The adaptive capacity of marine calcifiers to ocean acidification (OA) is a topic of great interest to evolutionary biologists and ecologists. Previous studies have provided evidence to suggest that larval resilience to high pCO2 seawater for these species is a trait with a genetic basis and variability in natural populations....
Predators must consume enough prey to support costly events, such as reproduction. Meeting high energetic requirements is particularly challenging for migrating baleen whales as their feeding seasons are typically restricted to a limited temporal window and marine prey are notoriously patchy. We assessed the energetic value of the six most...
Rivers support some of Earth’s richest biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services to society, but they are often fragmented by barriers to free flow. In Europe, attempts to quantify river connectivity have been hampered by the absence of a harmonized barrier database. Here we show that there are at least...
Baleen whale fecal samples have high potential for endocrine monitoring, which can be used as a non-invasive tool to identify the physiological response to disturbance events and describe population health and vital rates. In this study, we used commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays to validate and quantify fecal steroid (progestins, androgens...
Baleen whales store energy gained on foraging grounds to support reproduction and other metabolic needs while fasting for long periods during migration. Whale body condition can be used to monitor foraging success, and thus better understand and anticipate individual‐ and population‐level trends in reproduction and survival. We assessed the body...
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 phenotypic identification of sex in Sebastes rockfish is difficult and often impractical from a management perspective, and the genetic basis of sex determination in the genus is currently uncertain. We tested a previously developed sex identifi- cation polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR–RFLP) assay in eight species...
A critical seasonal event for anadromous Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) is the time at which adults migrate from the ocean to breed in freshwater. We investigated whether allelic variation at the circadian rhythm genes, OtsClock1a and OtsClock1b, underlies genetic control of migration timing among 42 populations in North America. We...
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 California Current Ecosystem (CCE) is a dynamic marine ecosystem from which many socioeconomically important fisheries species are harvested. Here, a genotyping- by-sequencing (GBS) approach was used to examine genomic variation in an early life stage (megalopae) of the Dungeness crab (Cancer magister), which constitutes the most valuable single-species commercial...
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...
1. Globally, river systems have been extensively modified through alterations in riverscapes and flow regimes, reducing their capacity to absorb geophysical and environmental changes.
2. In western North America and elsewhere, alterations in natural flow regimes and swimways through dams, levees, and floodplain development, work in concert with fire regime,...
Community structure and function in ecosystems are dependent on top‐down and bottom‐up factors, which vary across local, regional, and temporal scales. In estuaries of the U.S. Pacific Northwest coast, eelgrass (Zostera marina) ecosystems are exposed to latitudinally varying oceanographic inputs in the form of ocean upwelling. Previous research suggests that...
Harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) are commonly observed in Oregon's nearshore marine environment yet knowledge of their ecosystem use and behavior remains limited, generating concerns for potential impacts on this species from future coastal development. Passive acoustic monitoring was used to investigate spatial and temporal variations in the presence and foraging...
Long-distance migrants, including Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus
spp), can use geomagnetic information to navigate. We tested
the hypothesis that a “magnetic map” (i.e., an ability to extract
positional information from Earth’s magnetic field) also exists in a
population of salmon that do not undertake oceanic migrations.
This study examined juvenile Atlantic...
Conflicts can arise when the recovery of one protected species limits the recovery of another through competition or predation. The recovery of many marine mammal populations on the west coast of the United States has been viewed as a success; however, within Puget Sound in Washington State, the increased abundance...
Many marine mammal predators, particularly pinnipeds, have increased in abundance in recent decades, generating new challenges for balancing human uses with recovery goals via ecosystem-based management. We used a spatio-temporal bioenergetics model of the Northeast Pacific Ocean to quantify how predation by three species of pinnipeds and killer whales (Orcinus...
With more than 407 species of freshwater and brackish water fishes, Gabon is a country rich in ichthyological biodiversity, but its aquatic environments remain poorly explored. We present and describe a new species of Enteromius, adding to the 16 species of Enteromius currently recorded from that country. This new species...
The influence of the flood pulse on fish populations has been posited, but infrequently tested or quantified. Here, we tested the effect of habitat on population size, using Prochilodus nigricans as a case study species. Floodplain habitat was based on the littoral zone area occupied by P. nigricans to feed....
Predator outbreaks are predicted to increasingly decimate economically and ecologically important prey populations because global climate change and food-web modifications frequently facilitate predators and stress prey. Natural systems are organized hierarchically, with processes operating at multiple scales giving rise to patterns of biodiversity, so predicting and managing outbreaks requires a...
1. Rearing environments can shape offspring phenotype across taxa, yet little is known about how brood size influences hypothalamic-pituitary axis functioning, whether its expression trades off with growth, and the degree to which these -relationships vary between species.
2. We evaluated how brood size influenced nestling physiological (glucocorticoids) and somatic...
During traditional boat-based surveys of marine megafauna, behavioral observations are typically limited to records of animal surfacings obtained from a horizontal perspective. Achieving an aerial perspective has been restricted to brief helicopter or airplane based observations that are costly, noisy, and risky. The emergence of commercial small unmanned aerial systems...
This study investigates the use of a mobile application, Whale mAPP, as a citizen science tool for collecting marine mammal sighting data. In just over three months, 1261 marine mammal sightings were observed and recorded by 39 citizen scientists in Southeast Alaska. The resulting data, along with a preliminary and...
Ecotourism is a movement that seeks to sustain local communities by uniting conservation, travel, and education. To minimize effects on animal behavior, ecotourism operations must be carefully managed. Local management efforts that can be tailored to the specific area and animals may be more successful than broad‐scale efforts that may...
Many marine mammal predators, particularly pinnipeds, have increased in abundance in recent decades, generating new challenges for balancing human uses with recovery goals via ecosystem-based management. We used a spatio-temporal bioenergetics model of the Northeast Pacific Ocean to quantify how predation by three species of pinnipeds and killer whales (Orcinus...
Coastal wetland plants are adapted to varying degrees of inundation. However, functional relationships between inundation and productivity are poorly characterized for most species. Determining species-specific tolerances to inundation is necessary to evaluate sea-level rise (SLR) effects on future marsh plant community composition, quantify organic matter inputs to marsh accretion, and...
Background. Ampelisca eschrichtii Krøyer, 1842 of the Sakhalin Shelf of the Okhotsk Sea, Far Eastern Russia, comprise the highest known biomass concentration of any amphipod population in the world and are a critically important prey source for western gray whales. Growth and reproduction in this population has not been apparent...
Fisheries-related mortality has been influential in driving global declines in seabird populations. Understanding the overlap between seabird distribution and fisheries is one important element in assessing bycatch risk, and may be achieved by tracking the movements of individual birds and fishing vessels. Here, we assess the spatiotemporal overlap between the...
Recent studies have demonstrated that some hormones are present in baleen powder from bowhead (Balaena mysticetus) and North Atlantic right (Eubalaena glacialis) whales. To test the potential generalizability of this technique for studies of stress and reproduction in large whales, we sought to determine whether all major classes of steroid...
The dynamic nature of most environments forces many animals to move to meet their fundamental needs. This is especially true in aquatic environments where shifts in spatial ecology (which are a result of movements) are among the first adaptive responses of animals to changes in ecosystems. Changes in the movement...
Research on cetacean foraging ecology is central to our understanding of their spatial and behavioral ecology. Yet, functional mechanisms by which cetaceans detect prey across different scales remain unclear. Here, I postulate that cetaceans utilize a scale-dependent, multimodal sensory system to assess and increase prey encounters. I review the literature...
Using a combination of population‐ and individual‐based analytical approaches, we provide a comprehensive examination of genetic connectivity of Dungeness crab (Cancer magister) along ~1,200 km of the California Current System (CCS). We sampled individuals at 33 sites in 2012 to establish a baseline of genetic diversity and hierarchal population genetic...
Limited approaches exist for studying population connectivity in widely dispersing marine benthic invertebrates. Genetic techniques can provide important insights toward identifying recruitment trajectories. Here, 10 microsatellite loci were used to examine connectivity among Oregon Dungeness crabs (Cancer magister, Dana, 1852) in the California Current System (CCS) (n = 801) as...
Bird scaring lines (BSLs) protect longline fishing gear from seabird attacks, save bait, reduce incidental seabird mortality and are the most commonly prescribed seabird bycatch mitigation measure worldwide. We collaborated with fishermen to assess the efficacy of applying BSL regulations from the demersal longline sablefish fishery in Alaska to a...
Two species of burrowing shrimp occur in high densities in US West Coast estuaries, the ghost shrimp, Neotrypaea californiensis, and the blue mud shrimp, Upogebia pugettensis. Both species of shrimp are considered ecosystem engineers as they bioturbate and irrigate extensive galleries within the sediment. While their burrows comprise a dominant...
Understanding connectivity of marine organisms is necessary for determining the appropriate scale of conservation and management strategies. For species that inhabit both the coastal ocean and partially enclosed water bodies (i.e., estuaries or fjords), this information is even more critical since estuaries and fjords are often characterized by hydrological complexities...
Juvenile salmonids display highly variable spatial and temporal patterns of early dispersal that are influenced by density-dependent and density-independent factors.
Although juvenile coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) movement patterns in streams and their relationship with body mass and growth have been examined in previous studies, most observations were limited to one...
Since the decimation of the southern right
whale Eubalaena australis population in New Zealand by
whaling, research on its recovery has focused on the wintering
ground at the Auckland Islands, neglecting potentially
important wintering habitat at Campbell Island. For
the first time in 20 years we conducted an expedition to...
Periodic weighing of seabird chicks is labour-intensive and repeated handling can cause high levels of disturbance to chicks. Although automatic weighing systems using a fibreglass nest have been designed for albatross species with a pedestal nest made of mud, this approach is inappropriate for great albatross species (genus Diomedea) whose...
Streams that dry during part of the year are common throughout the world, yet studies of the macroinvertebrate assemblages in these types of streams are rare compared to those in permanent streams; and studies that assess the effects of agriculture on temporary stream invertebrates are even rarer. We studied macroinvertebrate...
Identification and classification of behavior states in animal movement data can be complex, temporally biased, time-intensive, scale-dependent, and unstandardized across studies and taxa. Large movement datasets are increasingly common and there is a need for efficient methods of data exploration that adjust to the individual variability of each track. We...
The Western Pacific Ocean barred knifejaw Oplegnathus fasciatus was found from 2013 to 2015 along the Pacific Coast of North America from Washington to California. The knifejaw was found in derelict vessels that had arrived on the Pacific Coast and that had been lost during the March 2011 Great Japan...
Background: Despite recent work to characterize gene expression changes associated with larval development in oysters, the mechanism by which the larval shell is first formed is still largely unknown. In Crassostrea gigas, this shell forms within the first 24 h post fertilization, and it has been demonstrated that changes in...
OBJECTIVE To document the environmental stewardship practices (decisions and actions regarding use and disposal) of pet and human pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) among pet-owning veterinary-care professionals (practicing veterinarians, veterinary students, and veterinary technicians and trainees) and environmental educators. DESIGN Internet-based cross-sectional survey. SAMPLE 191 pet owners (103 veterinary-care...
We sought to characterize the distribution of juvenile walleye pollock Theragra chalcogramma in an area of intense predator-prey interactions and to describe habitat features that lead to their observed distributions. The distribution of juvenile walleye pollock around the Pribilof Islands in the southeastern Bering Sea in 2008 and 2009 was...
We evaluated the impact of predation on juvenile steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss and yearling and subyearling Chinook Salmon O. tshawytscha by piscivorous waterbirds from 11 different breeding colonies in the Columbia River basin during 2012 and 2014. Fish were tagged with both acoustic tags and PIT tags and were tracked via...
The interplay of natural selection and genetic drift, influenced by geographic isolation, mating systems and population size, determines patterns of genetic diversity within species. The sperm whale provides an interesting example of a long-lived species with few geographic barriers to dispersal. Worldwide mtDNA diversity is relatively low, but highly structured...