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Publications

Below is a list of WERC's peer-reviewed publications. If you are searching for a specific publication and cannot find it in this list, please contact werc_web@usgs.gov

Filter Total Items: 3617

Comparative phylogeography of a coevolved community: concerted population expansions in Joshua trees and four yucca moths

Comparative phylogeographic studies have had mixed success in identifying common phylogeographic patterns among co-distributed organisms. Whereas some have found broadly similar patterns across a diverse array of taxa, others have found that the histories of different species are more idiosyncratic than congruent. The variation in the results of comparative phylogeographic studies could indicate t
Authors
Christopher Irwin Smith, Shantel Tank, William Godsoe, Jim Levenick, Eva Strand, Todd C. Esque, Olle Pellmyr

Short- and long-term effects of fire on carbon in US dry temperate forest systems

Forests sequester carbon from the atmosphere, and in so doing can mitigate the effects of climate change. Fire is a natural disturbance process in many forest systems that releases carbon back to the atmosphere. In dry temperate forests, fires historically burned with greater frequency and lower severity than they do today. Frequent fires consumed fuels on the forest floor and maintained open stan
Authors
Matthew D. Hurteau, Matthew L. Brooks

Sea otter mortality in fish and shellfish traps: Estimating potential impacts and exploring possible solutions

Sea otters Enhydra lutris can be bycaught and drowned in fishing pots and traps, which may pose a threat to the welfare of otter populations. We explored this potential problem and its solutions using a wide variety of analyses. We exposed live California (USA) sea otters to finfish traps, lobster traps, and mock Dungeness crab traps in captive trials and found that the animals attempted to enter
Authors
Brian B. Hatfield, J.A. Ames, J. A. Estes, M. Timothy Tinker, A.B. Johnson, M. M. Staedler, M.D. Harris

Fire frequency, area burned, and severity: A quantitative approach to defining a normal fire year

Fire frequency, area burned, and fire severity are important attributes of a fire regime, but few studies have quantified the interrelationships among them in evaluating a fire year. Although area burned is often used to summarize a fire season, burned area may not be well correlated with either the number or ecological effect of fires. Using the Landsat data archive, we examined all 148 wildland
Authors
J.A. Lutz, Carl H. Key, C.A. Kolden, J.T. Kane, Jan W. Van Wagtendonk

The application of prototype point processes for the summary and description of California wildfires

A method for summarizing repeated realizations of a space‐time marked point process, known as prototyping, is discussed and applied to catalogues of wildfires in California. Prototype summaries are constructed for varying time intervals using California wildfire data from 1990 to 2006. Previous work on prototypes for temporal and space‐time point processes is extended here to include methods for c
Authors
K. Nichols, F.P. Schoenberg, Jon E. Keeley, A. Bray, D. Diez

The trans-Himalayan flights of bar-headed geese (Anser indicus)

Birds that fly over mountain barriers must be capable of meeting the increased energetic cost of climbing in low-density air, even though less oxygen may be available to support their metabolism. This challenge is magnified by the reduction in maximum sustained climbing rates in large birds. Bar-headed geese (Anser indicus) make one of the highest and most iconic transmountain migrations in the wo
Authors
L.A. Hawkes, S. Balachandran, N. Batbayar, P.J. Butler, P.B. Frappell, W.K. Milsom, N. Tseveenmyadag, S. H. Newman, G. R. Scott, P. Sathiyaselvam, John Y. Takekawa, M. Wikelski, C.M. Bishop

Relationships between breeding status, social -congregation attendance, and foraging distance of Xantus's Murrelets

At night during the breeding season, Xantus's Murrelets (Synthliboramphus hypoleucus) congregate on the water adjacent to nesting colonies. We examined relationships of attendance at these nocturnal congregations, breeding status, and daytime foraging locations of radio-marked Xantus's Murrelets from Anacapa Island (33 in 2002, 44 in 2003) and Santa Barbara Island (35 in 2002) in the California Ch
Authors
C.D. Hamilton, R.T. Golightly, John Y. Takekawa

Vegetation trends following the 2005 Southern Nevada Complex Fire: Chapter 6

No abstract available.
Authors
Robert C. Klinger, Matthew L. Brooks, Neil Frakes, John R. Matchett, Randy McKinley

Establishment of aerial seeding treatments in blackbrush and pinyon-juniper sites following the 2005 Southern Nevada Complex: Chapter 5

No abstract available.
Authors
Robert C. Klinger, Matthew L. Brooks, Neil Frakes, John R. Matchett, Randy McKinley, Karen Prentice

The Rakiura Titi Islands Restoration Project: Community action to eradicate Rattus rattus and Rattus exulans for ecological restoration and cultural wellbeing

In 2003, a non-profit group, Ka Mate Nga Kiore, was set up to oversee the restoration of four Maori-owned islands off the south coast of Stewart Island, New Zealand. The first step in the restoration was to eradicate ship rats (Rattus rattus) from three islands and Pacific rats (R. exulans) from another. The eradication was funded by the Command Oil Spill Trustee Council which managed the mitigati
Authors
P. J McClelland, Coote, Trow, Hutchins, HannahRose M. Nevins, Josh Adams, J. Newman, H. Moller

Intra-seasonal variation in foraging behavior among Adélie penguins (Pygocelis adeliae) breeding at Cape Hallett, Ross Sea, Antarctica

We investigated intra-seasonal variation in foraging behavior of chick-rearing Adélie penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae, during two consecutive summers at Cape Hallett, northwestern Ross Sea. Although foraging behavior of this species has been extensively studied throughout the broad continental shelf region of the Ross Sea, this is the first study to report foraging behaviors and habitat affiliations
Authors
P. O. B. Lyver, C. J. MacLeod, G. Ballard, B. J. Karl, K. J. Barton, J. Adams, D. G. Ainley, P. R. Wilson