Publications

Water temperature influences both morphological and physiological development in fishes. However, the effects of water temperature on the early development of Alligator Gar Atractosteus spatula and Spotted Gar Lepisosteus oculatus are not well understood. Both gar species were collected from natural environments and spawned in a hatchery setting. After spawning, fertilized embryos were...

Seasonal migration is ubiquitous in animals, and yet its underlying cause(s) remain poorly known. Species exhibiting short-distance altitudinal migration and intraspecific variation in migratory behavior (partial or differential migration) are ideal study systems for examining the selective pressures that affect individual migratory decisions. We used an individually marked population of...

Sustainable, conservation-oriented agricultural practices like shade coffee and agroforestry can enhance conservation objectives in tropical landscapes. Adoption of these practices, however, is influenced by numerous factors. We conducted a survey of 89 coffee farmers in Puerto Rico to understand their farming practices, experience with existing incentives, and willingness to participate...

Pallid sturgeon Scaphirhynchus albus (Forbes & Richardson, 1905, Bulletin of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, 1905, 7, 37) are an endangered riverine sturgeon native to the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and declining numbers have been attributed to multiple stressors, including habitat loss and alteration. The lower Mississippi River provides a useful context to...

Homogeneous, agriculturally intense landscapes have abundant records of pollinator community research, though similar studies in the forest-dominated, heterogeneous mixed-use landscape that dominates the northeastern United States are sparse. Trends of landscape effects on wild bees are consistent across homogeneous agricultural landscapes, whereas reported studies in the northeastern...

Lesser Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) populations have declined throughout most of their distribution since the mid-1980s. These declines are largely attributed to loss of habitat through the conversion and expansion of cropland, construction of oil wells and other anthropogenic features on the landscape, and grazing intensification. Changes in habitat availability and...

White-tailed Kites (Elanus leucurus) are grassland raptors that typically breed along coastal regions, particularly in California, southeastern Texas, and southern Florida. This species is irregular in the Texas panhandle, with few confirmed breeding and sighting records. We describe the first breeding record in Lubbock County, Texas, in which a pair of adults successfully raised 2 young...

Ecosystem-scale examination of fish communities typically involves creating spatio-temporally explicit relative abundance distribution maps using data from multiple fishery-independent surveys. However, sampling performance varies by vessel and sampling gear, which may influence estimated species distribution patterns. Using GAMMs, the effect of different gear–vessel combinations on...

Effective resource management depends on our ability to partition diversity into biologically meaningful units. Recent evolutionary divergence, however, can often lead to ambiguity in morphological and genetic differentiation, complicating the delineation of valid conservation units. Such is the case with the "coregonine problem," where recent postglacial radiations of coregonines into...

Spawning movements and the factors affecting those movements are often of interest to fisheries managers and biologists. The objective of this study was to examine the influence of environmental factors on the movements of an adfluvial Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss population in the Black Hills, South Dakota. Three unique strains of hatchery-reared Rainbow Trout and resident Rainbow...

Dams can alter the chemical and physical conditions of downstream environments by increasing stream temperatures, altering nutrient limitation, reducing flow variability, and reducing fine sediment deposition. However, little is known about how fundamental stream ecosystem processes like productivity and respiration respond to dams. Nutrient diffusing substrates were installed in three...

Advances in underwater camera technology provide an affordable means to quantify the environmental conditions under which fish spawn. This information is important for investigating spawning ecology, managing habitat, or providing information for captive breeding programs. We deployed 12 modified security cameras underwater to identify environmental conditions related to the spawning...