Publications

We examined the interaction between environmental variables measured at three different scales (i.e., landscape, lake, and in-lake) and fish assemblage descriptors across a range of over 50 floodplain lakes in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley of Mississippi and Arkansas. Our goal was to identify important local- and landscape-level determinants of fish assemblage structure. Relationships...

Steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss from several of the world's rivers display the half-pounder life history, a variant characterized by an amphidromous (and, less often, anadromous) return to freshwater in the year of initial ocean entry. We evaluated factors related to expression of the half-pounder life history in wild steelhead from the lower Klamath River basin, California. We also...

The principal goal of protected area networks is biodiversity preservation, but efficacy of such networks is directly linked to animal movement within and outside area boundaries. We examined wetland selection patterns of mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) during non-breeding periods from 2010 to 2012 to evaluate the utility of protected areas to migratory waterfowl in North America. We...

Listing a species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and developing a recovery plan requires U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to establish specific and measurable criteria for delisting. Generally, species are listed because they face (or are perceived to face) elevated risk of extinction due to issues such as habitat loss, invasive species, or other factors. Recovery plans identify...

We compared the efficiency of stratified random and fixed-station sampling designs to characterize fish assemblages in anticipation of dam removal on the Penobscot River, the largest river in Maine. We used boat electrofishing methods in both sampling designs. Multiple 500-m transects were selected randomly and electrofished in each of nine strata within the stratified random sampling...

Radio transmitters are a commonly used tool for monitoring the fates of harvested species, although little research has been devoted to whether a visible radio transmitter changes a hunters' willingness to harvest that animal. We initially surveyed deer hunters to assess their willingness to harvest radio-collared deer and predicted radio collars were unlikely to affect the harvest of...

Characterizing fish assemblages in lentic ecosystems is difficult, and multiple sampling methods are almost always necessary to gain reliable estimates of indices such as species richness. However, most research focused on lentic fish sampling methodology has targeted recreationally important species, and little to no information is available regarding the influence of multiple methods...

The American Oystercatcher Haematopus palliatus is the most widely distributed of the four oystercatcher species in the Western Hemisphere. Its range covers almost the entire Atlantic Coast from northeastern United States to southern Argentina; on the Pacific Coast it is found from northern Mexico to central Chile. This assessment covers the entire range of the species, and is not...

Previous studies that evaluated effects of landscape-scale habitat heterogeneity on migratory waterbird distributions were spatially limited and temporally restricted to one major life-history phase. However, effects of landscape-scale habitat heterogeneity on long-distance migratory waterbirds can be studied across the annual cycle using new technologies, including global positioning...

No abstract available. Book information: Decision Making in Natural Resource Management: A Structured Adaptive Approach. Michael J. Conroy and James T. Peterson, 2013. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK. 456 pp. $99.95 paperback. ISBN: 978-0-470-67174-0.

Crayfish (saddlebacked crayfish, Orconectes medius) catch was compared using a kick seine applied two different ways with a 1-m2 quadrat sampler (with known efficiency and bias in riffles) from three small streams in the Missouri Ozarks. Triplicate samples (one of each technique) were taken from two creeks and one headwater stream (n=69 sites) over a two-year period. General linear mixed...

The decline of desert bighorn sheep on the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge (KNWR) beginning in 2003 stimulated efforts to determine the factors limiting survival and recruitment. We 1) determined pregnancy rates, body fat, and estimated survival rates of adults and lambs; 2) investigated the relationship between precipitation, forage conditions, previous year’s reproductive success, and...