Treesearch

During the period April 2009 - June 2015, we placed trail cameras at 61 sites in a 441 km2 area in northwestern Sonora, Mexico. We used the total number of jaguars captured/100 days of camera effort as the basis for a year-to-year evaluation of the status of the area’s jaguar population. A T-test comparison between the first and last 365 days of the camera trapping effort documented a significant difference between the two time periods for jaguar presence (P= 0.01, t= 2.56). We documented the illegal killing of six jaguars and detected a 71% decline of the population. With a lack of...

Feedbacks between the ecosystem and the economy are important to consider when measuring impacts from a disturbance but are often omitted from general equilibrium bioeconomic models. These models usually focus on how humans respond to ecological change, but do not consider that in adapting to changed conditions, humans can further affect the ecosystem. We present a framework that couples a regional computable general equilibrium model with an Ecopath with Ecosim food web model with bidirectional feedbacks between the two systems. Our bioeconomic model uniquely represents a comprehensive...

Although managing habitats in the context of climate change is increasingly important in Western North America, management recommendations are often lacking at fine scales relevant for management. Identifying management actions for climate adaptation requires an understanding of how wildlife (i) might vary in their response to habitat conditions across their range and (ii) the spatial scale of environmental effects. We quantified breeding habitat use of the Interior population of Band-tailed Pigeons (Patagioenas fasciata) in the Southwestern U.S. by analyzing data from satellite-tagged...

Predators are among the most threatened animal groups globally, with prey declines contributing to their endangerment. However, assessments of the habitat conditions that influence the successful capture of different prey species are rare, especially for small, cryptic predators. Accordingly, most predator conservation plans are based on the relative importance of habitats inferred from coarse-scale studies that do not consider habitat features contributing to hunting success, which can vary among prey species. To address this limitation, we integrated high-resolution global positioning...

Mortality site investigations of telemetered wildlife are important for cause-specific survival analyses and understanding underlying causes of observed population dynamics. Yet, eroding ecoliteracy and a lack of quality control in data collection can lead researchers to make incorrect conclusions, which may negatively impact management decisions for wildlife populations. We reviewed a random sample of 50 peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2019 on survival and cause-specific mortality of ungulates monitored with telemetry devices. This concise review revealed extensive...

Ascomycota account for about two-thirds of named fungal species.1 Over 98% of known Ascomycota belong to the Pezizomycotina, including many economically important species as well as diverse pathogens, decomposers, and mutualistic symbionts.2 Our understanding of Pezizomycotina evolution has until now been based on sampling traditionally well-defined taxonomic classes. However, considerable diversity exists in undersampled and uncultured, putatively early-diverging lineages, and the effect of these on evolutionary models has seldom been tested. We obtained genomes from 30 putative early-dive...

Background: ‘Megafire’ is an emerging concept commonly used to describe fires that are extreme in terms of size, behaviour, and/or impacts, but the term’s meaning remains ambiguous. Approach: We sought to resolve ambiguity surrounding the meaning of ‘megafire’ by conducting a structured review of the use and definition of the term in several languages in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. We collated definitions and descriptions of megafire and identified criteria frequently invoked to define megafire. We recorded the size and location of megafires and mapped them to reveal global...

Territory quality shapes population dynamics and has conservation implications for territorial species. Yet, quantifying territory quality using different measures can yield conflicting results, particularly if territory selection is non-ideal, thus challenging the understanding of territory quality. We used a 25-year population study of spotted owls (Strix occidentalis) occupying 72 territories to evaluate five commonly used demographic- and occupancy-based measures of territory quality: occupancy rate, annual apparent survival rate, territory fitness, mean annual reproductive rate, and...

Camera or genetic data are increasingly used to estimate wildlife abundance and density. We integrated video camera data with genetic data over 7 years to estimate annual age-structured apparent survival of American black bears (Ursus americanus). We identified 70 individuals through meticulous scrutiny of 7531 video captures, cross-referenced with 721 genetic captures from hair samples concurrently collected from stations in view of cameras. We used the Cormack-Jolly-Seber model in Program Mark to estimate annual age-structured apparent survival for yearling males, yearling females, 2+...

LANDFIRE assigns disturbance, vegetation, fuel, and fire regime classifications to every pixel within every 30 meters of land in the United States. A good example of these methods is the process of assigning a pixel to an ecological system or to a U.S. National Vegetation Classification group, LANDFIRE’s two vegetation type classifications. LANDFIRE uses the relation between satellite image surface reflectance and field plots to extrapolate vegetation classes to other pixels containing similar information. The satellite reflectance data come primarily from 30-meter Landsat sensors and...