Publications

The establishment of a reservoir species for zoonotic diseases is concerning for both animal and human health. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2, the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, has been detected in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the United States. Since its initial detection, various studies have documented circulation and...

Wildlife management in the United States of America (US) is primarily delegated to the individual states wherein state wildlife agencies manage wildlife populations to achieve multiple and sometimes conflicting objectives. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are an important species in the Midwestern US whose populations are primarily managed through recreational hunting. Managers...

Captive breeding and translocation programs are an increasingly common conservation tool and management strategy used for some of the rarest and most endangered species in the world. These programs come at a high cost, and many translocation programs fail to monitor animals after release. Light-footed Ridgway’s rails (Rallus obsoletus levipes) are federally endangered marsh birds endemic...

Urban riverine systems are heterogeneous, and the substantial variability in impervious cover, riparian cover, wetlands, and wastewater and stormwater infrastructure affect sources and transport of dissolved organic matter (DOM), of which dissolved organic C (DOC) is a substantial component. An understanding of the quantity, bioavailability, and timing of DOM inputs (a key energy source...

Fisheries management has historically focused conservation efforts on game or sport species. However, most species are nongame—those not traditionally captured for sport or harvest in countries where recreational fisheries predominate. Greater conservation of nongame species could help ensure that population declines do not go unnoticed. Unfortunately, fisheries managers already manage...

Objective Lake Sturgeon Acipenser fluences became extirpated from the Coosa River system in Georgia and Alabama during the 1970s. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources began stocking hatchery-raised Lake Sturgeon in 2002 with the goal of reestablishing a self-sustaining population. Stocking lapsed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed an opportunity to assess natural

Wildlife research and management can be disruptive to wildlife. By advancing our understanding of the impacts of these activities, we can reduce adverse effects, improve decision-making, and enhance the outcomes of research and management. During 2017–2019, we observed the responses of denning female American black bears (Ursus americanus) to 3 types of routine research and management...

Understanding human-predator interactions has been a central goal of conservation for decades, yet many previous efforts have approached this challenge from disciplinary perspectives focused on single case studies. There is a need for more transdisciplinary and multi-sited research to enrich our understandings of the complexity of human-nonhuman interactions and to design ways to make...

Reservoirs alter flows and aquatic habitats, reordering rarity patterns of reservoir ichthyofauna by allowing certain fish traits to flourish while filtering others. We reviewed the composition of fish species in an impounded river basin (Tennessee River, USA) to identify traits that influence rarity. We delineate levels of rarity based on the number of occupied reservoirs and species...

The mottled duck (Anas fulvigula) is nonmigratory and a priority species for regional conservation and management because of its limited range and declining population trajectory in the western Gulf Coast (WGC) of Louisiana and Texas, USA. We developed multistate dead-recovery models for banding and recovery data (1997–2020) to evaluate potential drivers of survival, recovery, and post...

Knowledge of the spatiotemporal patterns of migratory and nonbreeding-season movements by animals is critical for conservation, but can be difficult to obtain if animals move far from known breeding territories and across administrative and country borders. To understand the migratory movements of Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) originating from a demographically closed population...

Objective Barbed sutures have become increasingly favored over traditional smooth sutures in human medicine but remain understudied in fisheries biotelemetry applications. Our objectives were to (1) compare surgery time and recovery time for Largemouth Bass Micropterus nigricans when using smooth- versus barbed-absorbable sutures to close the incisions and (2) compare the short-term...