Treesearch

Most examples of woodpeckers preying on vertebrates are thought to be opportunistic, and the wider role that some woodpeckers play as nest predators of other birds has not been appreciated until recently. To date, predation on nestling birds has been documented in at least 10 woodpecker species, including 5 of the 6 species of Melanerpes that nest in the United States. From 2018 to 2020, we documented 57 instances in which adult Lewis’s Woodpeckers (Melanerpes lewis) provisioned young with nestling passerines (11.9% of 480 food deliveries), which constitutes the first verification of nest...

The application of species distribution models (SDMs) to areas outside of where a model was created allows informed decisions across large spatial scales, yet transferability remains a challenge in ecological modeling. We examined how regional variation in animal-environment relationships influenced model transferability for Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), with an additional conservation aim of modeling lynx habitat across the northwestern United States. Simultaneously, we explored the effect of sample size from GPS data on SDM model performance and transferability. We used data from three...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) concentration exhibits a positive correlation with organism abundance in nature, but modeling this relationship could be substantially improved by incorporating the biology of eDNA production. A recent model (Molecular Ecology, 10.1111/mec.15543) extended models of physiological allometric scaling to eDNA production, hypothesizing that brook trout eDNA production scales nonlinearly with mass as a power function with scaling coefficients <1 in lakes.

The 2018 Camp fire destroyed the townof Paradise, California and resulted in 82 fatalities, the worstwildfire disaster in the US to date. Future disasters of similar or greatermagnitude are inevitable given predicted climate change but remain highly uncertain in terms of location and timing. As with other natural disasters, simulation models are one of the primary tools to map risk and design prevention strategies. However, risk assessments have focused on estimation ofmean values rather than predicting extreme events that are increasingly becoming a reality in many parts of the globe....

Post-wildfire erosion and the slope instability issues associated with it are a global problem that can negatively affect transportation corridors, the environment, and human life. Currently, mulch treatments are commonly used means of stabilizing wildfire-burnt hillslopes; however, mulch, especially agricultural straw mulch, can pose environmental concerns related to invasive plants. An environmentally friendly treatment, xanthan gum (XG), and a commercial polyacrylamide (PAM) were evaluated as alternatives for stabilizing surficial silty soil that was burnt by the 2018 Mesa Fire in...

Seedling planting plays a key role in active forest restoration and regeneration of managed stands. Plant attributes at outplanting can determine tree seedling survival and consequently early success of forest plantations. Although many studies show that large seedlings of the same age within a species have higher survival than small ones, others report the opposite. This may be due to differences in environmental conditions at the planting site and in the inherent functional characteristics of species. Here, we conducted a global-scale meta-analysis to evaluate the effect of seedling size...

Sampling bias and autocorrelation can lead to erroneous estimates of habitat selection, model overfitting and elevated omission rates. We developed a multi-scale habitat suitability model of the flammulated owl (Psiloscops flammeolus) in the Northern Rocky Mountains based on extensive but spatially clustered survey data, and then used simulations to evaluate the effects of spatially non-representative and spatially representative sampling strategies on model performance and predictions. Our hypothesis was that models trained with spatially nonrepresentative simulated datasets would suffer...

This study investigates municipal water use patterns across the Contiguous United States (CONUS). The objectives of this study are to explore temporal trends in water use, improve characterization of indoor and outdoor uses, and improve characterization of commercial, industrial, and institutional (CII) water use in cities across the CONUS. A comprehensive survey was conducted to compile monthly water use data from 126 municipalities for the period 2005-2017 with specific information about residential and CII water use categories. Changes in liters per capita per day and the CII to...

The area of tropical secondary forests is increasing rapidly, but data on the physical and biological structure of the canopies of these forests are limited. To obtain such data and to measure the ontogeny of canopy structure during tropical rainforest succession, we studied patch-scale (5 m2) canopy structure in three areas of 18-36 year-old secondary forest in Costa Rica, and compared the results to data from old-growth forest at the same site. All stands were sampled with a stratified random design with complete harvest from ground level to the top of the canopy from a modular portable...

This commentary explores the challenges and opportunities associated with a possible transition of Water Resources Research to a publication model where all articles are freely available upon publication ("Gold" open access). It provides a review of the status of open access publishing models, a summary of community input, and a path forward for AGU leadership. The decision to convert to open access is framed by a mix of finances and values. On the one hand, the challenge is to define who pays, and how, and what we can do to improve the affordability of publishing. On the other hand, the...