to conserve GRSG populations and their habitat and to reduce threats to...