Publications

The Aransas-Wood Buffalo population (the only non-reintroduced, migratory population) of endangered whooping cranes (Grus americana) overwinters along the Texas Gulf Coast, USA. Understanding whooping crane space use on the wintering grounds reveals essential aspects of this species' ecology, which subsequently assists with conservation. Using global positioning system telemetry data...

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a naturally-occurring neurodegenerative disease of cervids. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) and meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus) have previously been shown to be susceptible to the CWD agent. To investigate the potential for transmission of the agent of CWD from white-tailed deer to voles and subsequently to raccoons, we intracranially inoculated raccoons...

The development of colluvial wedges at the base of fault scarps following normal-faulting earthquakes serves as a sedimentary record of paleoearthquakes and is thus crucial in assessing seismic hazard. Although there is a large body of observations of colluvial wedge development, connecting this knowledge to the physics of sediment transport can open new frontiers in our understanding...

Birds are highly susceptible to aspergillosis, which can manifest as a primary infection in both domestic and wild birds. Aspergillosis in wild birds causes mortalities ranging in scale from single animals to large-scale epizootic events. However, pathogenicity factors associated with aspergillosis in wild birds have not been examined. Specifically, it is unknown whether wild bird...

Wave modeling and analysis of sedimentary structures were used to evaluate whether four examples of symmetrical, reversing, or straight-crested bedforms in Gale crater sandstones are preserved wave ripples; deposition by waves would demonstrate that the lake was not covered by ice at that time. Wave modeling indicates that regardless of atmospheric density, winds that exceeded the...

The release of live baitfish by anglers has been identified as a high-risk pathway for the introduction of aquatic invasive species due to the potential for invasive fish, invertebrates, or pathogens to be released simultaneously with the baitfish. Consequently, the release of live baitfish is illegal in many jurisdictions, but little is known about compliance rates or angler motivations...

Large-scale modelling and prediction provide insight into general influences of climate change on inland recreational fisheries; however, small-scale dynamics and local expertise will be key in developing explicit goals for managing recreational fisheries as the climate changes. The resist-accept-direct (RAD) framework encompasses the entire decision space managers consider when...

Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss have been intensively studied and gametogenesis has been described, but the use of reproductive indices in field studies has not been widely applied when assessing variability in growth or recruitment dynamics. We integrated descriptions for gametogenesis within the framework of standardized terminology for reproductive development in teleosts to develop...

Spatial capture–recapture (SCR) models are powerful analytical tools that have become the standard for estimating abundance and density of wild animal populations. When sampling populations to implement SCR, the number of unique individuals detected, total recaptures, and unique spatial relocations can be highly variable. These sample sizes influence the precision and accuracy of model...

For ecosystem models to be applicable outside their context of development, temporal and spatial transferability must be demonstrated. This presents a challenge for modeling intertidal ecosystems where spatiotemporal variation arises at multiple scales. Models specializing in tidal dynamics are generally inhibited from having wider ecological applications by coarse spatiotemporal...

The estimation and mapping of actual evapotranspiration (ETa) is an active area of applied research in the fields of agriculture and water resources. Thermal remote sensing-based methods, using coarse resolution satellites, have been successful at estimating ETa over the conterminous United States (CONUS) and other regions of the world. In this study, we present CONUS-wide ETa from...

Magnetotellurics (MT) is a passive electromagnetic geophysical method that measures variations in subsurface electrical resistivity. MT data are collected in the time domain and processed in the frequency domain to produce estimates of a transfer function representing the Earth’s electrical structure. Unfortunately, the MT community lacks metadata and data standards for time series data...