Publications

Extreme heat is one of the most important pathways illustrating the connection between climate and human health, and climate change is expected to exacerbate this public health issue. This study first used a case-crossover analysis to characterize the historical (1980–2018) association between summertime heat and non-traumatic mortality in Washington State. A separate analysis was conducted for ea

Unselective fishing involves activities that target the entire assemblage rather than specific fish species, size classes, or trophic levels. This common fishing approach has been in practice for decades in inland waters in China but its implications for biodiversity remain unclear. We addressed this issue by studying fish assemblages in freshwater lakes (five fishing lakes, one reference lake, an

Global wildfire regimes are changing rapidly, with widespread increases in the size, frequency, duration, and severity of wildfires. Whereas the effects of wildfire on ecological state variables such as occupancy, abundance, and species diversity are relatively well documented, changes in population vital rates (e.g., survival, recruitment) and individual responses (e.g., growth, movement) to wild

ContextWildlife distributions are often subdivided into discrete conservation units to aid in implementing management and conservation objectives. Habitat suitability models, resistance surfaces, and resistant kernels provide tools for delineating spatially explicit conservation units but guidelines for parameterizing resistant kernels are generally lacking.ObjectivesWe used the federally threaten

Decades of research on the effects of urbanization on stream ecology have shown that urban stream problems are inherently wicked. These problems are wicked in the sense that they are difficult to solve because information is incomplete, changing, or conflicting and because finding potential solutions often requires input from stakeholders who can have conflicting and competing values. The 5th Symp

Greater Prairie-chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) historically occupied 20 states within the contiguous United States; however, due to habitat degradation and loss, they are currently found in 11 states, only four of which have a stable population. Kansas supports a relatively large abundance of Greater Prairie-chickens, where the Flint Hills ecoregion historically supported the largest population den

Birds that have adapted to urban landscapes often display changes in their behavioral responses to human disturbance. This habituation may result in a decreased wariness and secrecy near their nest and an increased inclination to engage in aggressive nest defenses. Aggressive defense of nests has been noted among Mississippi Kites (Ictinia mississippiensis), a raptor that has become a common and a

Stable or growing populations may go extinct when their sizes cannot withstand large swings in temporal variation and stochastic forces. Hence, the minimum abundance threshold defining when populations can persist without human intervention forms a key conservation parameter. We identify this threshold for many populations of Caprinae, typically threatened species lacking demographic data. Doing s

The recent developments of new deep learning architectures create opportunities to accurately classify high-resolution unoccupied aerial system (UAS) images of natural coastal systems and mandate continuous evaluation of algorithm performance. We evaluated the performance of the U-Net and DeepLabv3 deep convolutional network architectures and two traditional machine learning techniques (support ve

Habitat loss due to increasing anthropogenic disturbance is the major driver for bird population declines across the globe. Within the Eastern Ghats of India, shrubland bird communities are threatened by shrinking of suitable habitats due to increased anthropogenic disturbance and climate change. The development of an effective habitat management strategy is hampered by the absence of data for thi

Ongoing environmental change across the Arctic is affecting many freshwater ecosystems, including small thaw ponds that support macroinvertebrates, thus potentially affecting important forage for fish and bird species. To accurately predict how fish and wildlife that depend on these macroinvertebrates will be affected by ecosystem change at high latitudes, understanding proximate factors that infl

ContextPower line corridors have been repeatedly assessed as habitat for wild bees; however, few studies have examined them as bee habitat relative to nearby crop fields and surrounding landscape context.ObjectivesWe surveyed bee communities in power line corridors near to and isolated from lowbush blueberry fields in two landscape contexts in Maine, U.S.A. We examined the influences of blooming p