Forecasts of the impacts of climate change have traditionally focused on individual species and their phenotypes, phenology, or distribution. However, shifts in species distributions and the resulting reorganization of community composition represent an important violation to the assumption of species acting in isolation. Whereas species may respond individualistically to climate...
Early seral forests regenerating from stand-replacing disturbances provide unique habitat for many species in productive, temperate forest landscapes and contribute to supporting biodiversity. Population declines in some species associated with early seral forests have prompted concerns about the conservation of these habitats, particularly the characteristic structural and compositional complexity associated...
Availability of suitable nesting habitat that is free of nest predators and provides access to adequate prey resources within commuting distance is a major factor limiting seabird populations. Caspian terns (Hydroprogne caspia) in western North America have shifted their breeding habitat from naturally occurring habitats in interior wetlands, lakes, and...
Reintroduction programs are increasingly being used to save animals from extinction and aid in their recovery. The California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus), one of the most endangered birds in the world, is a remarkable example of how reintroduction programs can help rapidly increase a species' population numbers and range following a...
Recent climatic warming trends and increases in the frequency and extent of wildfires have prompted much concern regarding the potential for rapid change in the structure and function of forested ecosystems around the world. Episodes of mortality in wildfires and insect outbreaks associated with drought have affected large areas and...
Many problems in ecology and conservation biology can be formulated and solved using machine learning algorithms for multi-label classification. This dissertation addresses three topics related to predicting the distributions of multiple species. It improves existing methods and proposes a new modeling paradigm to address the multi-species, multi-label problem. The first...
African rhinoceros, once abundant across Africa, face threats to their long-term survival primarily due to the syndicated poaching of their horns for Traditional Asian Medicine and as status symbols in Asia. Most studies focusing on the human dimensions of rhinoceros poaching have been limited to examining a few aspects of...
The causes of the global biodiversity crisis are varied and complex. Anthropogenic threats may act in isolation, or interact additively or synergistically with each other or with natural stressors to affect sensitive taxa. The recent emergence of many infectious diseases in wildlife has brought attention to the role of disease...
Cross-seasonal effects, where conditions in one season can have consequences in a following season, can have population-level implications for migratory species. To assess the presence of cross-seasonal effects on a migratory dabbling duck population, we examined the relative importance of habitat conditions in multiple seasons on the subsequent productivity of...
Variable-retention harvesting was proposed to reduce loss of biodiversity and ecosystem processes associated with late-seral Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) forests in the Pacific Northwest. The Demonstration of Ecosystem Management Options experiment was established to test this hypothesis. Analysis presents various challenges to drawing statistical inferences about treatment effects. This dissertation explored...