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The meningeal worm (Parelaphostrongylus tenuis) is a nematode parasite that commonly infects white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus; WTD) throughout the deciduous forest biome and deciduous-coniferous ecotone of eastern and central North America; the species is not known to occur west of the grassland biome of central North America. We used county-specific...

Plethodontid salamanders are diverse and widely distributed taxa and play critical roles in ecosystem processes. Due to salamander use of structurally complex habitats, and because only a portion of a population is available for sampling, evaluation of sampling designs and estimators is critical to provide strong inference about Plethodontid ecology...

The St. Marys River (SMR) historically has been a major producer of sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus) in the Laurentian Great Lakes. In the early 2000s, a decision analysis (DA) project was conducted to evaluate sea lamprey control policies for the SMR; this project suggested that an integrated policy of trapping,...

The proliferation of double-crested cormorants (DCCOs; Phalacrocorax auritus) in North America has raised concerns over their potential negative impacts on game, cultured and forage fishes, island and terrestrial resources, and other colonial water birds, leading to increased public demands to reduce their abundance. By combining fish surplus production and bird functional...

Intracranial abscess disease is a cause of natural mortality for mature male white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Most cases of abscesses are associated with bacterial infection byTrueperella (Arcanobacterium) pyogenes, but a complete understanding of the epidemiology of this disease is lacking. We quantified the effects of individual characteristics, site-specific herd demographics, land cover,...

Overabundant populations of ungulates have caused environmental degradation and loss of biological diversity in ecosystems throughout the world. Culling or regulated harvest is often used to control overabundant species. These methods are difficult to implement in national parks, other types of conservation reserves, or in residential areas where public hunting...

Presence-only data can be used to determine resource selection and estimate a species’ distribution. Maximum likelihood is a common parameter estimation method used for species distribution models. Maximum likelihood estimates, however, do not always exist for a commonly used species distribution model – the Poisson point process. We...

Understanding the environmental processes determining the timing and success of reproduction is of critical importance to developing effective management strategies of marine fishes. Unfortunately it has proven difficult to comprehensively study the reproductive behavior of broadcast-spawning fishes. The use of electronic data storage tags (DSTs) has the potential to provide...

Successfully managing fisheries and controlling the spread of invasive species depends on the ability to describe and predict angler behavior. However, finite resources restrict conventional survey approaches and tend to produce retrospective data that are limited in time or space and rely on intentions or attitudes rather than actual behavior....

Two parallel lines of inquiry, tolerance for and acceptance of wildlife populations, have arisen in the applied literature on wildlife conservation to assess probability of successfully establishing or increasing populations of controversial species. Neither of these lines is well grounded in social science theory, and diverse measures have been employed...

Determining where biodiversity is likely to be most vulnerable to climate change and methods to reduce that vulnerability are necessary first steps to incorporate climate change into biodiversity management plans. Here, we use a spatial climate change vulnerability assessment to (1) map the potential vulnerability of terrestrial biodiversity to climate...

For almost a century the Baja California peninsula (Peninsula), Gulf of California (Gulf), and broader Sonoran Desert region (figure 1) have drawn geologists and biologists alike to study its unique physical and evolutionary processes (e.g., Wittich 1920; Darton 1921; Nelson 1921; Johnston 1924; Beal 1948; Durham and Allison 1960). The...

In the past, hydrologic modeling of surface water resources has mainly focused on simulating the hydrologic cycle at local to regional catchment modeling domains. There now exists a level of maturity among the catchment, global water security, and land surface modeling communities such that these communities are converging toward continental...

The sea lamprey, Petromyzon marinus, is emerging as a model organism for understanding how pheromones can be used for manipulating vertebrate behavior in an integrated pest management program. In a previous study, a synthetic sex pheromone component 7α,12α, 24-trihydroxy-5α-cholan-3-one 24-sulfate (3kPZS) was applied to sea lamprey traps in eight...

BackgroundWe hypothesize that invasive English ivy (Hedera helix) harbors endophytic microbes that promote plant growth and survival. To evaluate this hypothesis, we examined endophytic bacteria in English ivy and evaluated effects on the host plant.MethodsEndophytic bacteria were isolated...

We evaluated the ecosystem regime shift in the main basin of Lake Huron that was indicated by the 2003 collapse of alewives, and dramatic declines in Chinook salmon abundance thereafter. We found that the period of 1995-2002 should be considered as the early phase of the final regime shift. We...

In California, sea-level rise during the 21st century threatens to accelerate coastal cliff recession rates. To forecast such changes for managers and policymakers, models must play a key role. In this paper, we extend a ~70-year long dataset of measured historic sea cliff retreat rates in Southern California into the 21st century...

Edge effects on nesting success have been documented in breeding birds in a variety of contexts, but there is still uncertainty in how edge type and spatial scale determine the magnitude and detectability of edge effects. Habitat edges are often viewed as predator corridors that surround or penetrate core habitat...

A controlled vocabulary for the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) of the United States was developed as Linked Open Data (LOD). The vocabulary has two main parts: a glossary and a set of triples reflecting the NHD data model as it is organized in geographic information systems (GIS). The glossary consists...

Large bottom roughness is a characteristic of most coral reef environments and this has been shown to have a substantial impact on hydrodynamic processes in these environments. In this paper, we evaluate suspended sediment concentration (SSC) data as well detailed hydrodynamic data over a coral reef flat in Ningaloo Reef,...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Town of Framingham, Massachusetts, has investigated the potential of proposed groundwater withdrawals at the Birch Road well site to affect nearby surface water bodies and wetlands, including Lake Cochituate, the Sudbury River, and the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in east-central Massachusetts....

Obtaining calibration data for models depicting conditions during pre-development periods can be challenging as such periods are characteristically data poor. This study presents two examples where simulation of historic water conveyance structures were used to help characterize historic, or pre-modern, conditions in calibration of groundwater flow models. Persian water...

Urban ecosystems are attractive to several raptor species, including the Mississippi Kite (Ictinia mississippiensis). To better understand the niche filled by urban-nesting Mississippi Kites, we observed nesting kites at 10 nests for a total of 269 hr during the breeding seasons of 2010 and 2011. We assessed prey delivery rates...

The Environmental DNA Calibration Study (ECALS) is a multi-year study to improve the understanding and interpretation of the detection of Asian carp DNA in environmental samples (eDNA) used in early detection monitoring. eDNA surveillance programs seek to detect the presence of genetic material (DNA in cells sloughed off in slime,...

Surface wave method was used for the estimation of Vs vs depth profile at 10 strong motion stations in Greece. The dispersion data were obtained by SASW method, utilizing a pair of electromechanical harmonic-wave source (shakers) or a random source (drop weight). In this study, three inversion techniques were used...