Anticoagulant rodenticides (ARs) are indiscriminate toxicants that threaten non-target predatory and scavenger species through secondary poisoning. Accumulating evidence suggests that AR exposure may have disruptive sublethal consequences on individuals that can affect fitness. We evaluated AR-related effects on genome wide expression patterns in a population of bobcats in southern California. We identify differential expression of genes involved in xenobiotic metabolism, endoplasmic reticulum stress response, epithelial integrity, and both adaptive and innate immune function. Further, we...

Fragmentation of wildlife populations is increasing on a global scale and understanding current population genetic structure, genetic diversity, and genetic connectivity is key to informing wildlife management and conservation. We genotyped 992 pumas (Puma concolor) at 42 previously developed microsatellite loci and identified 10 genetic populations throughout the states of California and Nevada, USA. Although some genetic populations had large effective population sizes, others were small and inbred. Genetic diversity was extremely variable (heterozygosity, uHe...

Understanding how human activities influence immune response to environmental stressors can support biodiversity conservation across increasingly urbanizing landscapes. We studied a bobcat (Lynx rufus) population in urban southern California that experienced a rapid population decline from 2002–2005 due to notoedric mange. Because anticoagulant rodenticide (AR) exposure was an underlying complication in mange deaths, we aimed to understand sublethal contributions of urbanization and ARs on 65 biochemical markers of immune and organ function. Variance in immunological...

Accurate assessment of abundance forms a central challenge in population ecology and wildlife management. Many statistical techniques have been developed to estimate population sizes because populations change over time and space, and to correct for the bias resulting from animals that are present in a study area but not observed. The mobility of individuals makes it difficult to design sampling procedures that account for movement into and out of areas with fixed jurisdictional boundaries. Aerial...

Population genetic theory related to the consequences of rapid population decline is well-developed, but there are very few empirical studies where sampling was conducted before and after a known bottleneck event. Such knowledge is of particular importance for species restoration, given links between genetic diversity and the probability of long-term persistence. To directly evaluate the relationship between current genetic diversity and past demographic events, we collected genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism data from pre-bottleneck historical (c.1906)...

Changing climate will impact species’ ranges only when environmental variability directly impacts the demography of local populations. However, measurement of demographic responses to climate change has largely been limited to single species and locations. Here we show that amphibian communities are responsive to climatic variability, using >500,000 time-series observations for 81 species across 86 North American study areas. The effect of climate on local colonization and persistence probabilities varies among eco-regions and depends on local...

A ‘landscape of fear’ (LOF) is a map that describes continuous spatial variation in an animal’s perception of predation risk. The relief on this map reflects, for example, places that an animal avoids to minimize risk. Although the LOF concept is a potential unifying theme in ecology that is often invoked to explain the ecological and conservation significance of fear, little is known about the daily dynamics of a LOF. Despite theory and data to...

Drought stress is an important consideration for wildlife in arid and semi-arid regions under climate change. Drought can impact plant and animal populations directly, through effects on their physiology, as well as indirectly through effects on vegetation productivity and resource availability, and by creating conditions conducive to secondary disturbance, such as wildfire. We implemented a novel approach to understanding community-level demographic responses of birds and their habitats to these stressors in the context of climate...

1. A recent drying trend that is expected to continue in the southwestern U.S. underscores the need for site-specific and near real-time understanding of vegetation vulnerability so that land management actions can be implemented at the right time and place. 2. We related the annual integrated normalized difference vegetation index (iNDVI), a proxy for vegetation production, to water balance across landscapes of the Colorado Plateau. We determined how changes in production per unit of water...

SUMMARY 1. Surveillance is critical for the early detection of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, and weighted surveillance uses heterogeneity in risk of infection to increase the sampling efficiency. 2. We apply a Bayesian approach to estimate weights for 16 surveillance classes of white-tailed deer in Wisconsin, USA, relative to hunter-harvested yearling males. We use these weights to conduct a surveillance program for detecting chronic wasting disease (CWD) in white-tailed deer at Shenandoah National Park...

1. Top predators have cascading effects throughout the food web but their impacts on scavenger abundance are largely unknown. Gray wolves (Canis lupus) provide carrion to a suite of scavenger species, including the common raven (Corvus corax). Ravens are wide-ranging and intelligent omnivores that commonly take advantage of anthropogenic food resources. In areas where they overlap with wolves, however, ravens are numerous and ubiquitous scavengers of wolf-acquired carrion. 2. We aimed to determine whether subsidies...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Climate-driven changes in phenology are substantially affecting ecological relationships and ecosystem processes. The role of variation among species has received particular attention; for example, variation among species’ phenological responses to climate can disrupt trophic interactions and can influence plant performance. Variation within species in phenological responses to climate, however, has received much less attention, despite its potential role in ecological interactions and local adaptation to climate change. METHODS: We constructed three...

Sexually selected weapons evolved to maximize the individual reproductive success of males in many polygynous breeding species. Many weapons are also retained outside of reproductive periods for secondary reasons, but the importance of these secondary functions is poorly understood. Here we leveraged a unique opportunity from the predator–prey system in northern Yellowstone National Park, WY, USA to evaluate whether predation by a widespread, coursing predator (wolves) has influenced a specific weapon trait (antler retention time)...

UCM sites. Snow depth, soil moisture and soil temperature are measured near the Merced Grove, Gin Flat, Smoky Jack Creek, and Olmsted Quarry with a distributed array of 6-7 sensor nodes at each location. Snow depth is measured in the open, at the drip edge and under canopies, as well as 3-4 other sites representative of an area of 1-2 hectares. Soil moisture and temperature are measured at 10, 30, 60 and 90 cm depths...

Background: Management requires a robust understanding of between- and within-species genetic variability, however such data are still lacking in many species. For example, although multiple population genetics studies of the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) have been conducted, no similar studies have been done of the closely-related prairie falcon (F. mexicanus) and it is unclear how much genetic variation and population structure exists across the species’ range. Furthermore, the phylogenetic relationship of F. mexicanus relative to...

Island ecosystems are globally threatened, and efforts to restore historical communities are widespread. Such conservation efforts should be informed by accurate assessments of historical community composition to establish appropriate restoration targets. Isle Royale National Park is one of the most researched island ecosystems in the world, yet little is actually known about the biogeographic history of most Isle Royale taxa. To address this uncertainty and inform restoration targets, we determined the phylogeographic history of American...