Search Results

The implementation of environmental flow regimes offers a promising means to protect and restore riverine, wetland and estuarine ecosystems, their critical environmental services and cultural/societal values.This Special Issue expands the scope of environmental flows and water science in theory and practice, offering 20 papers from academics, agency researchers and...

Detecting and quantifying environmental thresholds is frequently an important step in understanding ecological responses to environmental stressors. We discuss two statistical issues often encountered in threshold detection and quantification when statistical null hypothesis testing is used as a main analytical tool.The hidden multiple-comparison trap (leading to a much higher risk...

We studied the consequences of a nonnative species introduction and changes in temperature on early mortality and recruitment of native rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax) and nonnative alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) in Lake Champlain using a simulation model. Distribution patterns of adults and young-of-the-year (YOY) fish were predicted using a model based...

Objectives for recovery of alosines commonly involve improving fish passage at dams during migration. However, a quantitative basis for dam passage performance standards is largely absent. We describe development of a stochastic life-history-based simulation model for American shad, Alosa sapidissima, to estimate effects of dam passage and migratory delay on abundance,...

As long as the funding mechanism supporting state wildlife conservation relies heavily on hunter-generated funds, declines in hunter participation are a threat to the conservation of both game and non-game species. To address options to bolster wildlife agency profit from the sale of hunting licenses, we developed a stage-based, stochastic...

The distribution patterns of sessile organisms in coastal intertidal habitats typically exhibit vertical zonation, but little is known about variability in zonation among sites or species at larger spatial scales. Data on such heterogeneity could inform mechanistic understanding of factors affecting species distributions as well as efforts to assess and...

The 2015 National Gas Hydrate Program of India's second expedition, NGHP-02, acquired logging and coring datasets for constraining the base of the gas hydrate occurrence zone (deepest GH) and the theoretical base of gas hydrate stability zone (BGHS). These data are used here for two primary goals: to constrain the deepest occurrence...

BackgroundCharacterizing animal space use is critical for understanding ecological relationships. Animal telemetry technology has revolutionized the fields of ecology and conservation biology by providing high quality spatial data on animal movement. Radio-telemetry with very high frequency (VHF) radio signals continues to be a useful technology because of...

A recent drying trend that is expected to continue in the southwestern US underscores the need for site‐specific and near real‐time understanding of vegetation vulnerability so that land management actions can be implemented at the right time and place.We related the annual integrated normalized difference vegetation index (iNDVI), a...

Sediment is the most commonly identified pollutant associated with macroinvertebrate community impairments in freshwater streams nationwide. Management of this physical stressor is complicated by the multiple measures of sediment available (e.g., suspended, dissolved, bedded) and the variability in natural “healthy” sediment loadings across ecoregions. Here we...

A key component in controlling the spread of an epidemic is deciding where, when and to whom to apply an intervention. We develop a framework for using data to inform these decisions in realtime. We formalize a treatment allocation strategy as a sequence of functions, one...

1. Although interspecific competition plays a principle role in shaping species behaviour and demography, little is known about the population-level outcomes of competition between large carnivores, and the mechanisms that facilitate coexistence. 2. We conducted a multi-landscape analysis of two widely distributed, threatened large carnivore competitors to offer insight into coexistence...

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are experiencing rapid and substantial changes to their environment due to global climate change. Polar bears of the southern Beaufort Sea (SB) have historically spent most of the year on the sea ice. However, recent reports from Alaska indicate that the proportion of the SB subpopulation...

Worldwide, private lands have attracted increased attention from conservationists, not only because most of the globe is privately owned, but also because private lands can be an asset to the protected area conservation strategy. In Brazil, the riverine Areas of Permanent Protection (APPs) is a key instrument of the Forest...

Identifying spawning and hatching locations is vital to controlling invasive fish and conserving imperiled fish, which can be difficult for pelagically-spawning species with semi-buoyant eggs. In freshwater systems, this reproductive strategy is common among cyprinid species, such as Chinese carp species currently threatening the Great Lakes. Following the confirmation that...

The majority of American eel, Anguilla rostrata LeSueur, knowledge is derived from temperate regions in the United States and Canada, with little known from its tropical Caribbean distribution. Findings of original research on American eel distribution, abundance, population biology, habitat ecology and threats from the Caribbean island of...

Silver chub (Macrhybopsis storeriana, Kirtland, 1844) is a native Cyprinid in Lake Erie, one of the Laurentian Great Lakes of North America. It is listed as endangered by the US state of New York and Canada, which has a recovery plan, and as special concern by the state of Michigan....

Context. Allometric scaling laws are foundational to structuring processes from cellular to ecosystem levels. The idea that allometric relationships underlie species characteristic selection scales, the spatial scales at which species respond to landscape features, has recently been investigated, however, supporting empirical evidence is scarce. Objectives. Lack of pattern can be explained by inaccurate...

Agriculture and development have caused landscape change throughout the southwestern Great Plains in the range of the lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus). Landscape alteration within the lesser prairie-chicken range may contribute to range contraction and population losses through decreases in survival rates. Our objectives were to determine if: (1) landscape configuration...

With the declines in abundance and changing distribution of white-nose syndrome–affected bat species, increased reliance on acoustic monitoring is now the new “normal.” As such, the ability to accurately identify individual bat species with acoustic identification programs has become increasingly important. We assessed rates of...

The Santa Cruz Basin (SCB) is one of several fault-bounded basins within the California Continental Borderland that has drawn interest over the years for its role in the tectonic evolution of the region, but also because it contains a record of a variety of modes of sedimentary mass transport (i.e.,...

Smolting in Atlantic salmon Salmo salar is a critical life‐history stage that is preparatory for downstream migration and entry to seawater that is regulated by abiotic variables including photoperiod and temperature. The present study was undertaken to determine the interaction of temperature and salinity on salinity tolerance, gill...

We developed state-space models for inferring movements and behaviors of fish implanted with acoustic transmitters and detected within a spatial array of stationary acoustic receivers. In these models fish movements and behavior switching are specified using a hidden Markov model of the changes in an individual's latent activity center. The...

Drivers of alpine plant community composition have been observed to vary with scale. Diversity of alpine tundra across four regions of the Rocky Mountains and among plots within one region was examined relative to temperature and precipitation variables. For regional scale analyses, averages of three metrics of plot-level...

A major challenge in volcanology is forecasting eruptions. Repeating earthquake sequences may precede volcanic eruptions or lava dome growth and collapse, providing an opportunity for short-term eruption forecasting. I develop an automated repeating earthquake sequence detector and near real-time alarm to send alerts when an in-progress sequence is identified. The...