Cory Overton (Former Employee)

Background Spatio-temporal patterns of movement can characterize relationships between organisms and their surroundings, and address gaps in our understanding of species ecology, activity budgets, bioenergetics, and habitat resource management. Highly mobile waterfowl, which can exploit resources over large spatial extents, are excellent models to understand relationships between...

Salt marsh-dependent species are vulnerable to impacts of sea-level rise (SLR). Site-specific differences in ecogeomorphic processes result in different SLR vulnerabilities. SLR impacts to Ridgway’s rail (Rallus obsoletus) of Southern California (SC) and San Francisco Bay (SF), U.S.A. could foreshadow SLR effects on other coastal endemic species. Salt marsh vulnerabilities to SLR were...

Depredation plays an important role in determining duck nest success and predator and female duck behavior during nest depredation can influence nest fate. We examined depredation of mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) and gadwall (A. strepera) nests in Suisun Marsh, California, USA, in 2015–2016 with continuous infrared video monitoring to identify nest predators and characterize predator and...

Introduction: Tidal marsh systems along the Pacific coast of the United States have experienced substantial stress and loss of area and ecosystem function, which we examined by using the endangered California Ridgway’s Rail, Rallus obsoletus obsoletus (‘rail’) as an indicator of its tidal marsh habitat in the San Francisco Estuary. We organized a collection of historical (1885-1940) and...

On 23 December 2015 while performing a high tide population survey for endangered Ridgway’s rails (Rallus obsoletus obsoletus; formerly known as the California clapper rail) and other rail species at Arrowhead Marsh, Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, California, the authors observed a series of species interactions resulting in the predation of a Ridgway’s rail by an...

Fragmentation and loss of natural habitat have important consequences for wild populations and can negatively affect long-term viability and resilience to environmental change. Salt marsh obligate species, such as those that occupy the San Francisco Bay Estuary in western North America, occupy already impaired habitats as result of human development and modifications and are highly...