Publications

Management approaches that focus on social–ecological systems—systems comprised of ecosystems, landscapes, and humans—are needed to secure the sustainability of inland recreational fisheries without jeopardizing the integrity of the underlying social and ecological components. Resilience management can be useful because it focuses on providing recreational capacity for fishermen under a...

Environmental law envisions ecological systems as existing in an equilibrium state, reinforcing a rigid legal framework unable to absorb rapid environmental changes and innovations in sustainability. For the past four decades, “resilience theory,” which embraces uncertainty and nonlinear dynamics in complex adaptive systems, has provided a robust, invaluable foundation for sound...

Toxic blooms of golden alga (GA, Prymnesium parvum) in Texas typically occur in winter or early spring. In North America, they were first reported in Texas in the 1980s, and a marked range expansion occurred in 2001. Although there is concern about the influence of climate change on the future distribution of GA, factors responsible for past dispersals remain uncertain. To better...

Freshwater mussels (Unionidae) are a highly imperilled faunal group. One critical threat is thermal sensitivity, because global climate change and other anthropogenic activities contribute to increasing stream temperature and altered hydrologic flow that may be detrimental to freshwater mussels. We incorporated four benthic environmental components - temperature, sediment, water level (a

Management approaches that focus on social–ecological systems—systems comprised of ecosystems, landscapes, and humans—are needed to secure the sustainability of inland recreational fisheries without jeopardizing the integrity of the underlying social and ecological components. Resilience management can be useful because it focuses on providing recreational capacity for fishermen under a...

Bovine tuberculosis is a bacterial disease caused by Mycobacterium bovis in livestock and wildlife with hosts that include Eurasian badgers (Meles meles), brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula), and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Risk-assessment efforts in Michigan have been initiated on farms to minimize interactions of cattle with wildlife hosts but research onM. bovis...

The productivity and linkages in the food web of the southern region of the west Antarctic Peninsula continental shelf were investigated using a multi-trophic level mass balance model. Data collected during the Southern Ocean Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics field program were combined with data from the literature on the abundance and diet composition of zooplankton, fish, seabirds and...

How wildlife social and resource networks are distributed on the landscape and how animals respond to resource loss are important aspects of behavioral ecology. For bats, understanding these responses may improve conservation efforts and provide insights into adaptations to environmental conditions. We tracked maternity colonies of northern bats (Myotis septentrionalis) at Fort Knox...

Shellfish reef restoration to support ecological services has become more common in recent decades, driven by increasing awareness of the functional decline of shellfish systems. Maximizing restoration benefits and increasing efficiency of shellfish restoration activities would greatly benefit from understanding and measurement of system responses to management activities. This project...

Liming has been used extensively in Scandinavia and elsewhere since the 1970s to counteract the negative effects of acidification. Communities in limed lakes usually return to acidified conditions once liming is discontinued, suggesting that liming is unlikely to shift acidified lakes to a state equivalent to pre-acidification conditions that requires no further management intervention...

Reservoirs constructed on floodplain rivers are unique because the upper reaches of the impoundment may include extensive floodplain environments. Moreover, reservoirs that experience large periodic water level fluctuations as part of their operational objectives seasonally inundate and dewater floodplains in their upper reaches, partly mimicking natural inundations of river floodplains...

Mercury contamination in wildlife has rarely been studied in the Southern Appalachians despite high deposition rates in the region. From 2006 to 2008 we sampled feathers from 458 birds representing 32 species in the Southern Appalachians for total mercury and stable isotope δ 15N. Mercury concentrations (mean ± SE) averaged 0.46 ± 0.02 μg g−1 (range 0.01–3.74 μg g−1). Twelve of 32...