Publications

Formally protected areas are an important component of wildlife conservation, but face limitations in their effectiveness for migratory species. Improved stewardship of working lands around protected areas is one solution for conservation planning, but private working lands are vulnerable to development. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), ungulates such as elk (Cervus canadensis...

Throughout the northeastern United States (U.S.) and Europe, relict charcoal hearths (RCHs) are regularly being discovered in proximity to furnaces once used for the extraction of metal from ore or quick-lime production; charcoal produced in hearths was used as a furnace fuel. Given previous research has shown that topographic and subsurface disturbance can be great when a hearth is...

Sampling fecal droppings (scat) to genetically identify individual animals is an established method for monitoring mammal populations and could be highly useful for monitoring reptile populations. Whereas existing protocols for obtaining DNA from reptile scat focus on analyses of whole, fresh scat deposited during animal handling, the collection of scat naturally deposited by reptiles in...

Animal fear can be an important driver of ecological community structure: predators affect prey not only through predation, but by inducing changes in behavior and distribution—a phenomenon evocatively called the “ecology of fear.” The return of wolves to the western United States is a notable instance of such dynamics, yet plays out in a complex socio-ecological system where efforts to...

Cisco (Coregonus artedi) once dominated fish communities in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Restoring the abundance and distribution of this species has emerged as a management priority, yet our understanding of Cisco spawning habitat use is insufficient to characterise habitat needs for these populations and assess whether availability of suitable spawning habitat could be a constraint to...

Climate change is expected to alter stream fish habitat potentially leading to changes in the composition and distribution of fish communities. In the Northeastern and Midwestern United States we identified the distribution and characteristics of those fish communities most and least at risk of experiencing changes in climate which deviate from the climate they are associated with. We...

Understanding the spatial and temporal habitat use of a population is a necessary step for recovery planning. For Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), variation in their migration and habitat use complicate predicting how restoring habitats could impact total recruitment. To evaluate how juvenile life history variation affects a population’s response to potential restoration, we...

The characteristic pattern of variation in flow magnitude, frequency, duration, timing, and rate of change defines the flow regime of rivers and streams and is a key driver of ecosystem processes in fluvial ecosystems. Understanding how freshwater biotic assemblages change across gradients of hydrology and anthropogenic-source disturbance in different streamflow regimes is crucial to...

A multiscale perspective is essential for conservation planning of riverine fishes. Coarse-scale habitat (e.g., basis) can influence both finer-scale habitat characteristics (e.g., reaches and microhabitat) and associated species distributions. Finer-scale management and habitat rehabilitation efforts can fail without the consideration of coarser-scale constraints. We provide a...

Reservoirs are ubiquitous features on the landscape of the western United States. Although reservoirs provide numerous benefits (e.g., irrigation, flood control, hydropower, recreational use), these systems are often a concern from an ecological perspective. Reservoirs support fisheries primarily composed of nonindigenous sport fishes that may become invasive and negatively influence...

The feminization of green sunfish Lepomis cyanellus could expand their utility as a game fish or aquacultured species by preventing overcrowding and precocious reproduction in stocked systems. Feminization of green sunfish could also help elucidate information on their sex determination system. We report the feminization of green sunfish cohorts via oral administration of estradiol-17β...

Arctic marine ecosystems are undergoing rapid physical and biological change associated with climate warming and loss of sea ice. Sea ice loss will impact many species through altered spatial and temporal availability of resources. In the Bering and Chukchi Seas, the Pacific walrus Odobenus rosmarus divergens is one species that could be impacted by rapid environmental change, and thus...