Publications

Regulatory mandates to improve water quality and stream health have driven substantial investment in stream restoration. Most projects aim to improve channel-floodplain connectivity, reduce sediment erosion, and enhance habitat for aquatic organisms, yet few include adequate pre- and post-restoration monitoring to assess outcomes. Since 2007, Fairfax County, Virginia, and the U.S...

The National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) collects atmospheric data to monitor air pollution effects on the quality of United States water supplies and ecosystems. The NADP requires consistent data collection at fixed locations and is governed by a committee with participation by many Federal and State agencies, universities, Tribes, and private companies. NADP conducts a spring...

Understanding the distribution of grizzly bear populations in the lower-48 states, is important for their conservation and management, and for public safety. Previously, our research teams working in grizzly bear ecosystems in the lower-48 states used varying methods to estimate distribution of grizzly bear populations. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) and Northern Continental...

The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of North America is a globally important area hosting >50 % of North America’s breeding ducks. Ducks in the PPR depend on wetlands and grasslands which have experienced accelerated losses in extent and quality due to agriculture. While other bird populations have declined, duck abundance reached record highs recently (2013–2017). We explored this...

Animal populations often experience acute natural disturbances, most of which are connected to short—term weather events. Occurrences of early—season tropical cyclones during the peak of the avian breeding season are likely to increase with climate change, which can substantially impact populations of coastal breeding birds at multiple scales. To understand the acute impacts of severe...

Introduction Seed-based restoration is widely implemented to recover degraded lands but often fails. Seed enhancement technologies may improve outcomes by shifting emergence to target favorable climate windows and serving as a bet-hedging strategy against increasingly variable precipitation patterns.Objectives To test the potential benefit of these technologies, we applied seed coatings...

Groundwater is increasingly needed for water supplies but may have limited utility in some locations because of its salinity. Salinity, often expressed as total dissolved solid (TDS), is frequently estimated using specific conductance (SC) measurements. However, the commonly used proxy (0.65 multiplied by SC to indicate TDS, common in many handheld meters) can result in inaccurate TDS...

Environments can shape the occurrence and extent of disease outbreaks in wildlife. We studied the effects of environmental features on the occurrence of treponeme-associated hoof disease (TAHD), an emerging infectious disease of free-ranging elk (Cervus canadensis), in southwestern Washington, USA. During the 2016–2022 harvest seasons, successful elk hunters returned mandatory harvest...

Addressing sustainability challenges requires an integrative approach that bridges scientific research with practical application. The field of cultural evolution (CE) offers a perspective that may guide transitions and cultural transformations for a sustainable future. However, there have been few efforts to apply this field to sustainability challenges. This study explores how CE can...

Culture, as the filter through which people view the world and a key determinant of human behaviour, is central to the practice of natural resource management and conservation. Conservation is intended to moderate the impacts of human cultural modification of the environment, exists as an endeavour because it is culturally valued, and acts largely through policies to encourage or...

Earth System Models (ESM) are crucial for quantifying climate impacts across Earth's interconnected systems and supporting science-based adaptation and mitigation. However, not including end-users, especially decision-makers representing communities vulnerable to climate change, can limit model utility, increase epistemic risks, and lead to information misuse in decision-making. While...

Imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid insecticide, is used for agricultural and nonagricultural purposes and is toxic to nontarget organisms at low concentrations in aquatic ecosystems. A total of 12,547 water samples were collected from 2013 to 2022 from 77 rivers across the United States (U.S.) and were analyzed to evaluate detections and temporal trends in imidacloprid concentrations...