Publications

Spreading his wings to reveal their pearly white undersides, the male buff-breasted sandpiper tilted his head to the sky, puffed out his chest, and uttered a series of soft "tick-ticks.” He then proceeded to stamp his feet and vibrate his wings as if the ground were quaking beneath him. Soon, three females, attracted by this courtship display, entered the curve of his embracing wings. They then sp

In the last issue of Northwest Science, Hayward and Iverson (“Long-Term Trends in Marbled Murrelets in Southeast Alaska Based on Christmas Bird Counts”) failed to mention other evidence for 40-75% declines in murrelet populations, or discuss implications of a climate regime shift that has reduced populations of seabirds in Alaska, or present any useful information on the status of old-growth breed

2,4-D herbicide treatment was applied to 2 treatment units to remove the forbs that are the preferred food of pocket gophers. One of these units also was seeded with grasses prior to the 2,4-D treatment. The effect of 2,4-D and grass seeding plus 2,4-D treatments were compared to an untreated control unit. Long-term monitoring (7 yr) was conducted on the 3 units for vegetative cover (7 yr), pocket

Izembek Lagoon, an estuary in Alaska, is a very important staging area for Pacific brant, a small migratory goose. Each fall, nearly the entire Pacific Flyway population of 130,000 brant flies to Izembek Lagoon and feeds on eelgrass to accumulate fat reserves for nonstop transoceanic migration to wintering areas as distant as Mexico. In the past 10 years, offshore drilling activities in this area

Researchers have debated the effect of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline (TAP) and associated developments to caribou (Rangifer tarandus) of the central Arctic herd (CAH) since the 1970s. Several studies have demonstrated that cows and calves of the CAH avoided the TAP corridor because of disturbance associated with the pipeline, whereas others have indicated that female caribou of the CAH avoided riparia

We compared strip transect and radio-tracking methods of determining foraging range of Black-legged Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla). The mean distance birds were observed from their colony determined by radio-tracking was significantly greater than the mean value calculated from strip transects. We determined that this difference was due to two sources of bias: (1) as distance from the colony increa

We implanted 6 Common Murres (Uria aalge) and 10 Thick-billed Murres (Uria lomvia) with satellite transmitters and compared subsequent presence at the colony, nesting status, and provisioning to a control group that underwent a simple surgical procedure. In the 10 days following implantation, we resighted 10 of 11 control birds at the colony and 6 of 16 implanted birds. Of the birds that returned,

We estimated natal and breeding philopatry and dispersal probabilities for a metapopulation of Black Brant (Branta bernicla nigricans) based on observations of marked birds at six breeding colonies in Alaska, 1986–1994. Both adult females and males exhibited high (>0.90) probability of philopatry to breeding colonies. Probability of natal philopatry was significantly higher for females than males.

A 5-yr study was conducted on national forests in Idaho and Oregon to evaluate how doubling the seedling stocking rate of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) would relate to 5-year survival and the uniformity of distribution of seedlings in the presence of northern pocket gopher (Thomomys talpoides) damage. Either 4 or 8 seedlings were planted in 40-m2 subplots (1000 or 2000 seedlings/ha) and monitore

Cardiac chamber enlargement and hypertrophy are normal physiologic responses to repetitive endurance exercise activity in human beings and domestic dogs. Whether similar changes occur in wild animals as a consequence of increased activity is unknown. We found that free-ranging gray wolves (Canis lupus, n=11), the archetypical endurance athlete, have electrocardiographic evidence of cardiac chamber

Extra-pair paternity is common in many socially monogamous passerine birds with biparental care. Thus, males often invest in offspring to which they are not related. Models of optimal parental investment predict that, under certain assumptions, males should lower their investment in response to reduced certainty of paternity. We attempted to reduce certainty of paternity experimentally in two spec

Buff-breasted sandpipers use a variety of mating tactics to acquire mates, including remaining at a single lek for most of the breeding season, attending multiple leks during the season, displaying solitarily or displaying both on leks and solitarily. We found that differences in body size, body condition, fluctuating asymmetry scores, wing coloration, territory location and behaviour (attraction,