James Grace, Ph.D. (Former Employee)

Perhaps no other pair of variables in ecology has generated as much discussion as species richness and ecosystem productivity, as illustrated by the reactions by Pierce (2013) and others to Adler et al.'s (2011) report that empirical patterns are weak and inconsistent. Adler et al. (2011) argued we need to move beyond a focus on simplistic bivariate relationships and test mechanistic

The Natural Resource Challenge (National Park Service 1999) was a call to action. It constituted a mandate for monitoring based on the twin premises that (1) natural resources in national parks require active management and stewardship if we are to protect them from gradual degradation, and (2) we cannot protect what we do not understand. The intent of the challenge was embodied in its

Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is the primary determinant of traffic congestion, vehicle crashes, greenhouse gas emissions, and other effects of transportation. Two previous studies have sought to explain VMT levels in urbanized areas. This study updates and expands on previous work with more recent data, additional metrics, and structural equation modeling (SEM) to explain VMT levels in...

A recurrent challenge in the conservation of wide-ranging, imperiled species is understanding which habitats to protect and whether we are capable of restoring degraded landscapes. For Greater Sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), a species of conservation concern in the western United States, we approached this problem by developing multi-scale empirical models of occupancy in 211...

This chapter describes and illustrates how concepts of ecological integrity, thresholds, and reference conditions can be integrated into a research and monitoring framework for natural resource management. Ecological integrity has been defined as a measure of the composition, structure, and function of an ecosystem in relation to the system’s natural or historical range of variation, as...

Vehicle miles travelled (VMT) is a primary performance indicator for land use and transportation, bringing with it both positive and negative externalities. This study updates and refines previous work on VMT in urbanised areas, using recent data, additional metrics and structural equation modelling (SEM). In a cross-sectional model for 2010, population, income and freeway capacity are...