Publications

Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve in southwestern Oregon is a 4,554-​acre area managed by the National Park Service that is home to several cave systems, including Oregon Caves, which is the longest cave in Oregon, with 3.03 miles of mapped passages. Because of the interconnected nature of karst hydrologic systems, it is critical to understand the areas that can influence water...

No abstract available.

A substantial body of evidence exists demonstrating that exposure to environmental contaminants can alter animal behavior. Moreover, methodological and technological advancements, as well as increasing standardization, mean that behavioral ecotoxicity studies are more rigorous and reliable than ever before. Despite this, behavioral data are still seldom used in the risk assessment and...

This study provides a comprehensive assessment of phytoplankton biomass dynamics in Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, by combining monthly water quality data with multispectral and hyperspectral satellite observations using a machine learning algorithm. A machine learning model based on Variational Autoencoder (VAE), globally applicable, was used to estimate phytoplankton biomass via...

Quantifying sea turtle nesting behavior is essential for recovery planning and evaluating management actions. Traditional monitoring approaches, based on nest counts from beach surveys, can misclassify non-nesting emergences, obscure true fecundity, and underestimate clutch frequency, metrics that directly influence population models and regulatory decisions. Here, we demonstrate that...

Animal populations often experience acute natural disturbances, most of which are connected to short—term weather events. Occurrences of early—season tropical cyclones during the peak of the avian breeding season are likely to increase with climate change, which can substantially impact populations of coastal breeding birds at multiple scales. To understand the acute impacts of severe...

Although coastal ecosystems are impacted by climate change and sea-level rise, many ecological and hydrological models do not yet incorporate sea-level rise projections in their modeling outputs. Therefore, this research examined the various challenges that may prevent sea-level rise from being effectively incorporated in modeling and decision-support tools. We conducted semi-structured...

Invasive Central American boas (Boa imperator) have established a reproducing population on the western side of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands but prevalence throughout the island is largely unknown. The large snakes threaten endemic and endangered species through competition and predation, jeopardizing island biodiversity. Environmental DNA (eDNA) methods were used to investigate...

Observations of the Evening Bat (Nycticeius humeralis), a species historically distributed abundantly throughout the southeastern United States, are speculated to have increased in the Midwest. One hypothesis for this expansion in geographic distribution is that local extirpations of other bat species resulted in the expanded realized niche spaces for evening bats. In Indiana, such niche...

This paper introduces the use of acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) measurements as input for the Acoustic Mapping Velocimetry (AMV) method, a technique for characterizing the dynamics of riverine bedforms. The performance of this new approach, ADCP-AMV, is compared with input from a multibeam echosounder through a field study conducted on the Mississippi River (USA). A virtual...

Although nitrogen and phosphorus deficiency of algal blooms have been the focus of substantial attention, organic nutrients can limit algal growth in aquatic systems. Growing evidence indicates thiamine (vitamin B1) can influence the community of primary producers in marine systems, but comparatively little is known about the effect of thiamine on freshwater algal productivity.We...

Phosphorus (P) management remains a challenge in agricultural watersheds. The Choptank River Conservation Effects Assessment Project watershed, located in Maryland and Delaware and draining to the Chesapeake Bay, contains legacy soil P from historical dairy and poultry manure applications. These practices elevated soil P beyond crop needs, contributing to persistent P export to aquatic...