Publications

The Black-necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus) is a migratory shorebird of temperate and tropical America. Declining wetland quality and associated declines in hydrological integrity may contribute to widespread habitat loss for stilts nesting on the upper Texas Gulf of Mexico coast of the USA, as both fresh and brackish marshes are converting to open water and saline marsh. Nests (n =...

Anthropogenic activities, such as oil and natural gas development (ONGD), have significantly altered the landscape. It is often challenging to identify the mechanistic processes underlying ecological responses to land-use change (LUC). In aquatic ecosystems, alterations to habitat and food availability and water quality associated with increased LUC are key mechanistic pathways that...

Oyster reefs provide habitat for numerous fish and decapod crustacean species that mediate ecosystem functioning and support vibrant fisheries. Recent focus on the restoration of eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) reefs stems from this role as a critical ecosystem engineer. Within the shallow estuaries of the northern Gulf of Mexico (nGoM), the eastern oyster is the dominant reef...

Turtle populations are imperiled worldwide, but limited ecological information from unaltered systems hampers science‐based management and conservation of some species, especially riverine turtles such as the spiny softshell (Apalone spinifera). We therefore investigated movements and spatial habitat selection of 54 A. spinifera in 633 river kilometres (rkm) of the least‐altered river in...

We examine the annual, seasonal, monthly, and diurnal climate responses to the land use change (LUC) in eastern United States and Cuba during four epochs (1650, 1850, 1920, and 1992) with ensemble simulations conducted with the RegCM4 regional climate model that includes the Biosphere Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS1e) surface physics package (Dickinson et al., 1993). We derived the...

Birds with altricial offspring need to feed them regularly, but each feeding visit risks drawing attention to the nest and revealing its location to potential predators. Synchronisation of visits by both parents has been suggested as a behavioural adaptation to reduce the risk of nest predation. Under this hypothesis, higher risk of nest predation favours greater synchrony of parental...

Degradation of wetland ecosystems has negatively impacted many species, perhaps none more so than marsh birds that breed in vegetative emergent wetlands throughout North America. The U.S. Department of Defense manages approximately 29 million acres of land within the continental U.S., and many military installations contain wetland complexes that may be important for wetland birds. Thus...

Impacts of ecological mismatches should be most pronounced at points of the annual cycle when populations depend on a predictable, abundant, and aggregated food resource that changes in timing or distribution. The degree to which species specialize on a key prey item, therefore, should determine their sensitivity to mismatches. We evaluated the hypothesis that the effects of ecological...

Informed management of American black bears (Ursus americanus) requires knowledge of the distribution and pathology of diseases affecting the species. Little information is available on pathogen prevalence from black bear populations in the Southwest, US, and it is unknown how these infections may influence black bear populations or disease transmission. We captured New Mexico black...

Sandhill Cranes Antigone canadensis exhibit delayed sexual maturity and breeding, and therefore juvenile Cranes searching for suitable territories to occupy have different ecological constraints on movements than adults, which must defend a territory and raise young. We used fine-scale GPS telemetry data to characterize and compare movements of adult and juvenile Cranes near the boundary...

The interspecific relationships between abundance and site occupancy have been widely studied in plants and animals, but principally in terrestrial systems. With few exceptions, a positive abundance–occupancy relationship has been reported. Few publications have included freshwater fish, possibly suggesting a general lack of abundance–occupancy patterns for this taxonomic group. We...

Understanding how biotic and abiotic interactions influence community assembly and composition is a fundamental goal in community ecology. Addressing this issue is particularly tractable along elevational gradients in tropical mountains that feature substantial abiotic gradients and rates of species turnover. We examined elevational patterns of avian community structure on 2 mountains in...