Publications

Excess fine sediment (

Northern bobwhite Colinus virginianus populations have been rapidly declining in the eastern, central, and southern United States for decades. Land use change and an incompatibility between northern bobwhite resource needs and human land use practices have driven declines. Here, we applied occupancy analyses on two spatial scales (state level and ecoregion level) to more than 5,000...

Optimal design procedures provide a framework to leverage the learning generated by ecological models to flexibly and efficiently deploy future monitoring efforts. At the same time, Bayesian hierarchical models have become widespread in ecology and offer a rich set of tools for ecological learning and inference. However, coupling these methods with an optimal design framework can become

Hatchery-origin white sturgeon Acipenser transmontanus in the lower Columbia River, Canada are approaching puberty, and describing the reproductive structure of the population is critical to determine if they are capable of contributing to spawning events in the wild, a key management uncertainty. Few studies have compared the accuracy of available tools (histology, ultrasound, endoscopy...

Identifying the physical habitat characteristics associated with riverine freshwater mussel assemblages is challenging but crucial for understanding the causes of mussel declines. The occurrence of mussels in multispecies beds suggests that common physical factors influence or limit their occurrence. Fine-scale geomorphic and hydraulic factors (e.g., scour, bed stability) are predictive...

In addition to the Sky Islands of the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico, a series of 900–1200 m desert peaks surrounded by arid lowlands support temperate affiliated species at their summits. The presence of disjunct long-lived plant taxa on under-explored desert mountains, especially Isla Tiburón at 29° latitude in the Gulf of California, suggests a more southerly extent of Ice...

Arizona pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) population numbers have declined over the last century due to unregulated-harvest, population fragmentation, urban expansion, and habitat loss. Captive breeding, reintroductions, and translocations have helped to curb decline and boost population numbers of the endangered Sonoran subspecies (A. a. sonoriensis). To assess the effect of on-going...

Some northern Wisconsin lakes have shown declines in catches of age-0 Walleye Sander vitreus in standardized fall electrofishing sampling, suggesting that recruitment bottlenecks are occurring in the first several months of life. In 2016 and 2017, we sampled six lakes with declining trends in natural Walleye recruitment (D-NR lakes) and seven lakes with a history of sustained natural...

Many applications in wildlife management require knowledge of the sex of individual animals. The Yuma Ridgway's rail Rallus obsoletus yumanensis is an endangered marsh bird with monomorphic plumage and secretive behaviors, thereby complicating sex determination in field studies. We collected morphometric measurements from 270 adult Yuma Ridgway's rails and quantified the plumage and...

(1) Many forage fishes, such as Leucisids (minnows) have depauperate studies on diet composition or stable isotope signatures, as these fishes are often only viewed as food for higher trophic levels. The need exists to understand and document the diet and stable isotope signatures of Leucisids (redside shiner, longnose dace, lake chub) in relation to the community ecology and food-web...

Shorebird use of horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) eggs as food items has been well documented along the Atlantic coast of the United States at northeastern stopover sites such as the Delaware Bay. However, the relationship between migratory shorebirds and horseshoe crab eggs has not been well studied in the South Atlantic Bight. The objective of our study was to assess the spatial and...

Brush piles (i.e., trees and large woody debris) are often installed in reservoirs to supplement fish habitat. The retention and dimensional change of brush piles after installation is important information that can be used to maximize the effectiveness of this management action. We evaluated the retention and dimensional change of 70 eastern red cedar Juniperus virginiana and bald...