Spatial patterns in occupancy and reproduction of Golden Eagles during drought: Prospects for conservation in changing environments
David Wiens, Patrick Kolar, W. Grainger Hunt, Teresa Hunt, Mark R. Fuller, Douglas A. Bell
2018, The Condor (120) 106-124
We used a broad-scale sampling design to investigate spatial patterns in occupancy and breeding success of territorial pairs of Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in the Diablo Range, California, USA, during a period of exceptional drought (2014–2016). We surveyed 138 randomly selected sample sites over 4 occasions each year and identified...
The migratory bird treaty and a century of waterfowl conservation
Michael G. Anderson, Ray T. Alisauskas, Bruce D. J. Batt, Robert J. Blohm, Kenneth F. Higgins, Matthew Perry, James K. Ringelman, James S. Sedinger, Jerome R. Serie, David E. Sharp, David L. Trauger, Christopher K. Williams
2018, Journal of Wildlife Management (82) 247-259
In the final decades of the nineteenth century, concern was building about the status of migratory bird populations in North America. In this literature review, we describe how that concern led to a landmark conservation agreement in 1916, between the United States and Great Britain (on behalf of Canada) to...
Nonbreeding home‐range size and survival of lesser prairie‐chickens
Samantha G. Robinson, David A. Haukos, Reid T. Plumb, Joseph M. Lautenbach, Daniel S. Sullins, John D. Kraft, Jonathan D. Lautenbach, Christian A. Hagen, James C. Pitman
2018, Journal of Wildlife Management (82) 413-423
The lesser prairie‐chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus), a species of conservation concern with uncertain regulatory status, has experienced population declines over the past century. Most research on lesser prairie‐chickens has focused on the breeding season, with little research conducted during the nonbreeding season, a period that exerts a strong influence on demography...
A molecular investigation of soil organic carbon composition across a subalpine catchment
Hsiao-Tieh Hsu, Corey R. Lawrence, Matthew J. Winnick, John R. Bargar, Katharine Maher
2018, Soil Systems (2) 1-23
The dynamics of soil organic carbon (SOC) storage and turnover are a critical component of the global carbon cycle. Mechanistic models seeking to represent these complex dynamics require detailed SOC compositions, which are currently difficult to characterize quantitatively. Here, we address this challenge by using a novel approach that combines...
On factors influencing air-water gas exchange in emergent wetlands
David T. Ho, Victor C. Engel, Sara Ferron, Benjamin Hickman, Jay Choi, Judson W. Harvey
2018, Journal of Geophysical Research G: Biogeosciences (123) 178-192
Knowledge of gas exchange in wetlands is important in order to determine fluxes of climatically and biogeochemically important trace gases and to conduct mass balances for metabolism studies. Very few studies have been conducted to quantify gas transfer velocities in wetlands, and many wind speed/gas exchange parameterizations used in oceanographic...
Vertical self-sorting behavior in juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha): evidence for family differences and variation in growth and morphology
Julia R. Unrein, E.J. Billman, Karen M. Cogliati, Rob S. Chitwood, David L. G. Noakes, Carl B. Schreck
2018, Environmental Biology of Fishes (101) 341-353
Life history variation is fundamental to the evolution of Pacific salmon and their persistence under variable conditions. We discovered that Chinook salmon sort themselves into surface- and bottom-oriented groups in tanks within days after exogenous feeding. We hypothesised that this behaviour is correlated with subsequent differences in body morphology and...
Validation of ATR FT-IR to identify polymers of plastic marine debris, including those ingested by marine organisms
Melissa R. Jung, F. David Horgen, Sara V. Orski, Viviana Rodriguez, Kathryn L. Beers, George H. Balazs, T. Todd Jones, Thierry M. Work, Kayla C. Brignac, Sarah-Jeanne Royer, David K. Hyrenbach, Brenda A. Jensen, Jennifer M. Lynch
2018, Marine Pollution Bulletin (127) 704-716
Polymer identification of plastic marine debris can help identify its sources, degradation, and fate. We optimized and validated a fast, simple, and accessible technique, attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR FT-IR), to identify polymers contained in plastic ingested by sea turtles. Spectra...
Effects of environmental variables on invasive amphibian activity: Using model selection on quantiles for counts
Benjamin J. Muller, Brian S. Cade, Lin Schwarzkoph
2018, Ecosphere (9) 1-14
Many different factors influence animal activity. Often, the value of an environmental variable may influence significantly the upper or lower tails of the activity distribution. For describing relationships with heterogeneous boundaries, quantile regressions predict a quantile of the conditional distribution of the dependent variable. A quantile count model extends linear...
Planetary dune workshop expands to include subaqueous processes
Timothy N. Titus, Gerald Bryant, David M. Rubin
2018, Eos, Earth and Space Science News (99)
Dune-like structures appear in the depths of Earth’s oceans, across its landscapes, and in the extremities of the solar system beyond. Dunes rise up under the thick dense atmosphere of Venus, and they have been found under the almost unimaginably ephemeral atmosphere of a comet....
Perissodactyla diet
Kathryn A. Schoenecker
2018, Book chapter, Encyclopedia of animal cognition and behavior
Perissodactyla (Schoch 1989) includes tapirs, rhinoceros, wild asses, horses, and zebras. It is the order of hoofed mammals referred to as “odd-toed ungulates” because its members have one to three weight-bearing toes and walk on hoofs or “ungules.” They are herbivores that are specialized to exploit grasslands and brushy habitat...
Three-dimensional foraging habitat use and niche partitioning in two sympatric seabird species, Phalacrocorax auritus and P. penicillatus
Adam G. Peck-Richardson, Donald E. Lyons, Daniel D. Roby, Daniel A. Cushing, James A. Lerczak
2018, Marine Ecology Progress Series (586) 251-264
Ecological theory predicts that co-existing, morphologically similar species will partition prey resources when faced with resource limitations. We investigated local movements, foraging dive behavior, and foraging habitat selection by breeding adults of 2 closely related cormorant species, double-crested cormorants Phalacrocorax auritus and Brandt’s cormorants P. penicillatus. These species nest sympatrically at East Sand...
Moving in the Anthropocene: Global reductions in terrestrial mammalian movements
Marlee A. Tucker, Katrin Bohning-Gaese, William F. Fagan, John Fryxell, Bram Van Moorter, Susan C Alberts, Abdullahi H. Ali, Andrew M. Allen, Nina Attias, Tal Avgar, Hattie Bartlam-Brooks, Bayarbaatar Buuveibaatar, Jerrold L. Belant, Alessandra Bertassoni, Dean Beyer, Laura Bidner, Floris M. van Beest, Stephen Blake, Niels Blaum, Chloe Bracis, Danielle Brown, P. J. Nico de Bruyn, Francesca Cagnacci, J.M. Calabrese, Constanca Camilo-Alves, Simon Chamaille-Jammes, Andre Chiaradia, Sarah C. Davidson, Todd Dennis, Stephen DeStefano, Duane R. Diefenbach, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Julian Fennessy, Claudia Fichtel, Wolfgang Fiedler, Christina Fischer, Ilya Fischhoff, Christen H. Fleming, Adam T. Ford, Susanne A. Fritz, Benedikt Gehr, Jacob R. Goheen, Eliezer Gurarie, Mark Hebblewhite, Marco Heurich, A. J. Mark Hewison, Christian Hof, Edward Hurme, Lynne A. Isbell, Rene Janssen, Florian Jeltsch, Petra Kaczensky, Adam Kane, Peter M. Kappeler, Matthew J. Kauffman, Roland Kays, Duncan Kimuyu, Flavia Koch, Bart Kranstauber, Scott LaPoint, Peter Leimgruber, John D. C. Linnell, Pascual Lopez-Lopez, A. Catherine Markham, Jenny Mattisson, Emilia Patricia Medici, Ugo Mellone, E. Merrill, Guilherme de Miranda Mourao, Ronaldo G. Morato, Nicolas Morellet, Thomas A. Morrison, Samuel L. Diaz-Munoz, Atle Mysterud, Dejid Nandintsetseg, Ran Nathan, Aidin Niamir, John Odden, Robert B. O’Hara, Luiz G. R. Oliveira-Santos, Kirk A. Olson, Bruce D. Patterson, Rogerio Cunha de Paula, Luca Pedrotti, Bjorn Reineking, Martin Rimmler, T. L. Rogers, Christer Moe Rolandsen, Christopher S. Rosenberry, Daniel I. Rubenstein, Kamran Safi, Sonia Said, Nir Sapir, Hall Sawyer, Niels Martin Schmidt, Nuria Selva, Agnieszka Sergiel, Enkhtuvshin Shiilegdamba, Joao Paulo Silva, N. Singh, Erling J. Solberg, Orr Spiegel, Olav Strand, S.R. Sundaresan, Wiebke Ullmann, Ulrich Voigt, J. Wall, David W. Wattles, Martin Wikelski, Christopher C. Wilmers, John W. Wilson, George Wittemyer, Filip Zieba, Tomasz Zwijacz-Kozica, Thomas Mueller
2018, Science (359) 466-469
Animal movement is fundamental for ecosystem functioning and species survival, yet the effects of the anthropogenic footprint on animal movements have not been estimated across species. Using a unique GPS-tracking database of 803 individuals across 57 species, we found that movements of mammals in areas with a comparatively high human...
Leaching and sorption of neonicotinoid insecticides and fungicides from seed coatings
Kelly L. Smalling, Michelle L. Hladik, Corey Sanders, Kathryn Kuivila
2018, Journal of Environmental Science and Health - Part B Pesticides, Food Contaminants, and Agricultural Wastes (53) 176-183
Seed coatings are a treatment used on a variety of crops to improve production and offer protection against pests and fungal outbreaks. The leaching of the active ingredients associated with the seed coatings and the sorption to soil was evaluated under laboratory conditions using commercially available corn and soybean seeds...
Hematological indices of injury to lightly oiled birds from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Jesse A. Fallon, Eric P. Smith, Nina Schoch, James D. Paruk, Evan A. Adams, David C. Evers, Patrick G.R. Jodice, Christopher Perkins, Shiloh A. Schulte, William A. Hopkins
2018, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (37) 451-461
Avian mortality events are common following large‐scale oil spills. However, the sublethal effects of oil on birds exposed to light external oiling are not clearly understood. We found that American oystercatchers (area of potential impact n = 42, reference n = 21), black skimmers (area of potential impact n = 121, reference n = 88), brown pelicans (area of potential impact n = 91, reference n = 48),...
Using expert knowledge to incorporate uncertainty in cause-of-death assignments for modeling of cause-specific mortality
Daniel P. Walsh, Andrew S. Norton, Daniel J. Storm, Timothy R. Van Deelen, Dennis M. Heisy
2018, Ecology and Evolution (8) 509-520
Implicit and explicit use of expert knowledge to inform ecological analyses is becoming increasingly common because it often represents the sole source of information in many circumstances. Thus, there is a need to develop statistical methods that explicitly incorporate expert knowledge, and can successfully leverage this information while properly accounting...
Seventy years of stream‐fish collections reveal invasions and native range contractions in an Appalachian (USA) watershed
Joseph D. Buckwalter, Emmanuel A. Frimpong, Paul L. Angermeier, Jacob N. Barney
2018, Diversity and Distributions (24) 219-232
AimKnowledge of expanding and contracting ranges is critical for monitoring invasions and assessing conservation status, yet reliable data on distributional trends are lacking for most freshwater species. We developed a quantitative technique to detect the sign (expansion or contraction) and functional form of range‐size changes for freshwater...
Resource competition model predicts zonation and increasing nutrient use efficiency along a wetland salinity gradient
Donald Schoolmaster, Camille L. Stagg
2018, Ecology (99) 670-680
A trade-off between competitive ability and stress tolerance has been hypothesized and empirically supported to explain the zonation of species across stress gradients for a number of systems. Since stress often reduces plant productivity, one might expect a pattern of decreasing productivity across the zones of the stress gradient. However,...
Comparative analyses of hydrological responses of two adjacent watersheds to climate variability and change using the SWAT model
Sangchul Lee, In-Young Yeo, Ali M. Sadeghi, Gregory W. McCarty, Wells Hively, Megan W. Lang, Amir Sharifi
2018, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (22) 689-708
Water quality problems in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (CBW) are expected to be exacerbated by climate variability and change. However, climate impacts on agricultural lands and resultant nutrient loads into surface water resources are largely unknown. This study evaluated the impacts of climate variability and change on two adjacent watersheds...
Determinants of Pseudogymnoascus destructans within bat hibernacula: Implications for surveillance and management of white-nose syndrome
Michelle L. Verant, Elizabeth A. Bohuski, Katherine L. D. Richgels, Kevin J. Olival, Jonathan H. Epstein, David S. Blehert
2018, Journal of Applied Ecology (55) 820-829
Fungal diseases are an emerging global problem affecting human health, food security and biodiversity. Ability of many fungal pathogens to persist within environmental reservoirs can increase extinction risks for host species and presents challenges for disease control. Understanding factors that regulate pathogen spread and persistence in these...
Modulators of mercury risk to wildlife and humans in the context of rapid global change
Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Ellen K. Silbergeld, Niladri Basu, Paco Bustamante, Fernando Diaz-Barriga, William A. Hopkins, Karen A. Kidd, Jennifer F. Nyland
2018, Ambio (47) 170-197
Environmental mercury (Hg) contamination is an urgent global health threat. The complexity of Hg in the environment can hinder accurate determination of ecological and human health risks, particularly within the context of the rapid global changes that are altering many ecological processes, socioeconomic patterns, and other factors like infectious disease...
Irregular focal mechanisms observed at Salton Sea Geothermal Field: Possible influences of anthropogenic stress perturbations
Aren Crandall-Bear, Andrew J. Barbour, Martin Schoenball
Martin Schoenball, editor(s)
2018, Conference Paper, Proceedings, 43rd Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering
At the Salton Sea Geothermal Field (SSGF), strain accumulation is released through seismic slip and aseismic deformation. Earthquake activity at the SSGF often occurs in swarm-like clusters, some with clear migration patterns. We have identified an earthquake sequence composed entirely of focal mechanisms representing an ambiguous style of faulting, where...
Limited contribution of ancient methane to surface waters of the U.S. Beaufort Sea shelf
Katy J. Sparrow, John D. Kessler, John R. Southon, Fenix Garcia-Tigreros, Kathryn M. Schreiner, Carolyn D. Ruppel, John B. Miller, Scott J. Lehman, Xiaomei Xu
2018, Science Advances (4)
In response to warming climate, methane can be released to Arctic Ocean sediment and waters from thawing subsea permafrost and decomposing methane hydrates. However, it is unknown whether methane derived from this sediment storehouse of frozen ancient carbon reaches the atmosphere. We quantified the fraction of methane derived from ancient...
Environmental DNA (eDNA): A tool for quantifying the abundant but elusive round goby (Neogobius melanostomus)
Meredith B. Nevers, Muruleedhara Byappanahalli, Charles C. Morris, Dawn Shively, Katarzyna Przybyla-Kelly, Ashley M. Spoljaric, Joshua Dickey, Edward F. Roseman
2018, PLoS ONE (13) 1-22
Environmental DNA (eDNA) is revolutionizing biodiversity monitoring, occupancy estimates, and real-time detections of invasive species. In the Great Lakes, the round goby (Neogobius melanostomus), an invasive benthic fish from the Black Sea, has spread to encompass all five lakes and many tributaries, outcompeting or consuming native species; however, estimates of...
How could a freshwater swamp produce a chemical signature characteristic of a saltmarsh?
Terrence A. McCloskey, Christopher G. Smith, Kam-biu Liu, Marci E. Marot, Christian Haller
2018, ACS Earth and Space Chemistry (2) 9-20
Reduction–oxidation (redox) reaction conditions, which are of great importance for the soil chemistry of coastal marshes, can be temporally dynamic. We present a transect of cores from northwest Florida wherein radical postdepositional changes in the redox regime has created atypical geochemical profiles at the bottom of the sedimentary column. The...
Integrating future scenario‐based crop expansion and crop conditions to map switchgrass biofuel potential in eastern Nebraska, USA
Yingxin Gu, Bruce K. Wylie
2018, GCB Bioenergy (10) 76-83
Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) has been evaluated as one potential source for cellulosic biofuel feedstocks. Planting switchgrass in marginal croplands and waterway buffers can reduce soil erosion, improve water quality, and improve regional ecosystem services (i.e. it serves as a potential carbon sink). In previous studies, we mapped high risk marginal...
