Treesearch

Snapping Turtles are the largest turtles found in Wisconsin. They can be identified by their large body, wide head (with hooked upper jaw), long thick legs and tail, and brown, tan, or olive-green coloration.

Residential yards are a significant component of urban socio-ecological systems; residential land covers 11% of the United States and is often the dominant land use within urban areas. Residential yards also play an important role in the sustainability of urban socio-ecological systems, affecting biogeochemical cycles, water and the climate via individual- and household-level behaviours. Spatial contagion has been observed in yard vegetation in several cities, potentially due to social norms that compel neighbours to emulate or conform to specific aesthetic qualities or management regimes....

Ziziphus mauritiana Lam. is a widespread shrub or tree of the Sahel region, where it grows wild and is used for various purposes, including nutrition, medicine, and firewood. Current domestication programs focus on using the local species as rootstock for the improved imported Asian cultivars to provide tolerance to pests and diseases. The plant plays an increasing economic role in the livelihoods of local Sahelian populations, but despite this there is little genetic information about it. The purpose of our study was to determine the genome size estimate and chromosome numbers of Z....

Over the past decade, there has been a dramatic increase in the availability of consumer-grade hardware and software for three-dimensional (3D) object creation (Sargent and Schwartz 2019), reducing barriers for this technology to become widely used for education and research in the biological sciences. Digital 3D models can serve as educational tools for species identification training and can increase the value of museum specimens for research by providing remote access to view specimen characteristics, such as for morphometric studies (Falkingham et al. 2018; Irschick et al. 2020a;...

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...