Publications

In the Galápagos Islands, giant tortoises (Chelonoidis spp.) engineer terrestrial ecosystems. Endemic tortoise lineages have been lost from Floreana and Pinta Islands, resulting in ecosystem shifts, with tortoise population restoration currently being considered using hybrids that include ancestry from the now extinct C. niger of Floreana Island. We combined long-term vegetation...

Microplastics (plastic particles ≤5 mm) are a persistent and widespread pollutant in aquatic ecosystems, where they can accumulate in the larvae of aquatic insects inhabiting benthic habitats. Aquatic insects cross aquatic-terrestrial boundaries through metamorphosis, yet few studies have investigated their role in transporting microplastics to terrestrial ecosystems as emergent adults...

Black Carp Mylopharyngodon piceus are native to most major east Asian drainages and are internationally cultured for use as a food-fish or a biological control for molluscs. We describe the reproductive biology of Black Carp from the growing invasive population in the Mississippi River basin through examination of incidental commercial fisheries and biologist captures. Our objectives...

Outdoor recreation is expanding across public lands, yet managers lack evidence for how long wildlife responses to recreation persist and whether response duration depends on disturbance type and frequency. Using a field-based acoustic playback experiment in the Bridger–Teton National Forest, Wyoming, USA, we isolated recreation noise from other components of human presence and...

Otoliths are useful tools to estimate daily age, growth, and ontogenetic shifts in the early life stages of fish, providing information to support management efforts. Little effort, however, has gone into the examination of pre-hatch increment development. To assess variation in pre-hatch otolith size and increment formation, lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) sagittal otoliths were...

Studies of N-(1,3-dimethylbutyl)-N'-phenyl-p-phenylenediamine-quinone (6PPDQ) toxicity have identified sensitive and resistant species within the subfamily Salmoninae, but thus far fewer than 10 species, all in two genera (Oncorhynchus and Salvelinus), have shown sensitivity in experiments. The Arctic grayling (Thymallus arcticus, Salmonidae, Thymallinae) was extirpated from its range in...

The brown treesnake (BTS) invasion in Guam continues to cause extensive ecological and economic damage, yet existing control tools cannot achieve islandwide suppression or eradication, highlighting the need for new strategies. This review evaluates the feasibility of classical and genetic biocontrol approaches for BTS and identifies priority knowledge gaps. Classical biocontrol, which...

The 2023 eruption of Shishaldin Volcano, Alaska, provided an unusually well-monitored example of a “dry” (non-hydromagmatic) explosive basaltic eruption with sustained, buoyant plumes, and pyroclastic density currents. Here, we examine the 13 basaltic paroxysms that occurred between July and November 2023 using geostationary satellite observations, plume modeling, and volcanic lightning...

The 2004–2008 eruption of Mount St. Helens exemplified the practical challenges of processing high seismic event rates and data volumes. This protracted multi-year eruptive sequence was accompanied by a near-continuous occurrence of long-period (LP, 0.5–5 Hz) seismicity, but network-based picks and locations have previously been performed for only a relatively small subset of the overall

Spatial covariance is a metric used to delineate grassland cores and track state transitions driven by woody encroachment in rangelands, and it does so by calculating the degree of spatial coexistence between functional groups like grasses and trees at different scales. Spatial covariance is being used in biome-scale frameworks aimed at combatting woody plant encroachment and grassland

Space weather poses an important but under-quantified threat to society. While severe geomagnetic storms are recognized as potential global catastrophes, their socio-economic impacts remain poorly quantified. We present a novel physics-engineering-economic framework that links geophysical drivers to power grid geoelectric fields, transformer vulnerability, and macroeconomic consequences...

Geochronological and thermochronological data are essential for constraining the timing and rates of geological processes, supporting geologic mapping, natural hazard assessment, and resource exploration. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Geochron Database is a centralized, relational database that integrates USGS and State geological survey data in accordance with the National Geologic...