Publications

Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) has caused extensive mortalities in wild birds with a disproportionate impact on raptors since 2021. The population-level impact of HPAIV can be informed by telemetry studies that track large samples of initially healthy, wild birds. We leveraged movement data from 71 rough-legged hawks (Buteo lagopus) across all major North American...

Objective The Lake Winnebago system in Wisconsin supports a popular winter spear fishery for Lake Sturgeon Acipenser fulvescens. Setting harvest caps for this fishery relies on estimating instantaneous natural mortality rate (M), which can be done using age-based approaches or capture–recapture models that incorporate recoveries of fish with passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags or...

Following the recovery of Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus), the US Fish and Wildlife Service began a process to allow “take” (capture) of wild peregrines for falconry in the United States. Recently, that effort involved generating updated estimates of the collective abundance of the three North American peregrine subspecies: F. p. anatum, F. p. tundrius, and F. p. pealei (Peale's...

In 2001, a reintroduced population of whooping cranes (Grus americana), the Eastern Migratory Population (EMP), was established in the eastern United States. There has been no assessment of habitat use of the EMP across the current winter distribution. During 2 winters, we used radio-telemetry to track groups of cranes each for 1 day. We grouped sites into 3 regions, based on natural...

Hybridization is a common process among bird species that can precipitate a mix of positive or negative species outcomes. Particularly for rare populations, detrimental effects of hybridization on demographic growth rates and genetic integrity are of serious concern. In Alaska and a small region of northwestern Canada, the endemic subspecies of Gray-headed Chickadee (Poecile cinctus...

Species interactions structure ecological communities through direct and indirect pathways with ecosystem-wide implications. Despite mounting interest in the importance of indirect interactions, empirical evidence remains limited. Here, we demonstrate the critical role of parasite-mediated competition in driving community outcomes in a multi-species system of conservation and management...

Reservoirs serve critical roles providing drinking water, irrigation, flood control, hydropower, recreation, fisheries, and aquatic habitat. Yet their physical position, complex shape, and large watersheds make reservoirs especially susceptible to eutrophication and harmful algal bloom (HAB) production. Boysen Reservoir, WY, is a high priority for proactive nutrient management because it...

This study aimed to understand the ecological relationship among burbot Lota lota, brown trout Salmo trutta and lake trout Salvelinus namaycush, with a focus on burbot, a species of greatest conservation need in Wyoming. While we hypothesised a reciprocal intraguild predation dynamic, where competition and predation occur between predators based on size or age structure, our findings...

The boreal ecosystem has experienced significant changes over recent decades as wildfires become more frequent, intense, and severe. As streams are highly prevalent and ecologically relevant, understanding interactions among wildfire and hydrologic patterns is important for effective aquatic ecosystem management. This study used a Bayesian mixture model to classify streamflow regimes...

Exploring the causes of differential migration, or variation in migration distance, has increased our understanding of the remarkable variation in migratory behavior exhibited by birds more generally. However, considerable uncertainty exists regarding the mechanisms underlying differential migration distance in birds despite it being a common phenomenon. We leveraged migration distances...

Quantifying lake ice loss is crucial for understanding the impact of climate change on lake ecosystems. In this study, we trained a deep learning model (Long-Short Term Memory with Landsat observations, 1984–2012) to simulate Northern Hemisphere lake ice changes at a fine spatial scale (> 0.1 km2) from 1980 to 2022. The model achieved good performance overall during the test period (2013...

Effective monitoring is fundamental to estimating wildlife population parameters with a level of accuracy and precision that is adequate to inform management decisions. However, managers must balance trade-offs between the costs of monitoring and the resulting data quality to identify cost-effective monitoring survey designs. As such, evaluating the expected performance of monitoring...