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A genecological approach was used to explore genetic variation for survival in Artemisia tridentata (big sagebrush). Artemisia tridentata is a widespread and foundational shrub species in western North America. This species has become extremely fragmented, to the detriment of dependent wildlife, and efforts to restore it are now a land manage-ment priority. Common- garden experiments were established at three sites with seed-lings from 55 source- populations. Populations included each of the three predominant subspecies, and cytotype variations. Survival was monitored for 5 years to assess dif-ferences in survival between gardens and populations. We found evidence of adap-tive genetic variation for survival. Survival...
The spread and impacts of exotic species are unambiguous, global threats to many ecosystems. A prominent example is the suite of annual grasses in the Bromus genus (Bromus hereafter) that originate from Europe and Eurasia but have invaded or are invading large areas of the Western USA. This book brings a diverse, multidisciplinary group of authors together to synthesize current knowledge, research needs, and management implications for Bromus. Exotic plant invasions are multifaceted problems, and understanding and managing them requires the biological, ecological, sociological, and economic perspectives that are integrated in this book. Knowing how well information from one geographic or environmental setting can...
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Watersheds draining the Arctic Coastal Plain (ACP) of Alaska are dominated by permafrostand snowmelt runoff that create abundant surface storage in the form of lakes, wetlands, and beaded streams. These surface water elements compose complex drainage networks that affect aquatic ecosystem connectivity and hydrologic behavior. The 4676 km2 Fishand Creek drainage basin is composed of three watersheds that represent a gradient of theACP landscape with varying extents of eolian, lacustrine, and fluvial landforms. In each watershed, we analyzed 2.5-m-resolution aerial photography, a 5-m digital elevationmodel, and river gauging and climate records to better understand ACP watershed structureand processes. We show that...
Case Study: Integrated Scenarios and Outreach for Habitat Threat Assessments on California RangelandsWe developed six scenarios organized around our management question: How can we maintain viable ranchlands and their ecosystem services in light of future integrated threats? The scenarios represent alternative futures of climate/land use/hydrological change for the California Rangeland Conservation Coalition (Rangeland Coalition) focus area (the foothills around the Central Valley and most of the southern Inner Coast Range) based on (a) consistent storylines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES)5 and (b) downscaled global climate models (GCMs) that represent...
Melanism (dark coloration) is a condition resulting from a greater than normal expres-sion of the eumelanin pigments in the plumage (Gill 1990). The dark coloration can be advantageous to raptors by increasing the feathers’ resistance to bacterial degradation (Goldstein et al. 2004). conversely, abnormally dark pigmentation can reduce success in pairing by disguising key species-identification cues (García 2003) and decrease lifetime reproductive success by increasing mortality (krüger and lindström 2001). Polymorphism in color, of which melanism is one example, occurs in at least 3.5% of avian species worldwide and in 22% of raptors of the family Accipitridae (harriers, hawks, eagles, kites, and Old World vultures;...
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Stream fragmentation alters the structure of aquatic communities on a global scale, generally through loss of native species. Among riverscapes in the Great Plains of North America, stream fragmentation and hydrologic alteration (flow regulation and dewatering) are implicated in the decline of native fish diversity. This study documents the spatio–temporal distribution of fish reproductive guilds in the fragmented Arkansas and Ninnescah rivers of south-central Kansas using retrospective analyses involving 63 years of fish community data. Pelagic-spawning fishes declined throughout the study area during 1950–2013, including Arkansas River shiner (Notropis girardi) last reported in 1983, plains minnow (Hybognathus...
Categories: Data, Publication; Types: Citation, Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: CATFISHES/MINNOWS, Colorado, Colorado, FISH, Federal resource managers, All tags...
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Habitat fragmentation and flow regulation are significant factors related to the decline and extinction of freshwater biota. Pelagic-broadcast spawning cyprinids require moving water and some length of unfragmented stream to complete their life cycle. However, it is unknown how discharge and habitat features interact at multiple spatial scales to alter the transport of semi-buoyant fish eggs. Our objective was to assess the relationship between downstream drift of semi-buoyant egg surrogates (gellan beads) and discharge and habitat complexity. We quantified transport time of a known quantity of beads using 2–3 sampling devices at each of seven locations on the North Canadian and Canadian rivers. Transport time was...
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We used the United States National Grid to develop a sampling grid for monitoring programs in the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative, delineated by Bird Conservation Regions 18 and 19. Landscape Conservation Cooperatives are science based partnerships with the goal to inform and guide conservation at regional landscape levels. Developing a standardized sampling grid for a LCC is a new endeavor and is designed to reduce program costs, avoid repetition in sampling, and increase efficiency in monitoring programs. This is possible because the grid’s nationwide coverage, uniform starting point, and scalability allow researchers to expand their monitoring programs from a small, local level to a regional or...
Around the globe, fish and wildlife managers are facing increasingly complex management issues because of multiscale ecological effects like climate change, species invasion, and land-use change. Managers seeking to prevent extinctions or preserve ecosystems are increasingly considering more interventionist techniques to overcome the resulting changes. Among those techniques, translocation methods that intentionally move species into new, less impacted habitats are being considered. These types of translocations are known by a range of terms, including “managed relocation” and “assisted migration,” but the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC, 2013) has proposed...
Although biotic responses to contemporary climate change are spatially pervasive and often reflect synergies between climate and other ecological disturbances, the relative importance of climatic factors versus habitat extent for species persistence remains poorly understood. To address this shortcoming, we performed surveys for American pikas (Ochotona princeps) at > 910 locations in 3 geographic regions of western North America during 2014 and 2015, complementing earlier modern (1994–2013) and historical (1898–1990) surveys. We sought to compare extirpation rates and the relative importance of climatic factors versus habitat area for pikas in a mainland-versus-islands framework. In each region, we found widespread...
Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass) has widely invaded the Great Basin, U.S.A. The sporadic natural phenomenon of complete stand failure (‘die- off’) of this invader may present opportunities to restore native plants. A recent die-off in Nevada was precision-planted with seeds of the native grasses Poa secunda (Sandberg bluegrass) and Elymus elymoides (bottlebrush squirreltail), of both local and nonlocal origin, to ask: 1) Can native species be restored in recent B. tectorum die-offs? And 2) Do local and nonlocal seeds differ in performance? Additionally, we asked how litter removal and water addition affected responses. Although emergence and growth of native seeds was lower in die-off than control plots early in year...
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These layers show land ownership and status of all Canadian and U.S. lands that fall within the boundaries of the Great Northern Landscae Conservation Cooperative. Layers were compiled from various sources, each with it’s own metadata reference file.
We examined patterns of genetic variation and diversity of extant pygmy rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis) populations across the species’ current range in Nevada and California. Our aims were to determine population genetic structure and levels of diversity across the southern portion of the species’ range. We genotyped 13 microsatellite loci from 194 fecal samples collected across 14 localities. Our Bayesian cluster analyses found 2 genetically distinct groups: 1 in the Mono Basin of California and the other encompassing all remaining Nevada Great Basin populations. Considering only the Nevada Great Basin group, we found 4 minimally divergent groups that overlap spatially with many individuals maintaining composite...
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There is a great deal of interest in whether and how Alaska’s precipitation is changing but little agreement in the existing peer-reviewed literature. To provide insight on this question, we have selected three commonly used 0.5° resolution gridded precipitation products that have long-term monthly data coverage (Climatic Research Unit TS3.10.1, Global Precipitation Climatology Centre Full Data Reanalysis version 5, and University of Delaware version 2.01) and evaluated their homogeneity and trends with multiple methods over two periods, 1950–2008 and 1980–2008. All three data sets displayed common broadscale features of Alaska’s precipitation climatology, but there were substantial differences between them in terms...
We evaluated the biogeomorphic processes of a large (309 ha) tidal salt marsh and examined factors that influence its ability to keep pace with relative sea-level rise (SLR). Detailed elevation data from 1995 and 2008 were compared with digital elevation models (DEMs) to assess marsh surface elevation change during this time. Overall, 37 % (113 ha) of the marsh increased in elevation at a rate that exceeded SLR, whereas 63 % (196 ha) of the area did not keep pace with SLR. Of the total area, 55 % (169 ha) subsided during the study period, but subsidence varied spatially across the marsh surface. To determine which biogeomorphic and spatial factors contributed to measured elevation change, we collected soil cores...
Understanding factors influencing survival of Pacific salmonids (Oncorhynchus spp.) is essential to species conservation, because drivers of mortality can vary over multiple spatial and temporal scales. Although recent studies have evaluated the effects of climate, habitat quality, or resource management (e.g., hatchery operations) on salmonid recruitment and survival, a failure to look at multiple factors simultaneously leaves open questions about the relative importance of different factors. We analyzed the relationship between ten factors and survival (1980–2007) of four populations of salmonids with distinct life histories from two adjacent watersheds (Salmon and Scott rivers) in the Klamath River basin, California....
Understanding recent biogeographic responses to climate change is fundamental for improving our predictions of likely future responses and guiding conservation planning at both local and global scales. Studies of observed biogeographic responses to 20th century climate change have principally examined effects related to ubiquitous increases in temperature – collectively termed a warming fingerprint. Although the importance of changes in other aspects of climate – particularly precipitation and water availability – is widely acknowledged from a theoretical standpoint and supported by paleontological evidence, we lack a practical understanding of how these changes interact with temperature to drive biogeographic responses....
Climate change has significant effects on critical ecosystem functions such as carbon and water cycling. Vegetation and especially forest ecosystems play an important role in the carbon and hydrological cycles. Vegetation models that include detailed belowground processes require accurate soil data to decrease uncertainty and increase realism in their simulations. The MC2 DGVM uses three modules to simulate biogeography, biogeochemistry and fire effects, all three of which use soil data either directly or indirectly. This study includes a correlation analysis of the MC2 model to soil depth by comparing a subset of the model’s carbon and hydrological outputs using soil depth data of different scales and qualities....
map background search result map search result map Estimated potential for sage-grouse movement Interacting Effects of Discharge and Channel Morphology on Transport of Semibuoyant Fish Eggs in Large, Altered River Systems GNLCC Jurisdictional Boundaries Reconciling precipitation trends in Alaska: 2. Gridded data analyses Publication: Fragmentation and drying ratchet down Great Plains stream fish diversity Drainage Network Structure and Hydrologic Behavior of Three Lake-Rich Watersheds on the Arctic Coastal Plain, Alaska Final Report: Integrated monitoring within BCR’s: Creating a wildlife monitoring grid for the GPLCC Spoon-billed Sandpiper survey near Kotzebue Alaska publications Estimated potential for sage-grouse movement Drainage Network Structure and Hydrologic Behavior of Three Lake-Rich Watersheds on the Arctic Coastal Plain, Alaska Spoon-billed Sandpiper survey near Kotzebue Alaska publications Interacting Effects of Discharge and Channel Morphology on Transport of Semibuoyant Fish Eggs in Large, Altered River Systems Publication: Fragmentation and drying ratchet down Great Plains stream fish diversity Final Report: Integrated monitoring within BCR’s: Creating a wildlife monitoring grid for the GPLCC GNLCC Jurisdictional Boundaries Reconciling precipitation trends in Alaska: 2. Gridded data analyses