Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons^™

Developing A Decision Support System For Improving Possum Control Planning, Bruce Warburton, Jim Coleman, Mark Fuglestad, James Dietrich

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

Brushtail possums are a major invasive pest in New Zealand. A decision support system (DSS) has been developed to enable those involved in operational planning or delivery of possum control to access available relevant knowledge when making operational decisions. The DSS comprises checklists that ensure users consider relevant constraints and issues, a database of best-practice information on possum control, and an “expert” system that recommends actions based on information provided by the user.

Invasive Species: A National Perspective And The Need For A Coordinated Response, Lori Williams

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

The multiple economic, environmental, and animal and human health impacts of invasive species pose complex challenges in policy formation and governmental coordination. The National Invasive Species Council (NISC) was established by an Executive Order in 1999 to provide coordination, planning and facilitate cooperation among the diverse federal agencies and to take a more comprehensive approach to invasive species. NISC, assisted by the nonfederal Invasive Species Advisory Committee (ISAC) has developed several tools and enhanced capacities to address invasive species. Additionally, NISC has helped place greater emphasis on essential prevention, early detection and rapid response, research, public outreach, and international cooperation …

Management Of Invasive Vertebrates In The United States: An Overview, Gary W. Witmer, Patrick W. Burke, Will C. Pitt, Michael L. Avery

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

At least 161 introduced/invasive vertebrates have become established in the United States and its territories, including at least 81 mammalian, 94 avian, and 86 reptilian/amphibian species. Particularly problematic species include feral cats and dogs; feral pigs; commensal rats and mice; starlings, pigeons, and house sparrows; and bullfrogs, brown treesnakes, and coqui frogs. We briefly review these introductions and the types of damage they cause. We review the basic types of methods used for control or eradication of each taxonomic group, including physical, chemical, biological, and cultural methods. We also discuss some of the challenges in managing these species, including issues …

Welcome And Opening Remarks, Richard L. Bruggers

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

Greetings and welcome to Fort Collins. We at the National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC) have had the privilege of organizing and hosting four international symposia since 1993. The first three were on the topics of contraception and wildlife, repellents in wildlife management, and the economics of wildlife damage management.

Today, it is my pleasure to welcome you to our fourth symposium: the International Symposium on Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species. I know our Symposium’s organizing committee has strived to bring you a diverse group of international speakers….all of whom are working on the cutting edge of invasive species research, management, and …

Landscape Genetics Of Feral Swine And Implications For Management, Johanna Delgado-Acevedo, Randy W. Deyoung, Tyler A. Campbell

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

The management of the invasive feral pig (Sus scrofa) has been the subject of intense study in recent years. Feral pigs are also susceptible to diseases (e.g., brucellosis, pseudorabies) that can be transmitted to livestock, humans, and wildlife. Feral pigs clearly represent a threat to the sustainability of multiple agriculture products. Population reduction (trapping or shooting) is the best current alternative for controlling pig damage. However, reduction is crude and inefficient in terms of manpower and resources because pigs from neighboring areas quickly recolonize managed areas. We used a panel of 9 microsatellite loci to study broad-scale population …

Wildlife Contraception: Targeting The Oocyte, Richard E. Mauldin, Lowell A. Miller

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

The USDA’s National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC) has successfully researched and developed a number of chemical and immunologically-based wildlife contraceptives. Diazacon™ interferes with cholesterol metabolism and disrupts steroidogenesis, while nicarbazin (registered as OvoControl-P® and OvoControl-G®) disrupts the structure of the vitelline membrane of bird eggs. Immunologically-based agents act to stimulate targeted antibody production. GonaCon™ causes the host’s immune system to bind gonadotropin releasing hormone, preventing ovulation, while SpayVac™ prevents fertilization of the postovulatory oocyte. This kind of target specificity can be highly advantageous. A number of oocyte-only control contraceptive strategies are currently being researched at the NWRC. 4-Vinylcyclohexene diepoxide (VCD) …

Reducing Risk And Enhancing Efficiency In Non-Native Vertebrate Removal Efforts On Islands: A 25 Year Multi-Taxa Retrospective From Santa Cruz Island, California, Scott A. Morrison

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

Effective conservation of native biodiversity on islands often requires the eradication of destructive non-native vertebrates. There are risks in conducting an eradication project, however, including the risk that the effort will fail to remove all the individuals, and the risk that the removal of the species will trigger ecological cascades with unanticipated and undesired consequences. Managers must plan to reduce such risks, and also maximize the return on investment of the limited conservation resources available for restoration programs. I discuss four vertebrate removal projects implemented on Santa Cruz Island, CA, over the past 25 years: sheep, golden eagles, pigs, and …

A “Community” Approach To Invasive Species Management: Some Pacific Case Studies, Alan Saunders, Henri Blaffart, Craig Morley, Joape Kuruyawa, Vilikesa Masibalavu, Elenoa Seniloli

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

Conservation is essentially a social activity – it is about, by and for people. Managing invasive species on islands to reduce their “community effects” (that is, effects on communities of people as well as on communities of plants and animals) makes good sense. Consequently, many demonstration projects supported as part of the Pacific Invasives Initiative involve social and economic objectives as well as biological ones. In New Caledonia, for example, dialogue between conservation agencies and local tribes about a proposed pest mammal control project on Mont Panié has been taking place for nearly 10 years. As well as being involved …

Eradicating House Mice From Islands: Successes, Failures And The Way Forward, James W. B. Mackay, James C. Russell, Elaine C. Murphy

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

The house mouse (Mus musculus) has been spread throughout the world by the actions of humans. It causes severe impacts to native ecosystems, especially in areas where there are no native mammals. It is possible to eradicate mice from islands but they are harder to eradicate than rats. A review of reported eradication attempts found that 17 attempts on 45 islands worldwide failed; a failure rate of 38%. The effect of operational factors on eradication success was examined, but no significant model was formed. Brodifacoum is the most widely used toxicant and has a 49% success rate. Mouse …

Climate Matching As A Tool For Predicting Potential North American Spread Of Brown Treesnakes, Gordon H. Rodda, Robert N. Reed, Catherine S. Jarnevich

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

Climate matching identifies extralimital destinations that could be colonized by a potential invasive species on the basis of similarity to climates found in the species’ native range. Climate is a proxy for the factors that determine whether a population will reproduce enough to offset mortality. Previous climate matching models (e.g., Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Prediction [GARP]) for brown treesnakes (Boiga irregularis) were unsatisfactory, perhaps because the models failed to allow different combinations of climate attributes to influence a species’ range limits in different parts of the range. Therefore, we explored the climate space described by bivariate parameters of …

Alaska’S Rat Spill Response Program, Steven M. Ebbert, Arthur Sowls, G. Vernon Byrd

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

The introduction of rodents on an island as a new predator usually interferes with natural island biodiversity, particularly on islands without any native mammalian predators. Many Alaskan islands, and most islands in the Aleutian Island region of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge (AMNWR), are free of mammalian predators and are vulnerable to invasion by rodents. Rat introduction to islands can put ground-nesting birds, such as seabirds and endemic landbirds, at risk of extirpation. The refuge is also concerned about additional introductions of house mice. As far as we know, the introduction, or “spilling,” of rats onto refuge islands from …

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species: Proceedings Of An International Symposium, Gary W. Witmer, Will C. Pitt, Kathleen A. Fagerstone, Cynthia A. Clark

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

Acknowledgments:
Many people worked behind the scenes to make the symposium a success. The organizing committee would like especially thank Sue Brungardt, Patrick W. Burke, Marilyn J. Howell, Susan M. Jojola, Nicole N. Lorimer, Michael E. Pierce, John D. Eisemann, Jeanette R. O’Hare, Barbara L. Messineo, and Laurie A. Paulik for their help at the symposium. We also thank Colorado State University’s Conference Services for assisting with registration and other logistics of the symposium. We thank the staff of the Hilton Hotel, Fort Collins, for providing all the on-site needs of the symposium. We also thank Hilda Diaz-Soltero, USDA Liason …

Droughtscape, Summer 2007, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Summer 07 Outlook

Hayes Named Director of NDMC

NDMC & UN Plan for Drought

Book Review: The Worst Hard Time

Drought Tools Workshops Underway

U.S. Drought Monitor Forum October 10-11, 2007 Portland, Oregon

Droughtscape, Spring 2007, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

2007 Spring Drought Outlook & Winter Summary

VegDRI Expands to 15 States, Refines Views

DroughtScape

State Spotlight: Utah

International Panel Foresees Drought as Part of Climate Change

NIDIS Portal Advancing

Extensions Of Local Domains With Trivial Generic Fiber, William Heinzer, Christel Rotthaus, Sylvia Wiegand

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

We consider injective local maps from a local domain R to a local domain S such that the generic fiber of the inclusion map R -> S is trivial, that is P R (0) for every nonzero prime ideal P of S. We present several examples of injective local maps involving power series that have or fail to have this property. For an extension R -> S having this property, we give some results on the dimension of S; in some cases we show dim S = 2 and in some cases dim S = 1.

Polar Research: School Of Rock, Alexandra Witze

ANDRILL Research and Publications

As Antarctica’s ice teams continue to hunt for the oldest ice their drills will reach, a smaller band of rockhounds is on a similar quest to plug the gaps in the geological record. The team now has a core that promises fresh insight into how Antarctica’s ice waxed and waned over the past few million years. On December 26, 2006, a US$30-million international project called ANDRILL pulled up the final piece of a core from beneath the Ross ice shelf. Previous coring efforts have offered peeks into Antarctica’s deep history — back as far as 34 million years when the …

Environmental Magnetic Records Of Mid-Late Pleistocene Drift Sedimentary Sequences From The Antarctic Peninsula, Pacific Margin, A. Venuti, F. Florindo, A. Caburlotto

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

The Pacific Continental Margin of the Antarctic Peninsula was the area of interest of the Sediment Drift of The Antarctic Offshore Project (SEDANO Project). A paleomagnetic and environmental study was carried out on four Pleistocene sequences from Drift 7. High resolution measurements were performed on u-channels and about forty-three discrete samples. This work focus on the definition of the mineralogy of the main magnetic carriers which is still matter of debate and on the study of the short time variability of magnetite grain-size which results particularly evident during the last glaciation. ARM/κ magnetic parameter resulted to be a good record …

A Pleistocene Warming Event At 1 Ma In Prydz Bay, East Antarctica: Evidence From Odp Site 1165, G. Villa, C. Lupi, F. Florindo, Stephan Pekar

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

Magneto-stratigraphic and nannofossil assemblage data from ODP Site 1165 evidence an anomalous warming event of the surface waters in and around Prydz Bay during the Early Pleistocene. This results from an increase in the abundance of nannofossils at Site 1165, that occurred at 1 Ma. High-resolution sampling permits a new bio-magnetostratigraphic interpretation for ODP Site 1165. A decrease in δ¹⁸O values at Sites 1165 and 1167 also occurs at this time, supporting the presence of warming conditions in the Prydz Bay area. A return to colder surface waters, indicated by the absence or rare occurrence of nannofossils in …

100 Million Years Of Antarctic Climate Evolution: Evidence From Fossil Plants, J. E. Francis, A. Ashworth, D. J. Cantrill, J. A. Crame, J. Howe, R. Stephens, A.-M. Tosolini, V. Thorn

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

The evolution of Antarctic climate from a Cretaceous greenhouse into the Neogene icehouse is captured within a rich record of fossil leaves, wood, pollen, and flowers from the Antarctic Peninsula and the Transantarctic Mountains. About 85 million years ago, during the mid-Late Cretaceous, flowering plants thrived in subtropical climates in Antarctica. Analysis of their leaves and flowers, many of which were ancestors of plants that live in the tropics today, indicates that summer temperatures averaged 20°C during this global thermal maximum. After the Paleocene (~60 Ma) warmth-loving plants gradually lost their place in the vegetation and were replaced by floras …

Herbivory In Antarctic Fossil Forests: Evolutionary And Palaeoclimatic Significance, C. M. Mcdonald, J. E. Francis, S. G.A. Compton, A. Haywood, A. C. Ashworth, Luis Felipe Hinojosa, J. Smellie

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

Many collections of Eocene Fossil leaves from Antarctica contain a rich store of insect trace fossils, indicating that insects were an important component of the unique forests that grew in polar regions. However, insect body fossils themselves are rare and so insect traces provide an excellent opportunity to examine both the palaeoentomology and the palaeoclimate of Antarctica. The fossils studied include Eocene leaves from both Seymour Island and King George Island on the Antarctic Peninsula. A database of all insect traces on the Antarctic fossil leaves was compiled and analysed in terms of the diversity of palaeoherbivory. The fossil leaves …

The Neogene Biota Of The Transantarctic Mountains, A. C. Ashworth, A. R. Lewis, D. R. Marchant, R. A. Askin, D. J. Cantrill, J. E. Francis, M. J. Leng, A. E. Newton, J. I. Raine, M. Williams, A. P. Wolfe

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

Neogene fossil assemblages are described from three localities in the Transantarctic mountains. The plant fossils, include diatoms and algal spores, megaspores of Isoetes, pollen of angiosperms and gymnosperms, wood and leaves of Nothofagus, cushion growth forms of a vascular plant and a moss species, mats of exceptionally well- preserved moss species with delicate leaves attached to stems, and achenes and fruits of vascular plant species including Ranunculus. The invertebrate fossils include disarticulated chitinous parts of beetles and flies, cypridoidean ostracods and the shells of freshwater molluscs. The only vertebrate fossil is that of a fish. The fossil …

Terminal Cretaceous Climate Change And Biotic Response In Antarctica, V. C. Thorn, J. E. Francis, J. B. Riding, R. W. Raiswell, D. Pirrie, A. Haywood, J. A. Crame, J. M. Marshall

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

Latest Cretaceous to early Palaeogene climates in Antarctica are being investigated from an exceptional sedimentary sequence on Seymour Island (James Ross Basin, Antarctic Peninsula) to determine the nature of climate change at the end of the Cretaceous. It has been suggested that, following peak mid Cretaceous warmth, cooling during the Maastrichtian (~71-65 Ma) may have been severe enough for short-term glaciations at high latitudes, challenging the current view of an ice-free, Cretaceous greenhouse world. High resolution records of palaeontological, sedimentological, and geochemical signals are being obtained to investigate the climate and environmental context at the Antarctic margin prior to the …

Divergent Flow Of The West Antarctic Ice Sheet On The Outer Continental Shelf Of The Amundsen Sea During The Late Quaternary, T. J. Deen, R. D. Larter, K. Gohl, A. G.C. Graham, C.-D. Hillenbrand, G. Kuhn, J. A. Smith

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

Understanding the past glacial history of regions undergoing potential rapid deglaciation is essential in order to estimate the possible threat of sea level rise. Recently acquired data have given new images of mega-scale glacial lineations on the sea floor of the Amundsen Sea, which provide us a new understanding of the direction of glacial flow on the continental shelf of the Amundsen Sea region. Two adjacent areas of seafloor on the outer shelf of the Amundsen Sea embayment exhibit remarkably different styles of glacial lineations, and allow the interpretation of a divergent glacial trough for the Pine Island Glacier during …

Late Quaternary Ice Sheet Dynamics And Deglaciation History Of The West Antarctic Ice Sheet In The Amundsen Sea Embayment: Preliminary Results From Recent Research Cruises, A. G.C. Graham, R. D. Larter, K. Gohl, C.-D. Hillenbrand, J. A. Smith, J. S. Johnson, G. Kuhn

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

The threat, in terms of sea level rise, posed by the potential rapid deglaciation of West Antarctica means there is an urgent need to know more about the speed and style of marine ice sheet retreat. Quaternary deglacial events recorded in marine sediments provide an opportunity to understand the future of the modern day ice sheet. In this context, we examine the glacial history of a particularly poorly understood sector of the West Antarctic continental shelf – the Amundsen Sea Embayment –using new data from two recent research cruises. This extended abstract describes how marine geological and geophysical data are …

Buried Oligocene Glacial Topography Beneath A Smooth Middle Miocene Unconformity In The Southeast Ross Sea: Evolution Of West Antarctic Glaciation, C. C. Sorlien, D. S. Wilson, B. P. Luyendyk, L. R. Bartek, R. C. Decesari, J. B. Diebold

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

Buried U-shaped troughs as much as 20 km-wide and flat-topped ridges adjacent to western Marie Byrd Land have recently been proposed as the result of late Oligocene West Antarctic glaciation. Here, additional evidence for pre-25 Ma glaciation is presented for the southeast Ross Sea, together with a different stratigraphic correlation path that establishes age constraints. Buried rough glacial topography interpreted to be of Oligocene age contrasts with a buried smooth and planar middle Miocene “Red” angular unconformity. The Red unconformity extends east-west 160 km near the ice shelf edge, and is 700 m-deep. Part of a 2 km section of …

Contrasting Sub-Ice Shelf, Sub Glacial And Glacial Marine Deposition: Implications For Ice Shelf Stability, L. W. Boyd, L. R. Bartek, B. P. Luyendyk, D. Wilson

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

Data from cores collected from sites that were beneath the Ross Ice Shelf until 2000 and 2002 indicate that sub-ice shelf lithofacies are distinguishable from sub-glacial and glacial marine facies. Glacial marine sediment is characterized by diatom-rich, low-density, olive-green, sandy-muds, whereas sub-ice shelf sediment is defined by a lack of diatoms and muds that are enriched in silt and fine sand. Sub-glacial sediment is composed of diatom-poor, high density, coarse grained sandy-mud, rich in fine to coarse sized pebbles. Repetitive, fining-up packages, composed of fine-sand/silty-mud (distal sub ice-shelf deposits), grading into coarse pebbly-mud (sub ice-shelf proximal to the grounding line), …

Cretaceous And Tertiary Extension Throughout The Ross Sea, Antarctica, Robert C. Decesari, D. S. Wilson, B. P. Luyendyk, Michael Faulkner

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

Marine geophysical data from the deep sea adjacent to the Ross Sea, Antarctica suggest that 170 km of extension occurred between East and West Antarctica from 46 to 21 Ma. The Northern and Victoria Land Basins in the western Ross Sea adjacent to the Transantarctic Mountains accommodated 95 km of this extension. Several kilometers of Oligocene sediments are found in the Central Trough and Eastern Basin in the eastern Ross Sea. Subsidence modeling accounts for these accumulations with about 40 km of extension in each basin centered on 35 Ma; therefore Ross Sea-wide Tertiary extension was comparable to extension in …

Regional Seismic Stratigraphic Correlations Of The Ross Sea: Implications For The Tectonic History Of The West Antarctic Rift System, R. C. Decesari, C. C. Sorlien, B. P. Luyendyk, D. S. Wilson, L. R. Bartek, John Diebold, Sarah E. Hopkins

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

Using existing and new seismic reflection data, new and updated correlations of late Oligocene-early Miocene RSS-2 strata were made between the southern parts of Ross Sea basins. Previous studies documented Cretaceous extension across much of Ross Sea. We interpret that Cenozoic extension also occurred across Ross Sea. Subsidence during and following this extension deepened existing basins and may have initiated basins in the west, subsiding ridges between basins below sea level during the late Oligocene. Pre-Oligocene strata record cessation of L. Cretaceous extension in easternmost Ross Sea. Successively younger Cenozoic extension occurred from east to west across the rest of …

Scale Of Subglacial To Sub-Ice Shelf Facies Variability, Eastern Basin, Ross Sea, Audrey S. Loth, L. R. Bartek Iii, B. P. Luyendyk, D. S. Wilson, Christopher C. Sorlien

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

The Eastern Basin within the Ross Sea records changes in the volume of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Examination of multibeam data revealed four acoustic facies that vary from west to east in a 900 km2 area. It is hypothesized that these facies, that formed nearly contemporaneously, are the result of differences in proximity to the grounding line and its relationship with the seafloor. The four facies are 1. Mega-Scale Lineation, 2. Slightly-Lineated Ridge Crest, 3. Discontinuous Ridges, 4. Irregular Mounds. These trends were also seen in SCS data, distinctively on the seafloor and mutedly at depth. Through determining …

40Ar-39Ar Age Constraints On Volcanism And Tectonism In The Terror Rift Of The Ross Sea, Antarctica, S. E. Rilling, S. B. Mukasa, T. J. Wilson, L. A. Lawver

ANDRILL Related Publications of Affiliates

Volcanic sills and dikes inferred from seismic reflection profiles and geophysical studies of the Ross Sea are thought to be related to the rift basins in the region, and their emplacement to be coeval with extension. However, lack of precise geochronology in the Terror Rift of the Ross Sea region has left these inferred relationships poorly constrained and has hindered neotectonic studies, because of the large temporal gaps between seismic reflectors of known ages. New ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar geochronology presented here for submarine volcanic rocks provides better age constraints for neotectonic interpretations within the Terror Rift. Several samples from …