A Bayesian state-space formulation of dynamic occupancy models
J. Andrew Royle, M. Kery
2007, Ecology (88) 1813-1823
Species occurrence and its dynamic components, extinction and colonization probabilities, are focal quantities in biogeography and metapopulation biology, and for species conservation assessments. It has been increasingly appreciated that these parameters must be estimated separately from detection probability to avoid the biases induced by nondetection error. Hence, there is...
Hierarchical spatial models of abundance and occurrence from imperfect survey data
J. Andrew Royle, M. Kery, R. Gautier, Hans Schmid
2007, Ecological Monographs (77) 465-481
Many estimation and inference problems arising from large-scale animal surveys are focused on developing an understanding of patterns in abundance or occurrence of a species based on spatially referenced count data. One fundamental challenge, then, is that it is generally not feasible to completely enumerate ('census') all individuals present...
Population influences on tornado reports in the United States
C.J. Anderson, C. K. Wikle, Q. Zhou, J. Andrew Royle
2007, Weather and Forecasting (22) 571-579
The number of tornadoes reported in the United States is believed to be less than the actual incidence of tornadoes, especially prior to the 1990s, because tornadoes may be undetectable by human witnesses in sparsely populated areas and areas in which obstructions limit the line of sight. A hierarchical...
Climatic variation and the distribution of an amphibian polyploid complex
C.R.V. Otto, J.W. Snodgrass, D.C. Forester, J.C. Mitchell, R.W. Miller
2007, Journal of Animal Ecology (76) 1053-1061
1. The establishment of polyploid populations involves the persistence and growth of the polyploid in the presence of the progenitor species. Although there have been a number of animal polyploid species documented, relatively few inquiries have been made into the large-scale mechanisms of polyploid establishment in animal groups. Herein we...
Spatial models of Northern Bobwhite populations for conservation planning
Daniel J. Twedt, R. Randy Wilson, Amy S. Keister
2007, Journal of Wildlife Management (71) 1808-1818
Since 1980, northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) range-wide populations declined 3.9% annually. Within the West Gulf Coastal Plain Bird Conservation Region in the south-central United States, populations of this quail species have declined 6.8% annually. These declines sparked calls for land use change and prompted implementation of various conservation...
Occupancy estimation and modeling with multiple states and state uncertainty
J.D. Nichols, J.E. Hines, D.I. MacKenzie, M.E. Seamans, R. J. Gutierrez
2007, Ecology (88) 1395-1400
The distribution of a species over space is of central interest in ecology, but species occurrence does not provide all of the information needed to characterize either the well-being of a population or the suitability of occupied habitat. Recent methodological development has focused on drawing inferences about species occurrence in...
The 1999-2003 Summary of the North American Breeding Bird Survey
K.L. Pardieck, J.R. Sauer
2007, Bird Populations (8) 28-45
Data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey were used to estimate continental and regional changes in bird populations for the 5-yr period 1999-2003 and the 2-yr period 2002-2003. These short-term changes were placed in the context of population trends estimated over the 1966-2003 interval. During 1999-2003, 41%...
Analysis of multinomial models with unknown index using data augmentation
J. Andrew Royle, R.M. Dorazio, W.A. Link
2007, Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics (16) 67-85
Multinomial models with unknown index ('sample size') arise in many practical settings. In practice, Bayesian analysis of such models has proved difficult because the dimension of the parameter space is not fixed, being in some cases a function of the unknown index. We describe a data augmentation approach...
Mapping the information landscape: Discerning peaks and valleys for ecological monitoring
L.J. Moniz, J.D. Nichols, J.M. Nichols
2007, Journal of Biological Physics (33) 171-181
We investigate previously unreported phenomena that have a potentially significant impact on the design of surveillance monitoring programs for ecological systems. Ecological monitoring practitioners have long recognized that different species are differentially informative of a system's dynamics, as codified in the well-known concepts of indicator or keystone species. Using a...
A large-scale deforestation experiment: Effects of patch area and isolation on Amazon birds
G. Ferraz, J.D. Nichols, J.E. Hines, P.C. Stouffer, R.O. Bierregaard, T.E. Lovejoy
2007, Science (315) 238-241
As compared with extensive contiguous areas, small isolated habitat patches lack many species. Some species disappear after isolation; others are rarely found in any small patch, regardless of isolation. We used a 13-year data set of bird captures from a large landscape-manipulation experiment in a Brazilian Amazon forest...
Importance of well-designed monitoring programs for the conservation of endangered species: Case study of the Snail Kite
J. Martin, W.M. Kitchens, J.E. Hines
2007, Conservation Biology (21) 472-481
Monitoring natural populations is often a necessary step to establish the conservation status of species and to help improve management decisions. Nevertheless, many monitoring programs do not effectively address primary sources of variability in monitoring data, which ultimately may limit the utility of monitoring in identifying declines and improving management....
Chytridiomycosis widespread in Anurans of Northeastern United States
J. R. Longcore, J.E. Longcore, Allan P. Pessier, W.A. Halteman
2007, Journal of Wildlife Management (71) 435-444
An emerging disease of amphibians caused by the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis has been associated with morbidity, mortality, and extinction of species. Typically, researchers have detected B. dendrobatidis only when examining amphibians for causes of mortalities; few data exist on infection rates where mortalities are lacking. During May-September 2000-2002 we...
Seasonal components of avian population change: Joint analysis of two large-scale monitoring programs
W.A. Link, J.R. Sauer
2007, Ecology (88) 49-55
We present a combined analysis of data from two large-scale surveys of bird populations. The North American Breeding Bird Survey is conducted each summer; the Christmas Bird Count is conducted in early winter. The temporal staggering of these surveys allows investigation of seasonal components of population change, which we illustrate...
Stable isotope and pen feeding trial studies confirm the value of horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus eggs to spring migrant shorebirds in Delaware Bay
G.M. Haramis, W.A. Link, P.C. Osenton, Daniel B. Carter, R.G. Weber, N.A. Clark, M.A. Teece, D.S. Mizrahi
2007, Journal of Avian Biology (38) 367-376
We used stable isotope (SI) methods in combination with pen feeding trials to determine the importance of eggs of the Atlantic horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus to migratory fattening of red knots Calidris canutus rufa and ruddy turnstones Arenaria interpres morinella during spring stopover in Delaware Bay. By manifesting measurable fractionation (ca +3‰) and rapid turnover, blood...
Model estimation of land-use effects on water levels of northern Prairie wetlands
R.A. Voldseth, W.C. Johnson, T. Gilmanov, G.R. Guntenspergen, B.V. Millett
2007, Ecological Applications (17) 527-540
Wetlands of the Prairie Pothole Region exist in a matrix of grassland dominated by intensive pastoral and cultivation agriculture. Recent conservation management has emphasized the conversion of cultivated farmland and degraded pastures to intact grassland to improve upland nesting habitat. The consequences of changes in land-use cover that...
Estimating species-specific suvival and movement when species identification is uncertain
J.P. Runge, J.E. Hines, J.D. Nichols
2007, Ecology (88) 282-288
Incorporating uncertainty in the investigation of ecological studies has been the topic of an increasing body of research. In particular, mark-recapture methodology has shown that incorporating uncertainty in the probability of detecting individuals in populations enables accurate estimation of population-level processes such as survival, reproduction, and dispersal. Recent advances in...
Concerns regarding a call for pluralism of information theory and hypothesis testing
P.M. Lukacs, W.L. Thompson, W. L. Kendall, W.R. Gould, P.F. Doherty Jr., K.P. Burnham, David R. Anderson
2007, Journal of Applied Ecology (44) 456-460
1. Stephens et al. (2005) argue for 'pluralism' in statistical analysis, combining null hypothesis testing and information-theoretic (I-T) methods. We show that I-T methods are more informative even in single variable problems and we provide an ecological example. 2. I-T methods allow inferences to be made from multiple models simultaneously....
A multivariate assessment of changes in wetland habitat for waterbirds at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, Maine, USA
L.A. Hierl, C.S. Loftin, J. R. Longcore, D.G. McAuley, D.L. Urban
2007, Wetlands (27) 141-152
We assessed changes in vegetative structure of 49 impoundments at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge (MNWR), Maine, USA, between the periods 1984-1985 to 2002 with a multivariate, adaptive approach that may be useful in a variety of wetland and other habitat management situations. We used Mahalanobis Distance (MD) analysis to...
Evaluation of the status of anurans on a refuge in suburban Maryland
S.M. Brander, J. Andrew Royle, M. Eames
2007, Journal of Herpetology (14) 52-60
Because many anurans have well-defined breeding seasons and male anurans produce loud advertisement calls, surveys of these breeding choruses are believed to provide a dependable means of monitoring population trends. The Patuxent Research Refuge initiated such a calling survey in the spring of 1997, which uses volunteers to collect anuran...
Effects of habitat change along Breeding Bird Survey routes in the central Appalachians on Cerulean Warbler population
P. McElhone, P.W. Wood, D. Dawson
2007, Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (61) 131 (abs)
The cerulean warbler (Dendroica cerulea) is one of the highest priority bird species in the eastern United States because populations have declined 4.3% annually during 1966?2005 based on Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) data. Habitat loss and fragmentation due to land use changes is thought to be one of the...
Design and implementation of estimation-based monitoring programs for flora and fauna: A case study on the Cherokee National Forest
J.D. Klimstra, A.F. O'Connell Jr., M.J. Pistrang, L.M. Lewis, J.A. Herrig, J.R. Sauer
2007, Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (61) 126 (abs)
Science-based monitoring of biological resources is important for a greater understanding of ecological systems and for assessment of the target population using theoretic-based management approaches. When selecting variables to monitor, managers first need to carefully consider their objectives, the geographic and temporal scale at which they will operate, and...
Patch-occupancy models indicate human activity as major determinant of forest elephant Loxodonta cyclotis seasonal distribution in an industrial corridor in Gabon
R. Buij, W.J. McShea, P. Campbell, M.E. Lee, F. Dallmeier, S. Guimondou, L. Mackaga, N. Guisseougou, S. Mboumba, J.E. Hines, J.D. Nichols, A. Alonso
2007, Biological Conservation (135) 189-201
The importance of human activity and ecological features in influencing African forest elephant ranging behaviour was investigated in the Rabi-Ndogo corridor of the Gamba Complex of Protected Areas in southwest Gabon. Locations in a wide geographical area with a range of environmental variables were selected for patch-occupancy surveys using...
Immunotoxicity of trenbolone acetate in Japanese quail
M.J. Quinn, M. McKernan, E.T. Lavoie, M. A. Ottinger
2007, Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A (70) 88-93
Trenbolone acetate is a synthetic androgen that is currently used as a growth promoter in many meat-exporting countries. Despite industry laboratories classifying trenbolone as nonteratogenic, data showed that embryonic exposure to this androgenic chemical altered development of the immune system in Japanese quail. Trenbolone is lipophilic, persistent, and...
Evaluation of Streamflow Gain-Loss Characteristics of Hubbard Creek, in the Vicinity of a Mine-Permit Area, Delta County, Colorado, 2007
Barbara C. Ruddy, Cory A. Williams
2007, Scientific Investigations Report 2009-5271
In 2007, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Bowie Mining Company, initiated a study to characterize the streamflow and streamflow gain-loss in a reach of Hubbard Creek in Delta County, Colorado, in the vicinity of a mine-permit area planned for future coal mining. Premining streamflow characteristics and streamflow gain-loss...
Vascular Plant and Vertebrate Inventory of Saguaro National Park, Tucson Mountain District
William L. Halvorson, Cecilia A. Schmidt, Brian F. Powell
2007, Open-File Report 2007-1296
This report summarizes the results of the first comprehensive inventory of plants and vertebrates at the Tucson Mountain District (TMD) of Saguaro National Park, Arizona. From 2001 to 2003 we surveyed for vascular plants and vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) at the district to document the presence of species...
