Publications

Potassium-40 is a widespread, naturally occurring isotope whose radioactivity impacts estimated geological ages spanning billions of years, nuclear structure theory, and subatomic rare-event searches—including those for dark matter and neutrinoless double-beta decay. The decays of this long-lived isotope must be precisely known for its use as a geochronometer, and to account for its...

Potassium-40 is a widespread, naturally occurring isotope whose radioactivity impacts subatomic rare-event searches, nuclear structure theory, and estimated geological ages. A predicted electron-capture decay directly to the ground state of argon-40 has never been observed. The KDK (potassium decay) collaboration reports strong evidence of this rare decay mode. A blinded analysis reveals...

Background The distribution of resources can affect animal range sizes, which in turn may alter infectious disease dynamics in heterogenous environments. The risk of pathogen exposure or the spatial extent of outbreaks may vary with host range size. This study examined the range sizes of herbivorous anthrax host species in two ecosystems and relationships between spatial movement...

The number and diversity of phenological studies has increased rapidly in recent years. Innovative experiments, field studies, citizen science projects, and analyses of newly available historical data are contributing insights that advance our understanding of ecological and evolutionary responses to the environment, particularly climate change. However, many phenological data sets have

Aims Coastal salt marshes are productive ecosystems that are highly efficient carbon sinks, but there is uncertainty regarding the interactions among climate warming, plant species, and tidal restriction on C cycling.Methods Open-top chambers (OTCs) were deployed at two coastal wetlands in Yancheng, China, where native Phragmites australis (Phragmites) and invasive Spartina alterniflora...

Although historical observations date back to the 1800’s, there is little information on sea turtle occupancy within Biscayne National Park (BNP). The park is located along the Florida reef tract and is dominated by the Gulfstream, which acts as a corridor for many marine animals. Here we used satellite telemetry to determine areas of use in BNP for two species of imperiled sea turtles...

In the Mojave Desert, timing and amounts of precipitation profoundly affect availability of water and annual plant foods necessary for the threatened Agassiz’s desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) to survive, especially during prolonged droughts. As part of recovery actions to increase declining populations, we translocated 83 juvenile and young desert tortoises raised in head-start pens...

The purported sustainability of sustainable-use reserves (SURs) has been questioned in recent decades due to anthropogenic disturbance, including widespread game hunting. A fuller understanding of the drivers of harvest-induced game population changes in SURs is needed to inform this debate. We deployed 720 camera traps around 100 local communities both inside and outside nine SURs in...

In the face of accelerating climate change, advancing understanding of how extreme climatic events influence estuarine salinities can help to inform resource management. Extreme salinities driven by droughts, hurricanes, floods, and freshwater flow alterations can lead to ecological transformations in estuarine ecosystems. Here, we applied the Coastal Salinity Index (CSI; Conrads and...

1. Invasive species management can benefit from predictive models that incorporate spatially explicit demographics and dispersal to guide resource allocation decisions. 2. We used invasive bigheaded carps (Hypophthalmichthys spp.) in the Illinois River, USA as a case study to create a spatially explicit model to evaluate the allocation of future management efforts. Specifically, we...

A hydrogeologic framework was constructed for the Coastal Lowlands aquifer system in southwestern Louisiana. Data from previous hydrogeologic and geologic studies were synthesized and expanded using 2,242 geophysical logs to map 4 hydrogeologic units: the Chicot aquifer system, Evangeline aquifer, Jasper aquifer system, and Catahoula aquifer. Raster surfaces were created for the base and...

One of the most prominent challenges related to legacy seismic data is determining how these data can be appropriately used in modern research applications. The wide variety of instrumentation used in the analog era, the format of recording on paper wrapped around a helicorder drum, and limited metadata information introduces ambiguities that are not typical of modern digital data...