Publications

On 13 June 1993, a new Kittlitz's murrelet (Brachyramphus brevirostris) nest was discovered near Red Mountain on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. The nest was on a 22° slope at about 900 m elevation with a northeast aspect, and contained a 60.2 × 40.6 mm egg that weighed 49.0 g. Downy feathers and weathered fecal material found at the nest indicated re-use from a previous year, suggesting...

In November 1995... a full-day symposium on the biology of sea ducks was held. The papers in this volume were presented at this symposium. It is hoped that by synthesizing this information, more informed management decisions for sea ducks may emerge. The symposium contents help to emphasize the seriousness of some conservation issues facing sea ducks, notably the possible endangerment of...

A discontinuous pumiceous sand, a few centimeters to tens of centimeters thick, is located up to 15 m above mean high tide within Holocene peat along the northern Bristol Bay coastline of Alaska. The bed consists of fine-to-coarse, poorly to moderately well-sorted, pumice-bearing sand near the top of a 2-m-thick peat sequence. The sand bed contains rip-up clasts of peat and tephra and is...

Changes in genetic variation across a species range may indicate patterns of population structure resulting from past ecological and demographic events that are otherwise difficult to infer and thus provide insight into evolutionary development. Genetic data is used, drawn from 11 microsatellite loci amplified from anadromous steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) sampled throughout its range...

A three-year study of epipelagic fishes inhabiting Beaufort Sea coastal waters in Alaska documented spatial and temporal patterns in fish distribution and abundance and examined their relationships to thermohaline features during summer. Significant interannual, seasonal, and geographical differences in surface water temperatures and salinities were observed. In 1990, sea ice was absent...

We studied incubation behavior of Spectacled Eiders (Somateria fischeri) on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in 1996. We trapped 19 females on their nests and weighed them in early incubation and again at hatch. Average daily weight loss for incubating females was 16.6 ± 1.0 g day-1, which resulted in a cumulative loss of 26% of body weight throughout incubation. Nest attendance was monitored...

The at-sea distribution of the threatened Spectacled Eider (Somateria fischeri) has remained largely undocumented. We identified migration corridors, staging and molting areas, and wintering areas of adult Spectacled Eiders using implanted satellite-transmitters in birds from each of the three extant breeding grounds (North Slope and Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in Alaska and arctic Russia)...

A shift in ocean climate during the late 1970s triggered a reorganization of community structure in the Gulf of Alaska ecosystem, as evidenced in changing catch composition on long-term (1953 to 1997) small-mesh trawl surveys. Forage species such as pandalid shrimp and capelin declined because of recruitment failure and predation, and populations have not yet recovered. Total trawl catch...

We studied genetic structure in polar bear (Ursus maritimus) populations by typing a sample of 473 individuals spanning the species distribution at 16 highly variable microsatellite loci. No genetic discontinuities were found that would be consistent with evolutionarily significant periods of isolation between groups. Direct comparison of movement data and genetic data from the Canadian...

Male polar bears (Ursus maritimus) have not been successfully instrumented with satellite transmitters because they readily shed collar-mounted transmitters. Seven male polar bears were captured on the pack ice off the northern coast of Alaska and surgically implanted with satellite transmitters with percutaneous antennae into the subcutaneous space of the dorsal cervical region...

The effects of small population size on genetic diversity and subsequent population recovery are theoretically predicted, but few empirical data are available to describe those relations. We use data from four remnant and three translocated sea otter ( Enhydra lutris) populations to examine relations among magnitude and duration of minimum population size, population growth rates, and...

Microsatellite genetic diversity found in Alameda Creek rainbow trout support a close genetic relationship with coastal trout found in Lagunitas Creek, Marin County, California. No significant genotypic or allelic frequencies associations could be drawn among Alameda Creek trout and fish collected from the four primary rainbow trout hatchery strains in use in California, Whitney, Mount...