Skin condition assessment of wildlife can provide insight into individual and population health. Yet, logistics can limit skin condition assessment of large whales. We developed a standardized, quantitative protocol using photographs to assess skin condition of blue whales in New Zealand, and demonstrate the value gained by testing hypotheses, documenting...
The goal of this project was to estimate the total annual cost of salmon recovery efforts throughout the Columbia River Basin from all stakeholders, including direct and indirect costs. How much is spent on salmon recovery efforts each year in the Columbia River Basin? Depending on who you ask, you...
Arctic freshwater ecosystems have been profoundly affected by climate change. Given that the Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) is often the only fish species inhabiting these ecosystems, it represents a valuable model for studying the impacts of climate change on species life‐history diversity and adaptability. Using a genotyping‐by‐se‐ quencing approach, we...
Little is known about intraspecific variation within the deacon rockfish (Sebastes di‐ aconus), a recently described species found in the northeast Pacific Ocean. We in‐ vestigated population structure among fish sampled from two nearshore reefs (Siletz Reef and Seal Rock) and one offshore site (Stonewall Bank) within a <50‐km2 area...
The ultimate goals of this project are to 1) provide farmers with data-based advice on maintenance and enhancement of habitat for native wildlife based on what species are using the remnant/unfarmed patches on producers farms and to 2) provide background knowledge and data to enable development of a larger project...
The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS) in Prince William Sound, Alaska provided impetus for a great deal of research into the ecosystems of the Northern Gulf of Alaska. Buried within the multitude of resulting impacts, which included hundreds of thousands of oiled seabirds and dramatic ecosystem shifts in the...
Human alteration of natural landscapes leads to biodiversity loss, often from a combination of area effects and fragmentation effects. Smaller habitat patches support fewer species than large ones and incur additional consequences from isolation. Efforts to preempt biodiversity loss from insular habitat fragments are complicated by individualistic species responses and...
The National Park Service has a dual mission of providing public access to exceptional natural resources, but in a manner such that these resources are left “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” Human activities in parks undoubtedly affect wildlife, but the degree to which such activities cause impairment is...
Somatic growth variation manifests from the cumulative effects of a suite of biological, ecological, and environmental processes and can have profound effects on individual fitness and species population dynamics. As ectotherms whose growth dynamics are greatly influenced by environmental factors, sea turtles display considerable variation in somatic growth within and...
The structure of food webs and how they relate to community stability has been an important debate in ecology. Specifically, predictability of web shape and how it influenced by surrounding landscapes is one of the main goals of such discussions. Headwater streams provide a study template that is of interest...
The detection of white-nose syndrome (WNS) in King County, WA in 2016 prompted the National Park Service to mobilize region-wide bat monitoring and disease surveillance. One of the goals of the Pacific West Region WNS response plan was to implement acoustic monitoring to determine the distribution of bat species and...
Policy development and decision-making play a critical role in natural resource management in the Pacific Northwest. To realise my internship requirements for the Professional Science Masters in Fisheries and Wildlife Administration, I completed internships with: the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), Portland State University – National Policy Process...
Environmental DNA (eDNA) is an emerging biological monitoring tool that can aid in assessing the effects of forestry and forest manufacturing activities on biota. Monitoring taxa across broad spatial and temporal scales is necessary to ensure forest management and forest manufacturing activities meet their environmental goals of maintaining biodiversity. Our...
Despite progressive policies and continued advances in ocean management, numerous shifts associated with global changes have been observed in marine ecosystems in recent years, including warming, ocean acidification, and deoxygenation. As global change accelerates, science is needed to inform evidence-based management strategies for continued ecosystem services. Resilience management, in which...
The Columbia River Basin historically supported abundant populations of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) but, largely due to anthropogenic influence, many populations are now listed as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Habitat restoration efforts have been a critical component of salmon recovery plans. However, although the importance...
The California Current Ecosystem (CCE) is a dynamic marine ecosystem from which many socioeconomically important fisheries species are harvested. In this thesis, a genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) approach was used to examine genomic variation in an early life stage of the Dungeness crab (Cancer magister), which constitutes the most valuable single-species commercial...
Projected intensification of drought as a result of climate change may reduce the capacity of streams to rear fish, exacerbating the challenge of recovering ESA-listed salmon populations. Without management intervention, some stocks will likely go extinct as stream drying and fragmentation reduce juvenile survival to unsustainable levels. To offset drought-related...
Nearly all birds communicate through sound, and there has been much study of avian populations and communities using song and other vocalizations. Owls are no exception as they defend territories, advertise for mates, and defend against threats using various vocalizations. However, due to their generally nocturnal habits, some owl species...
Chinook salmon are widely distributed across the globe with native stocks in the North Pacific Ocean and self-sustained populations introduced to regions in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Pacific salmon are economically and ecologically important to the Pacific Northwest, USA, yet several wild populations are federally listed as endangered or...