Publications

Few studies have examined cyanobacteria persistence starting from lacustrine cyanobacteria harmful algal blooms (HABs) downstream. Multiple lakes and reservoirs within New Jersey's Raritan Basin Water Supply Complex (RBWSC) feature recurrent HABs and discharge water into the Raritan River. As the RBWSC provides drinking water to 1.5 million people, these HABs create drinking water...

The Lee Acres Landfill and Giant Bloomfield Refinery are adjacent properties near the City of Farmington, New Mexico, each having undergone monitoring and remediation related to historical site activities. At the landfill, site cleanup has included the installation of a capillary barrier over former liquid waste lagoons and periodic monitoring of groundwater elevations and groundwater...

Quantifying sea turtle nesting behavior is essential for recovery planning and evaluating management actions. Traditional monitoring approaches, based on nest counts from beach surveys, can misclassify non-nesting emergences, obscure true fecundity, and underestimate clutch frequency, metrics that directly influence population models and regulatory decisions. Here, we demonstrate that...

We investigate the growth of a passive lava lake in Halemaʻumaʻu crater during the December 2020 to May 2021 eruption of Kīlauea volcano, Hawaii. Fed by vents above their surfaces, the formation of passive lava lakes in topographic lows is an important process in the growth of basaltic volcanoes. We captured visible and thermal images during 17 helicopter overflights and applied...

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...

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...

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...