Publications
USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center staff publish results of their research in USGS series reports and in peer-reviewed journals. Publication links are below. Information on all USGS publications can be found at the USGS Publications Warehouse.
Filter Total Items: 1907
Migrating whooping cranes avoid wind-energy infrastructure when selecting stopover habitat
Electricity generation from renewable-energy sources has increased dramatically worldwide in recent decades. Risks associated with wind-energy infrastructure are not well understood for endangered whooping cranes or other vulnerable crane populations. From 2010 to 2016, we monitored 57 whooping cranes with remote-telemetry devices in the United States Great Plains to determine potential changes in
Authors
Aaron T. Pearse, Kristine L. Metzger, David A. Brandt, Jill A. Shaffer, Mark T. Bidwell, Wade C. Harrell
The enigma of the Předmostí protodogs. A comment on Prassack et al. 2020
Prassack et al. (2020) analyzed dental microwear in a sample of canids from the Gravettian site of Předmostí that had been identified as either Paleolithic dogs or Pleistocene wolves (n = 10 in each group), accepting that the morphological differences between the groups validly distinguished the (self-domesticating) protodogs from wolves. The authors then concluded that differences in one m2 micro
Authors
Luc A. A. Janssens, Myriam Boudadi-Maligne, L. David Mech, Dennis Lawler
Spatial variation in population dynamics of northern Great Plains piping plovers
Metapopulation dynamics are determined not only by within-patch birth and death processes but also by between-patch movements of individuals (emigration and immigration). To conserve and manage a species that has a metapopulation structure, defined by local populations that are distributed among patches of suitable habitat, we need to understand each of these vital rates. For the federally listed
Authors
Rose J. Swift, Michael J. Anteau, Kristen S. Ellis, Megan M. Ring, Mark H. Sherfy, Dustin L. Toy, David N. Koons
Does taxonomic and numerical resolution affect the assessment of invertebrate community structure in New World freshwater wetlands?
The efficiency of biodiversity assessments and biomonitoring studies is commonly challenged by limitations in taxonomic identification and quantification approaches. In this study, we assessed the effects of different taxonomic and numerical resolutions on a range of community structure metrics in invertebrate compositional data sets from six regions distributed across North and South America. We
Authors
Mateus M. Pires, Marta G. Grech, Cristina Stenert, Leonardo Maltchik, Luis B. Epele, Kyle McLean, Jamie M. Kneitel, Douglas A. Bell, Hamish S. Greig, Chase R. Gagne, Darold P. Batzer
Historic population estimates for bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in Aragua, Venezuela indicate monitoring need
This study reports historic capture-mark-recapture survival and abundance estimates of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) based on photo-identification surveys of coastal Venezuela (along the Aragua coast between Turiamo Bay and Puerto Colombia). We used the most recent data available: dolphins identified by unique dorsal fin marks during wet and dry season surveys conducted from 2004
Authors
Sergio Cobarrubia-Russo, Shannon Barber-Meyer, Guillermo R. Barreto, Alimar Molero-Lizarraga
Upland burning and grazing as strategies to offset climate-change effects on wetlands
Wetland ecosystems perform a multitude of services valued by society and provide critical habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife. Despite their importance, wetlands have been lost to different local, regional, and global drivers. Remaining wetlands are extremely sensitive to changing temperature and precipitation regimes. Management of grassland areas in wetland catchments may be an effect
Authors
Owen P. McKenna, David A. Renton, David M. Mushet, Edward S. DeKeyser
Behaviorally-mediated trophic cascade attenuated by prey use of risky places at safe times
The mere threat of predation may incite behavioral changes in prey that lead to community-wide impacts on productivity, biodiversity, and nutrient cycling. The paucity of experimental manipulations, however, has contributed to controversy over the strength of this pathway in wide-ranging vertebrate systems. We investigated whether simulated gray wolf (Canis lupus) presence can induce behaviorally-
Authors
Meredith S. Palmer, C. Portales-Reyes, C. Potter, L. David Mech, Forest Isbell
Fire controls annual bromes in northern great plains grasslands—Up to a point
Concern about the impacts of two invasive annual brome grasses (cheatgrass and Japanese brome, Bromus tectorum L. and B. japonicus Thunb. ex Murray) on the mixed-grass prairie of North America's northern Great Plains (NGP) is growing. Cheatgrass is well known west of the NGP, where replacement of fire-intolerant, native sagebrush steppe by fire-prone, exotic annual grasslands is widespread. Conseq
Authors
Amy Symstad, Deborah A. Buhl, Daniel J Swanson
Fish out of water: Insights from a case study of a highly social animal that failed the mirror self-recognition test
Mirror self-recognition (MSR) tests have been conducted with a variety of species with the aim of examining whether subject animals have the capacity for self-awareness. To date, the majority of animals that have convincingly passed are highly social mammals whose wild counterparts live in complex societies, though there is much debate concerning what constitutes passing and what passing means in
Authors
Shannon Barber-Meyer, Lori J. Schmidt
Wetland conservation in the United States: A swinging pendulum
No abstract available.
Authors
David M. Mushet, Aram Calhoun
Quantifying and addressing the prevalence and bias of study designs in the environmental and social sciences
Building trust in science and evidence-based decision-making depends heavily on the credibility of studies and their findings. Researchers employ many different study designs that vary in their risk of bias to evaluate the true effect of interventions or impacts. Here, we empirically quantify, on a large scale, the prevalence of different study designs and the magnitude of bias in their estimates.
Authors
Alec P. Christie, David Abecasis, Mehdi Adjeroud, Juan C. Alonso, Tatsuya Amano, Alvaro Anton, Barry P. Baldigo, Rafael Barrientos, Jake E. Bicknell, Deborah A. Buhl, Just Cebrian, Ricardo S. Ceia, Luciana Cibils-Martina, Sarah Clarke, Joachim Claudet, Michael D. Craig, Dominique Davoult, Annelies De Backer, Mary K. Donovan, Tyler D. Eddy, Filipe M. França, Jonathan P.A. Gardner, Bradley P. Harris, Ari Huusko, Ian L. Jones, Brendan P. Kelaher, Janne S. Kotiaho, Adrià López-Baucells, Heather L. Major, Aki Mäki-Petäys, Beatriz Martínez-López, Carlos A. Martín, Philip A. Martin, Daniel Mateos-Molina, Robert A. McConnaughey, Michele Meroni, Christoph F. J. Meyer, Kade Mills, Monica Montefalcone, Norbertas Noreika, Carlos Palacín, Anjali Pande, C. Roland Pitcher, Carlos Ponce, Matthew J. Rinella, Ricardo Rocha, María C. Ruiz-Delgado, Juan J. Schmitter-Soto, Jill A. Shaffer, Shailesh Sharma, Anna A. Sher, Doriane Stagnol, Thomas Stanley, Kevin D.E. Stokesbury, Aurora Torres, Oliver Tully, Teppo Vehanen, Corinne Watts, Qingyuan Zhao, William J. Sutherland
Development of a novel framework for modeling field-scale conservation effects of depressional wetlands in agricultural landscapes
The intermixed cropland, grassland, and wetland ecosystems of the upper mid-western United States combine to provide a suite of valuable ecological services. Grassland and wetland losses in the upper midwestern United States have been extensive, but government-funded conservation programs have protected and restored hundreds of thousands of acres of wetland and grassland habitat in the region. The
Authors
Owen P. McKenna, Javier M. Osorio, Katherine D. Behrman, Luca Doro, David M. Mushet