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
Sparrow nest survival in relation to prescribed fire and woody plant invasion in a northern mixed-grass prairie
Prescribed fire is used to reverse invasion by woody vegetation on grasslands, but managers often are uncertain whether influences of shrub and tree reduction outweigh potential effects of fire on nest survival of grassland birds. During the 2001–2003 breeding seasons, we examined relationships of prescribed fire and woody vegetation to nest survival of clay-colored sparrow (Spizella pallida) and
Authors
Robert K. Murphy, Terry L. Shaffer, Todd A. Grant, James L. Derrig, Cory S. Rubin, Courtney K. Kerns
Used-habitat calibration plots: A new procedure for validating species distribution, resource selection, and step-selection models
“Species distribution modeling” was recently ranked as one of the top five “research fronts” in ecology and the environmental sciences by ISI's Essential Science Indicators (Renner and Warton 2013), reflecting the importance of predicting how species distributions will respond to anthropogenic change. Unfortunately, species distribution models (SDMs) often perform poorly when applied to novel envi
Authors
John R. Fieberg, James D. Forester, Garrett M. Street, Douglas H. Johnson, Althea A. ArchMiller, Jason Matthiopoulos
Understanding and finding solutions to the problem of sedimentation in the National Wildlife Refuge System
The National Wildlife Refuge System (Refuge System) is a collection of public lands maintained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for migratory birds and other wildlife. Wetlands on individual National Wildlife Refuges (Refuges) may be at risk of increased sedimentation because of land use and water management practices. Increased sedimentation can reduce wetland habitat quality by altering hyd
Authors
Max Post van der Burg, Karen Jenni, Timothy L. Nieman, Josh D. Eash, Gregory A. Knutsen
Can we save large carnivores without losing large carnivore science?
Large carnivores are depicted to shape entire ecosystems through top-down processes. Studies describing these processes are often used to support interventionist wildlife management practices, including carnivore reintroduction or lethal control programs. Unfortunately, there is an increasing tendency to ignore, disregard or devalue fundamental principles of the scientific method when communicatin
Authors
Benjamin L. Allen, Lee R. Allen, Henrik Andrén, Guy Ballard, Luigi Boitani, Richard M. Engeman, Peter J.S. Fleming, Peter M. Haswell, Adam T. Ford, Rafał Kowalczyk, John D.C. Linnell, L. David Mech, Daniel M. Parker
Large carnivore science: non-experimental studies are useful, but experiments are better
We recently described the following six interrelated issues that justify
questioning some of the discourse about the reliability of the literature on the
ecological roles of large carnivores (Allen et al. In press):
1. The overall paucity of available data,
2. The reliability of carnivore population sampling techniques,
3. The general disregard for alternative hypotheses to top-down forcing,
4. Th
Authors
Benjamin L. Allen, Lee R. Allen, Henrik Andrén, Guy Ballard, Luigi Boitani, Richard M. Engeman, Peter J. S. Fleming, Adam T. Ford, Peter M. Haswell, Rafał Kowalczyk, John D. C. Linnell, L. David Mech, Daniel M. Parker
Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) death by stick impalement
Although Canis lupus L. (Gray Wolf) individuals are sometimes impaled by sticks, we could find no documentation of natural impalement by sticks as a cause of death for wild Wolves. Here we report on a wild Gray Wolf from northeastern Minnesota that died due to stick puncture of its thorax and abdomen.
Authors
Shannon Barber-Meyer, Lori Schmidt, L. David Mech
Why does bee health matter? The science surrounding honey bee health concerns and what we can do about it
A colony of honey bees is an amazing organism when it is healthy; it is a superorganism in many senses of the word. As with any organism, maintaining a state of health requires cohesiveness and interplay among cells and tissues and, in the case of a honey bee colony, the bees themselves. The individual bees that make up a honey bee colony deliver to the superorganism what it needs: pollen and nect
Authors
Marla S Spivak, Zac Browning, Mike Goblirsch, Katie Lee, Clint R.V. Otto, Matthew Smart, Judy Wu-Smart
Can wolves help save Japan's mountain forests?
Japan’s wolves were extinct by 1905. Today Japan's mountain forests are being killed by overabundant sika deer and wild boars. Since the early 1990s, the Japan Wolf Association has proposed wolf reintroduction to Japan to restore rural ecology and to return a culturally important animal. In this article I discuss whether the return of wolves could help save Japan's mountain forests.
Authors
Shannon Barber-Meyer
Use of erroneous wolf generation time in assessments of domestic dog and human evolution
Scientific interest in dog domestication and parallel evolution of dogs and humans (Wang et al. 2013) has increased recently (Freedman et al. 2014, Larson and Bradley 2014, Franz et al. 2016,), and various important conclusions have been drawn based on how long ago the calculations show dogs were domesticated from ancestral wolves (Canis lupus). Calculation of this duration is based on “the most c
Authors
L. David Mech, Shannon Barber-Meyer
Impact of tile drainage on evapotranspiration in South Dakota, USA, based on high spatiotemporal resolution evapotranspiration time series from a multi-satellite data fusion system
Soil drainage is a widely used agricultural practice in the midwest USA to remove excess soil water to potentially improve the crop yield. Research shows an increasing trend in baseflow and streamflow in the midwest over the last 60 years, which may be related to artificial drainage. Subsurface drainage (i.e., tile) in particular may have strongly contributed to the increase in these flows, becaus
Authors
Yun Yang, Martha C. Anderson, Feng Gao, Christopher Hain, William P. Kustas, Tilden P. Meyers, Wade Crow, Raymond G. Finocchiaro, Jason Otkin, Liang Sun, Yang Yang
Persistence of native and exotic plants 10 years after prairie reconstruction
Prairie reconstructions are a critical component of preservation of the imperiled tallgrass prairie ecosystem in the Midwestern United States. Sustainability of this endeavor depends on establishment of persistent cover of planted native species and resistance to noxious weeds. The goal of this study was to understand the influence of early reconstruction practices on long-term outcomes. Twelve re
Authors
Diane L. Larson, J. B. Bright, Pauline Drobney, Jennifer L. Larson, Sara Vacek
Using publicly available data to quantify plant–pollinator interactions and evaluate conservation seeding mixes in the Northern Great Plains
Concern over declining pollinators has led to multiple conservation initiatives for improving forage for bees in agroecosystems. Using data available through the Pollinator Library (npwrc.usgs.gov/pollinator/), we summarize plant–pollinator interaction data collected from 2012–2015 on lands managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and private lands enrolled in U.S. Department of Agriculture c
Authors
Clint R.V. Otto, Samuel O'Dell, R. B. Bryant, Ned H. Jr. Euliss, Rachel Bush, Matthew Smart