Other Environmental Sciences Commons^™

Strategic Considerations For Invasive Species Managers In The Utilization Of Environmental Dna (Edna): Steps For Incorporating This Powerful Surveillance Tool, Jeffrey Morisette, Stanley Burgiel, Kelsey Brantley, Wesley M. Daniel, John Darling, Jeanette Davis, Thomas Franklin, Keith Gaddis, Margaret Hunter, Richard Lance, Tracy Leskey, Yale Passamaneck, Antoinette Piaggio, Brian Rector, Adam Sepulveda, Melissa Smith, Carol A. Stepien, Taylor Wilcox

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Invasive species surveillance programs can utilize environmental DNA sampling and analysis to provide information on the presence of invasive species. Wider utilization of eDNA techniques for invasive species surveillance may be warranted. This paper covers topics directed towards invasive species managers and eDNA practitioners working at the intersection of eDNA techniques and invasive species surveillance. It provides background information on the utility of eDNA for invasive species management and points to various examples of its use across federal and international programs. It provides information on 1) why an invasive species manager should consider using eDNA, 2) deciding if eDNA can …

Reproductive Trade-Offs In The Colorado Checkered Whiptail Lizard (Aspidoscelis Neotesselatus): An Examination Of The Relationship Between Clutch And Follicle Size, Hannah E. Caracalas, S. S. French, S. B. Hudson, B. M. Kluever, A. C. Webb, D. Eifler, A. J. Lehmicke, Lise M. Aubry

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Life history theory predicts that there should be an inverse relationship between offspring size and number, because individuals cannot simultaneously maximize both when resources are limited. Although extensively studied in avian species, the occurrence and determinants of reproductive tradeoffs in oviparous reptiles are far less understood, particularly in parthenogenetic species. We studied this trade-off in the Colorado Checkered Whiptail, Aspidoscelis neotesselatus, a female-only parthenogenetic lizard. Using data previously collected in 2018 and 2019, we tested for clutch and egg size trade-offs and determined whether this relationship could be influenced by female size and aspects of physiological condition. Physiological condition …

Differing Alterations Of Odor Volatiles Among Pathogenic Stimuli, Patrick Millet, Talia Martin, Maryanne Opiekun, Gary K. Beauchamp, Bruce A. Kimball

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Alterations of the volatile metabolome (the collection of volatiles present in secretions and other emanations) that occur in response to inflammation can be detected by conspecifics and chemometric analyses. Using a model system where mouse urinary metabolites are altered by treatment with lipopolysaccharide (found in the outer cell membrane of gram-negative bacteria), we hypothesized that alteration of body odor volatiles will vary according to the pathogen responsible for inducing the inflammation. We tested this hypothesis by treating mice with different immunogens that engage different immune signaling pathways. Results suggest that alterations of body odor volatiles resulting from inflammation do contain …

Influenza A Virus Surveillance, Infection And Antibody Persistence In Snow Geese (Anser Caerulescens), Susan A. Shriner, J. Jeffrey Root, Jeremy W. Ellis, Kevin T. Bentler, Kaci K. Vandalen, Thomas Gidlewski, Sarah N. Bevins

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Some snow geese (Anser caerulescens) migrate between Eurasia and North America and exhibit high seroprevalence for influenza A viruses (IAVs). Hence, these birds might be expected to play a role in intercontinental dispersal of IAVs. Our objective in this manuscript was to characterize basic incidence and infection characteristics for snow geese to assess whether these birds are likely to significantly contribute to circulation of IAVs. Thus, we 1) estimated snow goose infection prevalence by summarizing > 5,000 snow goose surveillance records, 2) experimentally infected snow geese with a low pathogenic IAV (H4N6) to assess susceptibility and infection dynamics and …

Social Structure Defines Spatial Transmission Of African Swine Fever In Wild Boar, Kim M. Pepin, Andrew J. Golnar, Tomasz Podgórski

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The spatial spread of infectious disease is determined by spatial and social processes such as animal space use and family group structure. Yet, the impacts of social processes on spatial spread remain poorly understood and estimates of spatial transmission kernels (STKs) often exclude social structure. Understanding the impacts of social structure on STKs is important for obtaining robust inferences for policy decisions and optimizing response plans. We fit spatially explicit transmission models with different assumptions about contact structure to African swine fever virus surveillance data from eastern Poland from 2014 to 2015 and evaluated how social structure affected inference of …

Welfare Performance Of Three Foothold Traps For Capturing North American River Otters Lontra Canadensis, Matthew J. Lovallo, H. B. White, J. D. Erb, M. S. Peek, Thomas J. Deliberto

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Foothold traps are effective tools for the live capture and restraint of wildlife for management and research. Successful river otter Lontra canadensis restoration programs throughout North America used them extensively. Restoration programs used a variety of methods and models of foothold traps, but comprehensive efforts to describe and quantify injuries associated with river otter captures have been limited. We evaluated injuries of river otters caught in three commercially available models of foothold traps including the number 11 double long-spring with standard jaws, the number 11 double long-spring with double jaws, and the number 2 coil-spring trap. Based on examinations of …

Occurrence Of Mesocarnivores In Montane Sky Islands: How Spatial And Temporal Overlap Informs Rabies Management In A Regional Hotspot, Amanda M. Veals, John Koprowski, David L. Bergman, Kurt C. Vercauteren, David B. Wester

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Interspecific interactions among mesocarnivores can influence community dynamics and resource partitioning. Insights into these interactions can enhance understanding of local ecological processes that have impacts on pathogen transmission, such as the rabies lyssavirus. Host species ecology can provide an important baseline for disease management strategies especially in biologically diverse ecosystems and heterogeneous landscapes. We used a mesocarnivore guild native to the southwestern United States, a regional rabies hotspot, that are prone to rabies outbreaks as our study system. Gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis), bobcats (Lynx rufus), and coyotes (Canis latrans) share large portions of their geographic ranges …

Scaup Depredation On Arkansas Baitfish And Sportfish Aquaculture, Stephen A. Clements, Brian S. Dorr, J. Brian Davis, Luke A. Roy, Carole R. Engle, Katie C. Hanson-Dorr, Anita M. Kelly

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Lesser scaup (Aythya affinis) and greater scaup (A. marila), hereafter scaup, consume a variety of aquatic invertebrates, plants, and occasionally small fish. Scaup have foraged on commercial aquaculture farms in the southern United States for decades. However, the types, abundance, and rate of fish exploitation by scaup on baitfish and sportfish farms are not well documented. Thus, information is needed to understand how fish and other foods influence scaup use of aquatic resources, and any potential economic effects of depredation of fish. From November–March in winters 2016–2017 and 2017–2018, we conducted 1,458 pond surveys to estimate …

Sars-Cov-2 Exposure In Wild White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus Virginianus), Jeffrey C. Chandler, Sarah N. Bevins, Jeremy W. Ellis, Timothy J. Linder, Rachel M. Tell, Melinda Jenkins-Moore, J. Jeffrey Root, Julianna B. Lenoch, Suelee Robbe-Austerman, Thomas J. Deliberto, Tom Gidlewski, Mia Kim Torchetti, Susan A. Shriner

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Widespread human SARS-CoV-2 infections combined with human–wildlife interactions create the potential for reverse zoonosis from humans to wildlife. We targeted white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) for serosurveillance based on evidence these deer have angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptors with high affinity for SARS-CoV-2, are permissive to infection, exhibit sustained viral shedding, can transmit to conspecifics, exhibit social behavior, and can be abundant near urban centers. We evaluated 624 prepandemic and postpandemic serum samples from wild deer from four US states for SARS-CoV-2 exposure. Antibodies were detected in 152 samples (40%) from 2021 using a surrogate virus neutralization test. A subset of samples …

Impact Of Covid-19 On The Us And Texas Economy: A General Equilibrium Approach, Lirong Liu, Steven S. Shwiff, Stephanie A. Shwiff, Maryfrances Miller

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on the US and Texas economy using a computable general equilibrium model, REMI PI+. We consider three scenarios based on economic forecasts from various sources, including the University of Michigan’s RSQE (Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics), IMF, and the Wi orld Bank. We report a GDP loss of $106 million (a 6% decline) with 1.2 million jobs lost (6.6%) in Texas in 2020. At the national level, GDP loss is $996 billion (a 5% decline) with 11.5 million jobs lost (5.5%) in the same year. By 2026, the aggregate total GDP loss in …

Using Object-Based Image Analysis To Detect Laughing Gull Nests, Benjamin F. Martini, Douglas A. Miller

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Remote sensing has long been used to study wildlife; however, manual methods of detecting wildlife in aerial imagery are often time-consuming and prone to human error, and newer computer vision techniques have not yet been extensively applied to wildlife surveys. We used the object-based image analysis (OBIA) software eCognition to detect laughing gull (Leucophaeus atricilla) nests in Jamaica Bay as part of an ongoing monitoring effort at the John F. Kennedy International Airport. Our technique uses a combination of high resolution 4-band aerial imagery captured via manned aircraft with a multispectral UltraCam Falcon M2 camera, LiDAR point cloud data, and …

Detection Of Two Dissimilar Chronic Wasting Disease Isolates In Two Captive Rocky Mountain Elk (Cervus Canadensis) Herds: Two Distinctive Chronic Wasting Disease Isolates Identified In Captive Elk, Tracy A. Nichols, Eric M. Nicholson, Yihui Liu, Wanyin Tao, Terry R. Spraker, Michael Lavelle, Justin W. Fischer, Qingzhong Kong, Kurt C. Vercauteren

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) continues to spread in both wild and captive cervid herds in North America and has now been identified in wild reindeer and moose in Norway, Finland and Sweden. There is limited knowledge about the variety and characteristics of isolates or strains of CWD that exist in the landscape and their implications on wild and captive cervid herds. In this study, we evaluated brain samples from two captive elk herds that had differing prevalence, history and timelines of CWD incidence. Site 1 had a 16-year history of CWD with a consistently low prevalence between 5% and 10%. …

Environmental Dna For Conservation, Antoinette J. Piaggio

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Biodiversity must be documented before it can be conserved. However, it may be difficult to document species with few individuals (Thompson, 2013; Goldberg et al., 2016), thus it requires a multitude of tools to detect species that occur in low numbers or are elusive (see the various chapters in this volume). One tool that has become useful for conservation efforts utilizes environmental DNA, which is DNA shed into the environment by organisms (eDNA; Taberlet et al., 2018). Typically this involves taking environmental samples such as soil, water, air, or using biological surrogates for sampling biodiversity (e.g. leeches, sponges, carrion flies, …

Allometric Regression Of Snake Body Length From Head Image Measurements, Shane R. Siers

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

As in many fields of wildlife research and management, camera devices and photogrammetry have become an integral part of the toolkit for exploring otherwise‐unseen aspects of the biology, behavior, and control of the invasive brown treesnake (Boiga irregularis) on Guam. Because brown treesnakes are cryptic and nocturnal, and nearly all aspects of their ecology are influenced by snake size, methods are needed to estimate snake size from images captured by infrared wildlife cameras. Unfortunately, it is difficult to capture images of an entire snake’s length at a controlled distance from a simple camera setup. Here, I describe the …

Conflict, Coexistence, Or Both? Cougar Habitat Selection, Prey Composition, And Mortality In A Multiple-Use Landscape, David C. Stoner, Mark A. Ditmer, Dustin L. Mitchell, Julie K. Young, Michael L. Wolfe

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Western North America is experiencing remarkable human population growth and land-use change. Irrigation and associated cultivation have led to colonization of urban-wildland interface (UWI) environments by mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), and consequently, cougars (Puma concolor). In the wake of these changes, human-wildlife conflicts have increased in tandem with questions about long-term species conservation. To address these concerns, we fit 79 cougars with radio-telemetry collars in the Oquirrh Mountains near Salt Lake City, Utah (2002–2010). Our goal was to evaluate variation in cougar habitat selection, diet, and cause-specific mortality in a landscape dominated by urban, military, and industrial activities. We used …

A Novel Technique To Improve Capture Success Of Common Ravens, Lindsey R. Perry, Terrah M. Owens, Zachary T. Slick, Jimmy Taylor, Jonathan B. Dinkins

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Traditional trapping techniques for common ravens (Corvus corax; raven) require significant effort, often produce low capture rates, and cannot be used in some situations. We designed a 3-m noose pole to secure ravens from nocturnal roost locations while using a strobe spotlight to temporarily disorient them. We collected measures of trapping efficiency and contrasted them with padded leghold traps also used in the study. We effectively implemented our noose pole method in July and August of 2018, 2019, and 2020 in the Baker and Cow Lakes sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) Priority Areas of Conservation in eastern Oregon, USA, which yielded trapping …

Increased Abundance Of The Common Raven Within The Ranges Of Greater And Gunnison Sage-Grouse: Influence Of Anthropogenic Subsidies And Fire, Jonathan B. Dinkins, Lindsey R. Perry, Jeffrey L. Beck, Jimmy D. Taylor

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The common raven (Corvus corax; raven) is native to North America and has increased in abundance, especially throughout western North America, during the last century. Human subsidies have facilitated raven dispersal into less suitable habitats and enabled these populations to maintain higher annual survival and reproduction. Concomitantly, overabundant raven populations are impacting other native at-risk species such as the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) and potentially the Gunnison sage-grouse (C. minimus). Using Breeding Bird Survey data from 1995–2014, we evaluated raven count data to quantitatively describe changes in abundance and expansion into sagebrush ( …

The Nebraska Water Leaders Academy Graduates’ Influence On Community Capitals And Community Capacity, Dakota W. Staggs, Mark E. Burbach, Gina S. Matkin, Cheryl Burkhart-Kriesel

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

An overarching goal of the Nebraska Water Leaders Academy is to prepare a diverse group of Nebraskans from across the state to impact change in their communities by working together to solve wicked water problems. With 136 graduates from across Nebraska there is potential for graduates to effect change and impact their communities’ capitals (i.e., Built, Financial, Political, Social, Human, Cultural, and Natural). This study explored the impact of Academy graduates on their communities’ capitals and community capacity to prepare for future challenges from the perspective of graduates and community members. Findings show that Academy graduates are impacting their communities …

A Conceptual Model Evaluation Framework For Adaptive Governance And Adaptive Management In Large-Scale Restoration Programs, Chadwin Smith

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Adaptive management (AM) has become a kind of plastic phrase applied as a formulaic panacea for most major species recovery and ecosystem restoration efforts now underway across the United States. AM emerged as an application of the scientific method to resource management, closely tying management to science learning through experimental actions. The phrase “learning by doing” best captures the premise behind developing an experimental management approach that could be applied on the larger scale of a river system or ecosystem. In nearly five decades of application, however, examples of successful AM implementation at large scales are few and conflict remains …

Core Commitments For Field Trials Of Gene Drive Organisms, Kanya C. Long, Luke Alphey, George J. Annas, Cinnamon S. Bloss, Karl J. Campbell, Jackson Champer, Chun-Hong Chen, Amit Choudhary, George M. Church, James P. Collins, Kimberly L. Cooper, Jason A. Delborne, Owain R. Edwards, Claudia I. Emerson, Kevin Esvelt, Sam Weiss Evans, Robert M. Friedman, Valentino M. Gantz, Fred Gould, Sarah Hartley, Elizabeth Heitman, Janet Hemingway, Hirotaka Kanuka, Jennifer Kuzma, James V. Lavery, Yoosook Lee, Marce Lorenzen, Jeantine E. Lunshof, John M. Marshall, Philipp W. Messer, Craig Montell, Kenneth A. Oye, Megan J. Palmer, Philippos Aris Papathanos, Prasad N. Paradkar, Antoinette J. Piaggio, Jason L. Rasgon, Gordana Rašić, Larisa Rudenko, J. Royden Saah, Maxwell J. Scott, Jolene T. Sutton, Adam E, Vorsino, Omar S. Akbari

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

We must ensure that trials are scientifically, politically, and socially robust, publicly accountable, and widely transparent.

Gene drive organisms (GDOs), whose genomes have been genetically engineered to spread a desired allele through a population, have the potential to transform the way societies address a wide range of daunting public health and environmental challenges. The development, testing, and release of GDOs, however, are complex and often controversial. A key challenge is to clarify the appropriate roles of developers and others actively engaged in work with GDOs in decision-making processes, and, in particular, how to establish partnerships with relevant authorities and other …