Functional R code is rare in species distribution and abundance papers.

Analytic reproducibility is important for scientific credibility in ecology, but the extent to which scientific literature meets this criterion is not well understood. We surveyed 497 papers published in 2018-2022 in 9 ecology-related journals. We focused on papers that used hierarchical models to estimate species distribution and abundance.

Effects of lethal management on gray wolf pack persistence and reproduction in Wisconsin, USA.

Direct human-caused mortality accounts for about half of all large mammal mortality in North America. For social species like gray wolves (Canis lupus), the death of pack members can disrupt pack structure and cause pack dissolution, and mortality of breeding adults or wolves during reproduction and pup-rearing can decrease pup recruitment. We estimated minimum and maximum probability of wolf pack persistence in Wisconsin, USA, during biological years (15 April-14 April) 2011-2019 and evaluated the influence of pack size and legal harvest mortality on pack persistence during 2012-2014.

Spatial overlap of gray wolves and ungulate prey changes seasonally corresponding to prey migration.

Background: Prey are more vulnerable during migration due to decreased familiarity with their surroundings and spatially concentrated movements. Predators may respond to increased prey vulnerability by shifting their ranges to match prey. Moose (Alces alces) and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are primary gray wolf (Canis lupus) prey and important subsistence species for Indigenous communities.

Integrated distance sampling models for simple point counts.

Point counts (PCs) are widely used in biodiversity surveys but, despite numerous advantages, simple PCs suffer from several problems: detectability, and therefore abundance, is unknown; systematic spatiotemporal variation in detectability yields biased inferences, and unknown survey area prevents formal density estimation and scaling-up to the landscape level. We introduce integrated distance sampling (IDS) models that combine distance sampling (DS) with simple PC or detection/nondetection (DND) data to capitalize on the strengths and mitigate the weaknesses of each data type. Key to IDS models is the view of simple PC and DND data as aggregations of latent DS surveys that observe the same underlying density process.

Spatial and temporal niche overlap of aardwolves and aardvarks in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.

Species interactions can influence species distributions, but mechanisms mitigating competition or facilitating positive interactions between ecologically similar species are often poorly understood. Aardwolves () and aardvarks () are nocturnal, insectivorous mammals that co-occur in eastern and southern Africa, and knowledge of these species is largely limited to their nutritional biology. We used aardwolf and aardvark detections from 105 remote cameras during 2016-2018 to assess their spatial and temporal niche overlap in the grasslands of Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.

Factors influencing frequency and severity of human-American black bear conflicts in New York, USA.

Free-ranging large carnivores are involved in human-wildlife conflicts which can result in economic costs. Understanding factors that lead to human-wildlife conflicts is important to mitigate these negative effects and facilitate human-carnivore coexistence. We used a human-American black bear (Ursus americanus) conflict database maintained by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to determine whether drought, conflicts within the Adirondack and Catskill Parks as compared to outside of these parks, mild severity (Class 3) conflicts early in the year (April-June), and bear harvest in the previous year (as an index of bear abundance), were associated with greater frequency of high or moderate severity (Class 1-2) conflicts later in the year (July-September) across New York, USA.

Factors influencing lion movements and habitat use in the western Serengeti ecosystem, Tanzania.

Protected areas that restrict human activities can enhance wildlife habitat quality. Efficacy of protected areas can be improved with increased protection from illegal activities and presence of buffer protected areas that surround a core protected area. Habitat value of protected areas also can be affected by seasonal variation in anthropogenic pressures.

Maternal carryover, winter severity, and brown bear abundance relate to elk demographics.

Ungulates are key components of ecosystems due to their effects on lower trophic levels, role as prey, and value for recreational and subsistence harvests. Understanding factors that drive ungulate population dynamics can inform protection of important habitat and successful management of populations. To ascertain correlates of ungulate population dynamics, we evaluated the effects of five non-exclusive hypotheses on ungulate abundance and recruitment: winter severity, spring nutritional limitation (spring bottleneck), summer-autumn maternal condition carryover, predation, and timber harvest.

Quantifying anthropogenic wolf mortality in relation to hunting regulations and landscape attributes across North America.

Understanding the types and magnitude of human-caused mortality is essential for maintaining viable large carnivore populations. We used a database of cause-specific mortality to examine how hunting regulations and landscape configurations influenced human-caused mortality of North American gray wolves (). Our dataset included 21 studies that monitored the fates of 3564 wolves and reported 1442 mortalities.

Development and validation of an eDNA protocol for monitoring endemic Asian spiny frogs in the Himalayan region of Pakistan.

Wildlife monitoring programs are instrumental for the assessment of species, habitat status, and for the management of factors affecting them. This is particularly important for species found in freshwater ecosystems, such as amphibians, as they have higher estimated extinction rates than terrestrial species. We developed and validated two species-specific environmental DNA (eDNA) protocols and applied them in the field to detect the Hazara Torrent Frog (Allopaa hazarensis) and Murree Hills Frog (Nanorana vicina).

Variable effects of wolves on niche breadth and density of intraguild competitors.

The parallel niche release hypothesis (PNR) indicates that reduced competition with dominant competitors results in greater density and niche breadth of subordinate competitors and which may support an adaptive advantage.We assessed support for the PNR by evaluating relationships between variation in niche breadth and intra- and interspecific density (an index of competition) of wolves () coyotes (), and bobcats ().We estimated population density (wolf track surveys, coyote howl surveys, and bobcat hair snare surveys) and variability in space use (50% core autocorrelated kernel density home range estimators), temporal activity (hourly and overnight speed), and dietary (isotopic δC and δN) niche breadth of each species across three areas of varying wolf density in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA, 2010-2019.

Life-history traits and habitat availability shape genomic diversity in birds: implications for conservation.

More than 25% of species assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are threatened with extinction. Understanding how environmental and biological processes have shaped genomic diversity may inform management practices. Using 68 extant avian species, we parsed the effects of habitat availability and life-history traits on genomic diversity over time to provide a baseline for conservation efforts.

A penalized likelihood for multispecies occupancy models improves predictions of species interactions.

Multispecies occupancy models estimate dependence among multiple species of interest from patterns of co-occurrence, but problems associated with separation and boundary estimates can lead to unreasonably large estimates of parameters and associated standard errors when species are rarely observed at the same site or when data are sparse. In this paper, we overcome these issues by implementing a penalized likelihood, which introduces a small bias in parameter estimates in exchange for a potentially large reduction in variance. We compare parameter estimates obtained from both penalized and unpenalized multispecies occupancy models fit to simulated data that exhibit various degrees of separation and to a real-word data set of bird surveys with little apparent overlap between potentially interacting species.

Marginal support for a trophic cascade among sympatric canids in peripheral wolf range.

Trophic cascades reportedly structure ecological communities through indirect species interactions. Though the predator-herbivore-autotroph relationship has received much attention, mechanistic evidence supporting intraguild trophic cascades is rare. We established 348 remote camera sites (1 August-5 September 2019) across seven study areas of varying wolf (Canis lupus) density including one study area where wolves were absent in northern Michigan, USA.

Landscape transformations produce favorable roosting conditions for turkey vultures and black vultures.

Recent increases in turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) and black vulture (Coragyps atratus) populations in North America have been attributed in part to their success adapting to human-modified landscapes. However, the capacity for such landscapes to generate favorable roosting conditions for these species has not been thoroughly investigated. We assessed the role of anthropogenic and natural landscape elements on roosting habitat selection of 11 black and 7 turkey vultures in coastal South Carolina, USA using a GPS satellite transmitter dataset derived from previous research.

American martens use vigilance and short-term avoidance to navigate a landscape of fear from fishers at artificial scavenging sites.

Where two sympatric species compete for the same resource and one species is dominant, there is potential for the subordinate species to be affected through interference competition or energetic costs of avoiding predation. Fishers (Pekania pennanti) and American martens (Martes americana) often have high niche overlap, but fishers are considered dominant and potentially limiting to martens. We observed presence and vigilance of fishers and martens at winter carcass sites using remote cameras in Michigan, USA, to test the hypothesis that interference competition from fishers creates a landscape of fear for martens.

Responses of sympatric canids to human development revealed through citizen science.

Measuring wildlife responses to anthropogenic activities often requires long-term, large-scale datasets that are difficult to collect. This is particularly true for rare or cryptic species, which includes many mammalian carnivores. Citizen science, in which members of the public participate in scientific work, can facilitate collection of large datasets while increasing public awareness of wildlife research and conservation.

Island area, body size and demographic history shape genomic diversity in Darwin's finches and related tanagers.

Genomic diversity is the evolutionary foundation for adaptation to environmental change and thus is essential to consider in conservation planning. Island species are ideal for investigating the evolutionary drivers of genomic diversity, in part because of the potential for biological replicates. Here, we use genome data from 180 individuals spread among 27 island populations from 17 avian species to study the effects of island area, body size, demographic history and conservation status on contemporary genomic diversity.

Prescribed fire and partial overstory removal alter an acorn-rodent conditional mutualism.

In eastern North America, oak (Quercus) regeneration failure has spurred management using silvicultural approaches better aligned with the autecology of oaks. In particular, shelterwood harvests can create favorable intermediate light conditions for oak establishment and prescribed fire is predicted (by the oak-fire hypothesis) to favor oak regeneration. These approaches substantially modify forest structure and may affect crucial trophic interactions including the conditional mutualism between oaks and granivorous rodents that scatterhoard acorns, which shifts along a continuum from antagonistic to mutualistic depending on external factors.

Simulation of oak early life history and interactions with disturbance via an individual-based model, SOEL.

Early tree life history and demography are driven by interactions with the environment such as seed predation, herbivory, light availability, and drought. For oak (Quercus) in the eastern United States, these interactions may contribute to oak regeneration failure. Numerous studies have examined the impact of individual factors (like seed predation) on the oak regeneration process, but less information is available on the relative and combined impacts of multiple intrinsic and extrinsic factors on early oak life history.

Performance Benchmarks for Scholarly Metrics Associated with Fisheries and Wildlife Faculty.

Research productivity and impact are often considered in professional evaluations of academics, and performance metrics based on publications and citations increasingly are used in such evaluations. To promote evidence-based and informed use of these metrics, we collected publication and citation data for 437 tenure-track faculty members at 33 research-extensive universities in the United States belonging to the National Association of University Fisheries and Wildlife Programs. For each faculty member, we computed 8 commonly used performance metrics based on numbers of publications and citations, and recorded covariates including academic age (time since Ph.