Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons^™

The Ecology Of Human-Caused Mortality For A Protected Large Carnivore, John F. Benson, Kyle D. Dougherty, Paul Beier, Walter M. Boyce, Bogdan Cristescu, Daniel J. Gammons, David K. Garcelon, J. Mark Higley, Quinton E. Martins, Anna C. Nisi, Seth P. D. Riley, Jeff A. Sikich, Thomas R. Stephenson, T. Winston Vickers, Greta M. Wengert, Christopher C. Wilmers, Heiko U. Wittmer, Justin A. Dellinger

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Mitigating human-caused mortality for large carnivores is a pressing global challenge for wildlife conservation. However, mortality is almost exclusively studied at local (within-population) scales creating a mismatch between our understanding of risk and the spatial extent most relevant to conservation and management of wide-ranging species. Here, we quantified mortality for 590 radio-collared mountain lions statewide across their distribution in California to identify drivers of human-caused mortality and investigate whether human-caused mortality is additive or compensatory. Human-caused mortality, primarily from conflict management and vehicles, exceeded natural mortality despite mountain lions being protected from hunting. Our data indicate that human-caused mortality is …

Occupancy And Abundance Of A West African Mangabey Species (Cercocebus Atys Audebert, 1797) In Forest Patch Habitat, Kellie Laity, April Conway, Sonia M. Hernandez, John P. Carroll, Dessalegn Ejigu

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Sooty mangabeys are Old World primates from the Upper Guinea Rainforests of West Africa. They suffer from habitat degradation due to deforestation and hunting for the bush-meat trade. Tiwai Island and adjacent small islands are a small protected area surrounded by the Moa River that is known for its high diversity of primate species. We evaluated the occupancy and abundance of sooty mangabeys on Tiwai Island and the surrounding islands using camera traps during 2008–2011. Over two seasons, we obtained a naïve occupancy rate of 0.77 for Tiwai Island but only 0.19 for surrounding smaller islands. We used Abundance-Induced Heterogeneity …

Drought Stress Prediction And Propagation Using Time Series Modeling On Multimodal Plant Image Sequences, Sruti Das Choudhury, Sinjoy Saha, Ashok Samal, Anastasios Mazis, Tala Awada

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The paper introduces two novel algorithms for predicting and propagating drought stress in plants using image sequences captured by cameras in two modalities, i.e., visible light and hyperspectral. The first algorithm, VisStressPredict, computes a time series of holistic phenotypes, e.g., height, biomass, and size, by analyzing image sequences captured by a visible light camera at discrete time intervals and then adapts dynamic time warping (DTW), a technique for measuring similarity between temporal sequences for dynamic phenotypic analysis, to predict the onset of drought stress. The second algorithm, HyperStressPropagateNet, leverages a deep neural network for temporal stress propagation using hyperspectral imagery. …

Rhino Conservation In Africa, Andrew N. Rowan

WellBeing News

The recovery of white rhinos from a small population of 20 animals in 1895 to tens of thousands today is a major conservation success story, but we are again facing a rapid decline in the numbers of both species of African rhinoceros due mainly to poaching. Demand for rhino horn, mainly from the Far East, has led to an epidemic of poaching. The healthy population of white rhinos in South Africa’s Kruger National Park has fallen from just under 12,000 individuals in 2010 to around 2,200 in 2022. At the current rate of decline, white rhinos will be eliminated from …

Sexual Selection As A Tool To Improve Student Reasoning Of Evolution, Sarah K. Spier, Joseph Dauer

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

There is an emphasis on survival-based selection in biology education that can allow students to neglect other important evolutionary components, such as sexual selection, reproduction, and inheritance. Student understanding of the role of reproduction in evolution is as important as student understanding of the role of survival. Limiting instruction to survival- based scenarios (e.g., effect of food on Galapagos finch beak shape) may not provide students with enough context to guide them to complete evolutionary reasoning. Different selection forces can work in concert or oppose one another, and sexual selection can lead to the selection of trait variants that are …

An Evaluation Of Avian Influenza Virus Whole-Genome Sequencing Approaches Using Nanopore Technology, Hon S. Ip, Sarah Uhm, Mary Lea Killian, Mia K. Torchetti

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

As exemplified by the global response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, whole-genome sequencing played an important role in monitoring the evolution of novel viral variants and provided guidance on potential antiviral treatments. The recent rapid and extensive introduction and spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus in Europe, North America, and elsewhere raises the need for similarly rapid sequencing to aid in appropriate response and mitigation activities. To facilitate this objective, we investigate a next-generation sequencing platform that uses a portable nanopore sequencing device to generate and present data in real time. This platform offers the potential to extend in-house sequencing …

Assessing Ecosystem Health Through Contaminants In The Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, Nancy Torres

Theses

Although the Tijuana River Estuary (TRE) remains the largest, most-intact coastal wetland in Southern California, it has a history of major changes, much of this related to its location immediately north of the US / Mexico Border. One of the primary challenges is cross-border flows from the rapidly growing city of Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, and the delivery of wastewater, debris, and sediment to sensitive coastal wetland ecosystems. There is a need to more fully investigate these environmental changes to assess the ecosystem health of the Tijuana River Estuary over time, especially related to pollution impacts. This can inform an …

Development Of A Benchmark Eddy Flux Evapotranspiration Dataset For Evaluation Of Satellite-Driven Evapotranspiration Models Over The Conus, John M. Volk, Justin Huntington, Forrest S. Melton, Richard Allen, Martha C. Anderson, Joshua B. Fisher, Ayse Kilic, Gabriel Senay, Gregory Halverson, Kyla Knipper, Blake Minor, Christopher Pearson, Tianxin Wang, Yun Yang, Steven Evett, Andrew N. French, Richard Jasoni, William Kustas

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

A large sample of ground-based evapotranspiration (ET) measurements made in the United States, primarily from eddy covariance systems, were post-processed to produce a benchmark ET dataset. The dataset was produced primarily to support the intercomparison and evaluation of the OpenET satellite-based remote sensing ET (RSET) models and could also be used to evaluate ET data from other models and approaches. OpenET is a web-based service that makes field-delineated and pixel-level ET estimates from well-established RSET models readily available to water managers, agricultural producers, and the public. The benchmark dataset is composed of flux and meteorological data from a variety of …

Diversity, Distribution, And Methodological Considerations Of Haemosporidian Infections Among Galliformes In Alaska, Faith De Amaral, Robert E. Wilson, Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Ravinder Sehgal

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Using samples spanning 10-degrees of latitude in Alaska, we provide the first comparative assessment of avian haemosporidia distribution of Arctic Alaska with subarctic host populations for four species of grouse and three species of ptarmigan (Galliformes). We found a high overall prevalence for at least one haemospordian genus (88%; N = 351/400), with spruce grouse (Canachites canadensis) showing the highest prevalence (100%; N = 54/ 54). Haemoproteus and Plasmodium lineages were only observed within grouse, while Leucocytozoon species were found within both grouse and ptarmigan. Further, different Leucocytozoon lineages were obtained from blood and tissue samples from the …

Making Minnesota A Model For Energy Storage Policy, Max Meyer

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Habitat Fragmentation Reduces Survival And Drives Source–Sink Dynamics For A Large Carnivore, Anna C. Nisi, John F. Benson, Richard King, Christopher C. Wilmers

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Rigorous understanding of how environmental conditions impact population dynamics is essential for species conservation, especially in mixed-use landscapes where source–sink dynamics may be at play. Conservation of large carnivore populations in fragmented, human-dominated landscapes is critical for their long-term persistence. However, living in human-dominated landscapes comes with myriad costs, including direct anthropogenic mortality and sublethal energetic costs. How these costs impact individual fitness and population dynamics are not fully understood, partly due to the difficulty in collecting long-term demographic data for these species. Here, we analyzed an 11-year dataset on puma (Puma concolor) space use, mortality, and reproduction …

The Future Of Pandemics: Land Use Controls As Means Of Preventing Zoonotic Disease, Bailey Andree

Pace International Law Review

Zoonotic diseases are increasing in frequency as climate change worsens around the world, with the recent COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the inadequate mechanisms in place to counteract disease spread. This article reviews various zoonotic diseases and their patterns of spread, highlighting land use change as the key driver of disease to demonstrate the need for legal intervention. International land use law is a little-developed subsect of environmental law that holds the key to combating this disease spread, and this article proposes solutions through this legal lens. Land use techniques which may be used to combat disease spread include conservation laws, setback …

Boundary Spanning In The Context Of Stakeholder Engagement In Collaborative Water Management, Mark E. Burbach, Weston M. Eaton, Jodi L. Delozier

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Boundary spanners are individuals able to reach across organizational borders to build relationships and interconnections to help better manage complex problems. What is not clear, however, are the skills that allow boundary spanners to cross diverse scales, sectors, and organizations. To address this gap, we use a qualitative case study approach to examine evidence for how boundary spanning skills are implemented in the context of stakeholder engagement for addressing water challenges in agricultural settings. We employ a hybrid deductive-inductive thematic analysis approach to examine interview data collected with 25 stakeholder participants as well as direct observation of engagement behavior. Interview …

Assessing The Unionid Assemblage Of The Robert C. Byrd Pool, Ohio River, Ethan Hunter Bellamy

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Unionid mussels are the most imperiled taxa in the United States and are vastly understudied. The entire Robert C. Byrd (RCB) pool of the Ohio River is the study area. I selected sites from the 2019 and 2013 ORSANCO RCB pool assessments that utilize random site selection across the pool. I used SCUBA to survey and collect data on unionid diversity, reproduction, and habitat. I collected 1,083 individuals over 19 species in RCB pool. I compared results from RCB pool survey to two similar surveys conducted in Greenup Pool. Both richness and abundance in the Upper Section of Greenup Pool …

Role Of Social Determinants Of Health In Differential Respiratory Exposure And Health Outcomes Among Children, Jagadeesh Puvvula, Jill A. Poole, Yeongjin Gwon, Eleanor G. Rogan, Jesse E. Bell

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Background Attributes defining the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) are associated with disproportionate exposures to environmental hazards and differential health outcomes among communities. The dynamics between SDoH, disproportionate environmental exposures, and differential health outcomes are often specific to micro-geographic areas.

Methods This study focused on children less than 20 years of age who lived in Douglas County, Nebraska, during 2016–2019. To assess the role of SDoH in differential exposures, we evaluated the association between SDoH metrics and criteria pollutant concentrations and the association between SDoH and pediatric asthma exacerbations to quantify the role of SDoH in differential pediatric asthma outcomes. …

Panarchy Theory For Convergence, Shana M. Sundstrom, David G. Angeler, Jesse Bell, Michael J. Hayes, Jennifer Hodbod, Babak Jalalzadeh‑Fard, Rezaul Mahmood, Elizabeth Vanwormer, Craig R. Allen

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Coping with surprise and uncertainty resulting from the emergence of undesired and unexpected novelty or the sudden reorganization of systems at multiple spatiotemporal scales requires both a scientific process that can incorporate diverse expertise and viewpoints, and a scientific framework that can account for the structure and dynamics of interacting social-ecological systems (SES) and the inherent uncertainty of what might emerge in the future. We argue that combining a convergence scientific process with a panarchy framework provides a pathway for improving our understanding of, and response to, emergence. Emergent phenomena are often unexpected (e.g., pandemics, regime shifts) and can be …

Author Correction: Gloria - A Globally Representative Hyperspectral In Situ Dataset For Optical Sensing Of Water Quality, Moritz K. Lehmann, Et Al.

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Correction to: Scientific Data https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-01973-y, published online 16 February 2023.

An author of the paper was omitted in the original version (Ted Conroy, University of Waikato, New Zealand). This has been corrected in the pdf and HTML versions of the paper, and the associated metadata.

The Search Behavior Of Terrestrial Mammals, M. Noonan, C. Martinez-Garcia, C. H. Fleming, A. R. Little Et. Al

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Impacts Of Algal Blooms And Microcystins In Fish On Small-Scale Fishers In Winam Gulf, Lake Victoria: Implications For Health And Livelihood, Amber F. Roegner, Jessica R. Corman, Lewis M. Sitoki, Zachary A. Kwena, Zachary Ogari, Jared Babu Miruka, Ame Xiong, Chelsea Weirich, Christopher Mulanda Aura, Todd Rex Miller

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Lake Victoria, bordered by Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, provides one of the largest freshwater fisheries in the world and supports millions in small-scale fishing communities. Historical environmental change, including population growth, nutrient loading, introduced invasive species, and rising temperatures, has resulted in eutrophication and persistent cyanobacterial harmful algae blooms (cyanoHABs) over recent decades, particularly in the shallower gulfs, bays, and inlets. CyanoHABs impact fisheries and food web dynamics and compromise food and water security for nearshore fisher populations. In this study, we examine the socialecological impact of freshwater blooms on fisher health in one of these eutrophic regions, Winam Gulf …

Panta Rhei Benchmark Dataset: Socio-Hydrological Data Of Paired Events Of Floods And Droughts, Heidi Kreibich, Elliot Wickham, Et Al.

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

As the adverse impacts of hydrological extremes increase in many regions of the world, a better understanding of the drivers of changes in risk and impacts is essential for effective flood and drought risk management and climate adaptation. However, there is currently a lack of comprehensive, empirical data about the processes, interactions, and feedbacks in complex human–water systems leading to flood and drought impacts. Here we present a benchmark dataset containing socio-hydrological data of paired events, i.e. two floods or two droughts that occurred in the same area. The 45 paired events occurred in 42 different study areas and cover …

Taps Program Evaluation – Producers, Stephanie M. Kennedy, Mark E. Burbach

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Taps Program Evaluation – Non-Producers, Stephanie M. Kennedy, Mark E. Burbach

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Revisiting The Carbon–Biodiversity Connection, John Gamon

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

This article is a Commentary on Schuldt et al., https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16697

The link between biodiversity and ecosystem function has long been a subject of intense interest and debate among biologists, going back to the time of Charles Darwin, whose ideas on species interactions presaged subsequent discussions of biodiversity and ecosystem function (Peterson et al., 1998). Since then, many considerations of community diversity have centered on the importance of species or functional diversity for maintaining system resilience in the face of disturbance, analogous to the way that interwoven threads maintain the function and integrity of fabric. While our language, concepts, and methods …

Connecting Distinct Realms Along Multiple Dimensions: A Meta-Ecosystem Resilience Perspective, David G. Angeler, Jani Heino, Juan Rubio-Ríos, J. Jesús Casas

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Resilience research is central to confront the sustainability challenges to ecosystems and human societies in a rapidly changing world. Given that social-ecological problems span the entire Earth system, there is a critical need for resilience models that account for the connectivity across intricately linked ecosystems (i.e., freshwater, marine, terrestrial, atmosphere). We present a resilience perspective of meta-ecosystems that are connected through the flow of biota, matter and energy within and across aquatic and terrestrial realms, and the atmosphere. We demonstrate ecological resilience sensu Holling using aquatic-terrestrial linkages and riparian ecosystems more generally. A discussion of applications in riparian ecology and …

White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus Virginianus) Fawn Survival And The Influence Of Landscape Characteristics On Fawn Predation Risk In The Southern Appalachian Mountains, Usa, Andrew R. Little, A. C. Edge, J. P. Rosenberger, C. J. Yates, C. H. Killmaster, K. L. Johannsen Et Al.

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Globally Scalable Approach To Estimate Net Ecosystem Exchange Based On Remote Sensing, Meteorological Data, And Direct Measurements Of Eddy Covariance Sites, Ruslan Zhuravlev, Andrey Dara, André Luís Diniz Dos Santos, Oleg Demidov, George Burba

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Despite a rapid development of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for carbon removal in recent years, the methods for evaluating NBS still have certain gaps. We propose an approach based on a combination of remote sensing data and meteorological variables to reconstruct the spatiotemporal variation of net ecosystem exchange from eddy-covariance stations. A Lagrangian particle dispersion model was used for upscaling satellite images and flux towers. We trained data-driven models based on kernel methods separately for each selected land-cover class. The results suggest that the proposed approach to quantifying carbon exchange on a medium-to-large scale by blending eddy covariance flux data with …

Role Of Social Determinants Of Health In Differential Respiratory Exposure And Health Outcomes Among Children, Jagadeesh Puvvula, Jill A. Poole, Yeongjin Gwon, Eleanor G. Rogan, Jesse E. Bell

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Background Attributes defining the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) are associated with disproportionate exposures to environmental hazards and differential health outcomes among communities. The dynamics between SDoH, disproportionate environmental exposures, and differential health outcomes are often specific to micro-geographic areas.

Methods This study focused on children less than 20 years of age who lived in Douglas County, Nebraska, during 2016–2019. To assess the role of SDoH in differential exposures, we evaluated the association between SDoH metrics and criteria pollutant concentrations and the association between SDoH and pediatric asthma exacerbations to quantify the role of SDoH in differential pediatric asthma outcomes. …

High Sensitivity Of The Tiger Beetle, Cicindela Circumpicta, To Toxicity From Pyrethroids And Neonicotinoids, And Implications For Ecosystem Function And Species Extinctions, S. Svehla, T. Brosius, Leon Higley, T. Hunt

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Flash Drought Typologies And Societal Impacts: A Worldwide Review Of Occurrence, Nomenclature, And Experiences Of Local Populations, D. W. Walker, N. Vergopolan, L. Cavalcante, K. H. Smith, S.M.D. Agounbome, A. Almagro, T. Apurv, N. M. Dahal, D. Hoffman, V. Singh, Z. Xiang

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Assessment Of Health Risks Associated With Contaminants In Groundwater In The Catchment Area Of Selected Dumpsites In Abuja North Central Nigeria, A. Omali, J. T. Arogundade, Daniel D. Snow

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.