Publications
The Eastern Ecological Science Center list of publications.
Filter Total Items: 11113
Closing the gap between science and management of cold-water refuges in rivers and streams
Human activities and climate change threaten coldwater organisms in freshwater ecosystems by causing rivers and streams to warm, increasing the intensity and frequency of warm temperature events, and reducing thermal heterogeneity. Cold-water refuges are discrete patches of relatively cool water that are used by coldwater organisms for thermal relief and short-term survival. Globally...
Authors
Francine H. Mejia, Valerie Ouellet, Martin Briggs, Stephanie M. Carlson, Rose Casas-Mulet, Mollie Chapman, Matthias J. Collins, Stephen J. Dugdale, Joseph L. Ebersole, Danielle M. Frechette, Aimee H. Fullerton, Carol-Anne Gillis, Zachary Johnson, Christa A. Kelleher, Barret L. Kurylyk, Rebecca Lave, Benjamin Letcher, Knut M. Myrvold, Tracie-Lynn Nadeau, Helen M. Neville, Hervé Piégay, Kathryn Smith, Diego Tonolla, Christian E. Torgersen
Persistence of native riverine fishes downstream from two hydropower dams with contrasting operations
Identifying hydropower dam operations that lessen detrimental effects on downstream fauna could inform conservation strategies for native fishes. We compared occurrence of native fishes in 20 shoal habitats downstream from two differently operated hydropower dams in the Coosa River system, Georgia, USA. Species richness averaged 7 and 11, respectively, in surveys downstream from (1) a...
Authors
Mary Freeman, Brett Albanese, Phillip M. Bumpers, Megan M. Hagler, Andrew J. Nagy, Byron J. Freeman, Seth J. Wenger
Wildlife ecological risk assessment in the 21st century: Promising technologies to assess toxicological effects
Despite advances in toxicity testing and development of new approach methodologies (NAMs) for hazard assessment, the ecological risk assessment (ERA) framework for terrestrial wildlife (i.e., air-breathing amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) has remained unchanged for decades. While survival, growth, and reproductive endpoints derived from whole animal toxicity tests are central to...
Authors
Barnett Rattner, Thomas G. Bean, Val R. Beasley, Philippe Berny, Karen M. Eisenreich, John G. Elliott, Margaret L. Eng, Phyllis C. Fuchsman, Mason D. King, Rafael Mateo Soria, Carolyn B. Meyer, Jason M. O’Brien, Christopher J. Salice
White perch health relative to urbanization and habitat degradation in Chesapeake Bay tributaries. II. Hepatic and splenic macrophage aggregates
Macrophage aggregate (MA) abundance in fish is a useful general biomarker of contaminant exposures and environmental stress. Hepatic and splenic MAs were evaluated in semi-anadromous white perch Morone americana (Gmelin, 1789) from the urbanized Severn River (S) and the more rural Choptank River (C), Chesapeake Bay. Fish were collected from different sites in the annual migratory circuit...
Authors
Vicki S. Blazer, Mark A Matsche, Erin L. Pulster
Effects of hard water precipitates on early life stage brook trout
Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) have been extirpated from many karst-geology streams in West Virginia; however, the causes are not fully understood. Specifically, the impact of calcareous precipitate (marl), which is common in hard-water environments, has not been evaluated as an impediment to juvenile survival. Accordingly, two lab-based studies were conducted to determine if brook...
Authors
John. Davidson, Brandon J. Keplinger, Clayton D Raines, Curtis Crouse, Christopher G. Goodchild
White perch health relative to urbanization and habitat degradation in Chesapeake Bay tributaries. I. Biliary neoplasms and hepatic lesions
White perch Morone americana (Gmelin, 1789) from the Chesapeake Bay (USA) watershed have a high incidence of liver disease, including neoplasms of bile duct origin. Fish collected seasonally from spring 2019 to winter 2020 from the urban Severn River and the more rural Choptank River were evaluated for hepatic lesions. Biliary hyperplasia (64.1%), neoplasms (cholangioma and...
Authors
Vicki S. Blazer, Mark A Matsche, Erin L. Pulster
Presence of hummock and hollow microtopography reflects shifting balances of shallow subsidence and root zone expansion along forested wetland river gradients
Tidal freshwater forested wetlands (TFFWs) are in an active phase of transition to tidal marsh with sea level rise and salinity incursion along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States (U.S.). A prominent feature of TFFWs is hummock/hollow microtopography where hollows represent the flat, base-elevation of the floodplain where inundation occurs relatively frequently, while...
Authors
Ken W. Krauss, Gregory Noe, Jamie Duberstein, Nicole Cormier, Andrew From, Thomas Rossiter Doody, William H. Conner, Donald R. Cahoon, Darren Johnson
Using recovered radio transmitters to estimate positioning error and a generalized Monte Carlo simulation to incorporate error into animal telemetry analysis
BackgroundMobile radio tracking is an important tool in fisheries research and management. Yet, the accuracy of location estimates can be highly variable across studies and within a given dataset. While some methods are available to deal with error, they generally assume a static value for error across all detections. We provide a novel method for making detection-specific error...
Authors
Kurt C. Heim, W.C. Ardren, Theodore R. Castro-Santos
Cryptic tolerant fish species and their potential effect on index of biotic integrity (IBI) scores
Indices such as the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) are often used by management agencies to estimate the abstract property of stream health. These indices are usually predicated on the belief that certain fish species are tolerant to environmental perturbation while others are sensitive. Species are usually designated as either tolerant or sensitive in these analyses based on inherent...
Authors
Bryson G. Hilburn, Mary Freeman, Katelyn M Lawson, Steven J. Rider, Carol E. Johnston
The unmarked R package: Twelve years of advances in occurrence and abundance modelling in ecology
Species distribution models (SDMs) are widely applied to understand the processes governing spatial and temporal variation in species abundance and distribution but often do not account for measurement errors such as false negatives and false positives.We describe unmarked, a package for the freely available and open-source R software that provides a complete workflow for modelling...
Authors
Kenneth F. Kellner, Adam D. Smith, Andy Royle, Marc Kéry, Jerrold L. Belant, Richard B. Chandler
Long-term effects of timber harvest on ephemeral pool and occupancy of Spotted Salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) and Wood Frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus)
The effects of timber harvest on amphibians can be complex and persist for years postharvest, but overall they are poorly understood. We examined how timber harvest has impacted two pool-breeding species, Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) and Wood Frog (Lithobates sylvaticus), across the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, West Virginia, USA. We surveyed Spotted Salamanders...
Authors
Amber NM Wiewel, Adrianne Brand, Evan H. Campbell Grant
Egg production and endocrine profiles of female whooping cranes (Grus americana) maintained ex situ are improved in naturalized enclosures
Whooping cranes (Grus americana) are naturally seasonal breeders and rely on wetland habitats throughout the annual cycle. However, captive cranes are commonly housed in dry outdoor pens, which may lack key environmental stimuli that in turn compromise reproduction. Our study sought to first, assess seasonal patterns of reproductive hormones in successful versus non-successful bird pairs...
Authors
Megan E. Brown, Glenn H. Olsen, Carol L. Keefer, Nucharin Songsasen