Publications

Reliable information on abundance of the ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) is scarce. We conducted the first camera-trap study in the northern part of the Pantanal wetlands of Brazil, one of the wildlife hotspots of South America. Using capture-recapture analysis, we estimated a density of 0.112 independent individuals per km2 (SE 0.069). We list other mammals recorded with camera traps and...

Ricefields are important foraging habitat for waterfowl and other waterbirds in several North American wintering areas, including the Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV). Rice growers are likely to adopt management practices that provide habitat for waterfowl if agronomic benefits also occur. Therefore, we conducted a replicated field experiment during autumn through spring 1995–1997 to...

Implementation of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) altered the interspersion and abundance of patches of different land-cover types in landscapes of the southeastern United States. Because northern bobwhites (Colinus virginianus) are experiencing significant population declines throughout most of their range, including the Southeast, it is critical to understand the impacts of...

Dramatic changes in wintering distributions of Canada geese (Branta canadensis) have occurred over the past 50 years in eastern North America. Declines in numbers of subarctic-nesting geese wintering in southern states, and increases in numbers wintering in northern regions, have resulted in a northern shift in winter distributions. In contrast, numbers of temperate-nesting geese have...

Information on population connectivity throughout the annual cycle has become more crucial, because populations of many migratory birds are in decline. One such species is the American Woodcock (Scolopax minor), which inhabits early-successional forests in eastern North America. Although band recoveries have proved useful for dividing populations of this game bird species into an Eastern...

In recent years, high concentrations of mercury have been found in wading birds in Florida, USA. Great egret (Ardea alba) chicks (2 weeks old) were dosed orally daily with the equivalent of 0, 0.5, or 5 μg/g Hg as methylmercury chloride in the diet for up to 12 weeks. Weakness of the legs or paralysis occurred in all high-dosed birds. Geometric mean blood Hg concentrations were 0.17, 10...

Introduced brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula) are a widespread pest of conservation and agriculture in New Zealand, and considerable effort has been expended controlling populations to low densities. A national protocol for monitoring the abundance of possums, termed trap catch index (TCI), was adopted in 1996. The TCI requires that lines of leghold traps set at 20-m spacing are...

Abundance estimation in ecology is usually accomplished by capture–recapture, removal, or distance sampling methods. These may be hard to implement at large spatial scales. In contrast, binomial mixture models enable abundance estimation without individual identification, based simply on temporally and spatially replicated counts. Here, we evaluate mixture models using data from the...

We used traditional searching, as well as radio-telemetry, to find 125 Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) nests during 1994–1996 at the Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia, USA. We compared daily nest survival rates for 66 nests of radio-marked birds with 59 nests of birds found through systematic searching. By using radio-telemetry, we found Wood Thrush nests in higher...

A distinct, non-native haplotype of the common reed Phragmites australis has become invasive in Atlantic coastal Spartina marshes. We compared the salt tolerance and other growth characteristics of the invasive M haplotype with 2 native haplotypes (F and AC) in greenhouse experiments. The M haplotype retained 50% of its growth potential up to 0.4 M NaCl, whereas the F and AC haplotypes...

Stream salamanders in the family Plethodontidae constitute a large biomass in and near headwater streams in the eastern United States and are promising indicators of stream ecosystem health. Many studies of stream salamanders have relied on population indices based on counts rather than population estimates based on techniques such as capture-recapture and removal. Application of...

No abstract available.