Publications

Mountain lions, desert bighorn sheep, mule deer, and a variety of other wildlife live on and pass through the Nevada National Security Site each day. It is a highly restricted area that is free of hunting and has surprisingly pristine areas. This 22-minute program highlights an extraordinary study on how mountain lions interact with their prey. It shows how the scientists use helicopters and class

Native eelgrass (Zostera marina) is an important contributor to ecosystem services that supplies cover for juvenile fish, supports a variety of invertebrate prey resources for fish and waterbirds, provides substrate for herring roe consumed by numerous fish and birds, helps stabilize sediment, and sequesters organic carbon. Seagrasses are in decline globally, and monitoring changes in their growth

The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill damaged a wide range of natural resources, including intertidal communities, and post-spill studies demonstrated acute and chronic exposure and injury to an array of species. Standard toxicological methods to evaluate petroleum contaminants have assessed tissue burdens, with fewer assays providing indicators of health or physiology, particularly when contaminant lev

Many coastal dune ecosystems have been degraded by non-native dune vegetation, but these systems might still provide valuable habitat for some taxa, including amphibians. Because restoration of degraded dune systems is occurring and likely to continue, we examined the occurrence of amphibians in drainages associated with a coastal dune ecosystem degraded by invasive plants (European Beachgrass, Am

From 12 May 2013 to 29 May 2013, the Gull-billed Tern (Gelochelidon nilotica) colony at the San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge, California, experienced a mass die-off of at least 92 adults, representing 71–92% of the breeding population on the US west coast. Cause of death was determined to be peritonitis due to perforations of the intestine by a large quantity of acanthocephala (Profilicolis 

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereinafter, "sage-grouse") are highly dependent on sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) dominated vegetation communities for food and cover from predators. Although this species requires the presence of sagebrush shrubs in the overstory, it also inhabits a broad geographic distribution with significant gradients in precipitation and temperature that drive var

The distribution and abundance of pinyon (Pinus monophylla) and juniper (Juniperus osteosperma, J. occidentalis) trees (hereinafter, "pinyon-juniper") in sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems of the Great Basin in the Western United States has increased substantially since the late 1800s. Distributional expansion and infill of pinyon-juniper into sagebrush ecosystems threatens the ecological funct

Population ecologists have long recognized the importance of ecological scale in understanding processes that guide observed demographic patterns for wildlife species. However, directly incorporating spatial and temporal scale into monitoring strategies that detect whether trajectories are driven by local or regional factors is challenging and rarely implemented. Identifying the appropriate scale

Whitebark pine and foxtail pine serve foundational roles in the subalpine zone of the Sierra Nevada. They provide the dominant structure in tree-line forests and regulate key ecosystem processes and community dynamics. Climate change models suggest that there will be changes in temperature regimes and in the timing and magnitude of precipitation within the current distribution of these species, an

Within the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan area, which encompasses California’s Mojave Desert, development and operation of renewable energy facilities has the potential to impact golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) populations through loss of habitat and prey base. Developing an effective conservation strategy that aims to mitigate for such operations is necessary to lessen these impacts;

The relationships among and within the families that comprise the orthopteran superfamily Stenopelmatoidea (suborder Ensifera) remain poorly understood. We developed a phylogenetic hypothesis based on Bayesian analysis of two nuclear ribosomal and one mitochondrial gene for 118 individuals (84 de novo and 34 from GenBank). These included Gryllacrididae from North, Central, and South America, South

The cycling and sequestration of carbon are important ecosystem functions of estuarine wetlands that may be affected by climate change. We conducted experiments across a latitudinal and climate gradient of tidal marshes in the northeast Pacific to evaluate the effects of climate- and vegetation-related factors on litter decomposition. We manipulated tidal exposure and litter type in experimental m