Publications

Wetlands serve as unique habitats that can support high biodiversity. Large-scale loss of wetland habitats can threaten important linkages between lake and wetland habitats that could affect diversity and growth of aquatic organisms. In this study, we compare prey diversity and abundance as well as Walleye (Sander vitreus) diets and condition in a large glacial lake (Lake Kampeska, South Dakota) w

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy that was first detected in captive cervids in Colorado, United States (US) in 1967, but has since spread into free-ranging white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) across the US and Canada as well as to Scandinavia and South Korea. In some areas, the disease is considered endemic in wild deer populations, and governmental

Estimating species distribution and abundance is foundational to effective management and conservation.Using an integrated species distribution model that combines presence-only data from various sources with detection/non-detection data from structured surveys, we estimated the distribution and expected abundance of three difficult-to-monitor mammals of management concern across New York State, n

Wildlife telemetry data may be used to answer a diverse range of questions relevant to wildlife ecology and management. One challenge to modeling telemetry data is that animal movement often varies greatly in pattern over time, and current continuous-time modeling approaches to handle such nonstationarity require bespoke and often complex models that may pose barriers to practitioner implementatio

Lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) populations of in the Sand Sagebrush Prairie Ecoregion of southwest Kansas and southeast Colorado, USA, have declined sharply since the mid-1980s. Decreased quality and availability of habitat are believed to be the main drivers of declines. Our objective was to reconstruct broad-scale change in the ecoregion since 1985 as a potential factor in p

Wildlife tracking studies have become ubiquitous in ecology and now provide previously unobtainable data regarding individual movement, vital rates, and population demographics. However, tracking devices can potentially reduce survival of study subjects, generating biases in the vital rates they seek to measure. Previous studies have found that greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) fitte

Spatial modeling of wildlife diseases can be used to describe patterns of disease risk, understand biological mechanisms of disease occurrence, and for spatial prediction. Risk of wildlife disease occurrence in relation to environmental variables is often modeled and predicted using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, which are unsuitable for large datasets and those covering large spatial ex

Prion diseases such as scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and chronic wasting disease (CWD) affect domesticated and wild herbivorous mammals. Animals afflicted with CWD, the transmissible spongiform encephalopathy of cervids (deer, elk, and moose), shed prions into the environment, where they may persist and remain infectious for years. These environmental prions may remain in soil,

Predator non-consumptive effects (NCE) can alter prey foraging time and habitat use, potentially reducing fitness. Prey can mitigate NCEs by increasing vigilance, chewing-vigilance synchronization, and spatiotemporal avoidance of predators. We quantified the relationship between Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) predation risk and elk (Cervus canadensis) behavior. We conducted behavioral observat

Integrated population models provide a framework for assimilating multiple datasets to understand population dynamics. Understanding drivers of demography is key to improving wildlife management, and integrated population models have informed conservation practices for many species of conservation concern. Motivated by multiple surveys of lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus), we dev

Delineating wildlife population boundaries is important for effective population monitoring and management. The bobcat (Lynx rufus) is a highly mobile generalist carnivore that is ecologically and economically important. We sampled 1225 bobcats harvested in South Dakota, USA (2014–2019), of which 878 were retained to assess genetic diversity and infer population genetic structure using 17 microsat

Accurately predicting species’ distributions is critical for the management and conservation of fish and wildlife populations. Joint Species Distribution Models (JSDMs) account for dependencies between species often ignored by traditional species distribution models. We evaluated how a JSDM approach could improve predictive strength for stream fish communities within large watersheds (the Chesapea