Publications

We built a high-resolution topological food web for the kelp forests of the Santa Barbara Channel, California, USA that includes parasites and significantly improves resolution compared to previous webs. The 1,098 nodes and 21,956 links in the web describe an economically, socially, and ecologically vital system. Nodes are broken into life-stages, with 549 free-living life-stages (492 species from

The Klamath Network of the National Park Service consists of six park units located in northern California and southern Oregon. The Network began implementing a vegetation monitoring protocol in 2011 to identify ecologically significant vegetation trends in the parks. The premise of the protocol is that multivariate analyses of species composition data is the most robust early detection means for

Incorporating spatial and temporal scales into greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) population monitoring strategies is challenging and rarely implemented. Sage-grouse populations experience fluctuations in abundance that lead to temporal oscillations, making trend estimation difficult. Accounting for stochasticity is critical to reliably estimate population trends and investigate varia

The extent and frequency of fire has increased in many arid systems over the last century, with a large proportion of area in some regions undergoing transitions to novel conditions. Portions of the Mojave Desert in southwestern North America have undergone such transitions, most often from woody to herbaceous-dominated systems. These transitions have often been attributed to the proliferation of

The New World Jerusalem crickets currently consist of 4 genera: Stenopelmatus Burmeister, 1838, with 33 named entities; Ammopelmatus Tinkham, 1965, with 2 described species; Viscainopelmatus Tinkham, 1970, with 1 described species, and Stenopelmatopterus Gorochov, 1988, with 3 described species. We redefine the generic boundaries of these 4 genera, synonymize Stenopelmatopterus under Stenopelmatus

Animals often exhibit distinct microbial communities when maintained in captivity as compared to when in the wild. Such differentiation may be significant in headstart and reintroduction programs where individuals spend some time in captivity before release into native habitats. Using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, we (i) assessed differences in gut microbial communities between captive and wild Fijian

A key assumption in species distribution modeling (SDM) with presence‐background (PB) methods is that sampling of occurrence localities is unbiased and that any sampling bias is proportional to the background distribution of environmental covariates. This assumption is rarely met when SDM practitioners rely on federated museum records from natural history collections for geo‐located occurrences du

Understanding encounters between marine predators and fisheries across national borders and outside national jurisdictions offers new perspectives on unwanted interactions to inform ocean management and predator conservation. Although seabird–fisheries overlap has been documented at many scales, remote identification of vessel encounters has lagged because vessel movement data often are lacking.He

Sand dune ecosystems are highly dynamic landforms found along coastlines and riverine deltas where a supply of sand-sized material is available to be delivered by aquatic and wind environments. These unique ecosystems provide habitat for a variety of endemic and rare plant and animal species. Sand dunes have been affected by human development, sand mining, and shoreline stabilization from invasive

Elevation is a major driver of plant ecology and sediment dynamics in tidal wetlands, so accurate and precise spatial data are essential for assessing wetland vulnerability to sea-level rise and making forecasts. We performed survey-grade elevation and vegetation surveys of the Global Change Research Wetland, a brackish microtidal wetland in the Chesapeake Bay estuary, Maryland (USA), to both inte

The U.S. Geological Survey monitors a suite of intertidal black abalone sites at San Nicolas Island, California, in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, which owns the island. The nine rocky intertidal sites were established in 1980 to study the potential impact of translocated sea otters on the intertidal black abalone population at the island. The sites were monitored from 1981 to 1997, usually annua

Desert amphibians are limited to exploiting ephemeral resources and aestivating or to inhabiting scarce refuges of permanent water, such as springs. Understanding how amphibians use these resources is essential for their conservation. Dixie Valley Toads (Anaxyrus williamsi) are precinctive to a small system of cold and hot springs in the Dixie Valley, Nevada, USA. The toads have been petitioned fo