Publications

A statistical modeling framework is described for estimating the abundances of spatially distinct subpopulations of animals surveyed using removal sampling. To illustrate this framework, hierarchical models are developed using the Poisson and negative-binomial distributions to model variation in abundance among subpopulations and using the beta distribution to model variation in capture

We examined 142 papers, which contained 603 separate predator-prey trials, to investigate whether unpalatability is an important defense against predation for amphibian eggs and larvae. Although unpalatability is often cited as an antipredator defense, it was rarely demonstrated that 89% of the trials that we reviewed found prey to be palatable. The most extensively studied taxa, the...

About 190,000 ha of higher-elevation marl prairies flank either side of Shark River Slough in the southern Everglades. Water levels typically drop below the ground surface each year in this landscape. Consequently, peat soil accretion is inhibited, and substrates consist either of calcitic marl produced by algal periphyton mats or exposed limestone bedrock. The southern marl prairies...

Fifty-four right whale mortalities have been reported from between Florida, USA and the Canadian Maritimes from 1970 to 2002. Thirty of those animals were examined: 18 adults and juveniles, and 12 calves. Morphometric data are presented such that prediction of body weight is possible if the age, or one or more measurements are known. Calves grew approximately linearly in their first year...

Field and wetland conditions in the rice prairies of Louisiana and Texas are highly dynamic habitats. Rice prairies are important habitat for many species of migratory birds, including shorebirds, wading birds, and waterfowl. Ground sampling a variety of fields to assess habitat availability is very labor intensive, and accessibility to private lands makes statistical habitat sampling...

Previous studies have shown that variations in environmental conditions play a major role in explaining variations in plant species richness at community and landscape scales. In this study, we considered the degree to which fine-scale spatial variations in richness could be related to fine-scale variations in abiotic and biotic factors. To examine spatial variation in richness, grids of...

Over the past several thousand years, inputs from the Mississippi River formed the Mississippi delta, an area of about 25,000 km2. Over the past century, however, there has been a high loss of coastal wetlands of about 4800 km2. The main causes of this loss are the near complete isolation of the river from the delta, mostly due to the construction of flood control levees, and pervasive

No abstract available.

This chapter reviews the predicted effects of induced defenses on trophic structure and two aspects of stability, “local” stability and persistence, as well as presenting novel results on a third, resilience. Food webs are structures of populations in a given location organized according to their predator–prey interactions. Interaction strengths and, therefore, prey defenses are...

Reports of West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus) in the US Gulf of Mexico west of Florida have increased during the last decade. We reviewed all available manatee sighting, capture, and carcass records (n = 377) from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas since the early 1900s; only 40 of these were previously published. Manatees were reported most often in estuarine habitats...

The effect of salinity level and extended exposure to different salinity and flooding conditions on germination patterns of three salt‐marsh clonal growth plants (Juncus subulatus, Scirpus litoralis, and S. maritimus) was studied. Seed exposure to extended flooding and saline conditions significantly affected the outcome of the germination process in a different, though predictable, way...

The Kemp's Ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) is one of the most endangered sea turtles in the world, and it possesses temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD). Sex ratios produced under TSD can vary widely and can affect the reproductive ecology of a population. Therefore, sex ratios produced from TSD are of ecological and conservation interest. The current study validated and utilized a