HABITAT ASSOCIATIONS AND DETECTABILITY OF THREE UNIONID SPECIES ALONG THE UPPER SABINE RIVER IN EAST TEXAS

East Texas contains the highest diversity of mussels in the state. Of the 37 species in East Texas, six are listed by the state as threatened and three have been proposed for listing as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Although diverse, mussel populations are declining and few studies exist that establish habitat relationships identifying determinants of mussel distributions in the upper Sabine River. I explored potential habitat preferences of three state listed species using an occupancy modeling approach, including the: Texas Pigtoe, Fusconaia askewi, Sandbank Pocketbook, Lampsilis satura, and Texas Heelsplitter, Potamilus amphicaenus. Thirty sites, along a 225km section of the upper Sabine River between US Highways 69 (Smith County) and 79 (Panola County) were surveyed with 0.25m2 quadrats to estimate the occupancy of target species. F. askewi was the most abundant species, accounting for 92.3% of the collected mussels. Detection estimates based on sampling a 0.25m2 quadrat ranged among species from 0.11 to 0.71. I found no significant relationship between occupancy estimates and reach-level occupancy covariates, suggesting that mussels associate with larger scale habitat variables or other river processes. To further investigate the potential for habitat selection, non-metric multidimensional scaling was used to plot habitat data in a multidimensional space. An ANOSIM was performed to test for significant relationships between the habitat data and species presence. Although this study was not successful for elucidating habitat preferences, it provided insight into the level of effort required to detect target species

Sampling Considerations for Amphibian Surveys: Evaluating Risks of Committing Type I and Type II Errors

Global amphibian declines pose a major threat to the world’s biodiversity. We examined the observation bias associated with volunteer based anuran surveys, such as the North American Amphibian Monitoring Protocol (NAAMP). We followed NAAMP protocol to examine if variation in the persons (1-3) in an observer unit affected observer error. We hypothesized that observation units with multiple observers have less observer bias and would better report anuran assemblages compared to single observers. Larger observer units had fewer incidences of false positive observations. Additionally, we attempted to determine which sampling method for the eastern hellbender (Cryptobranchus a. alleganiensis) had the highest detection rate. We examined the detection probability of three methods: visual encounter surveys (VES), nocturnal spotlighting, and un-baited trapping. After 200 search hours and 300 trap nights, one hellbender was detected during a VES. Due to the small sample size we were unable to determine site occupancy and detection probabili

Forest Legacy Effects on Amphibian Populations: Integrating Land and Life Histories in Conservation

Understanding how forests are shaped by historical disturbances is essential for developing effective conservation plans for forest-dwelling organisms threatened by habitat loss, such as amphibians. Salamander and frog populations and microhabitats were sampled using visual encounter surveys and forest habitat assessments in uplands varying in aquatic habitat resources (i.e., vernal pool densities) and disturbance history (i.e., secondary to residual forests) to assess agricultural land-use legacy effects on populations and terrestrial habitats of amphibians with different life histories. Pool-breeding, stream-breeding, and fully terrestrial salamanders were negatively associated with secondary forests, which featured shallower leaf litter, denser understory vegetation, and fewer cover objects than residual forests. Only wood frogs were unaffected by disturbance history, being solely influenced by available aquatic habitat. These results demonstrate the utility of historical ecology for amphibian population studies and suggest that secondary forests may not provide the same conservation value as residual forests for many amphibian species

L'impact des coupes progressives irrégulières sur les populations de salamandre cendrée (Plethodon cinereus) dans les peuplements mixtes

Un des principes de l'aménagement forestier écosystémique consiste à émuler les perturbations naturelles lors des activités de récoltes forestières. Les coupes progressives irrégulières (CPI) sont un nouveau type de traitement sylvicole prometteur en forêt mixte, mais leurs conséquences sur la biodiversité sont méconnues. La salamandre cendrée (Plethodon cinereus), étroitement liée aux débris ligneux, joue un rôle important dans l’écosystème des sols forestiers. Le but de ce projet était de déterminer l’impact de trois types de CPI (coupes en lisière, en trouée et en micropeuplement), relativement à des sites témoins, sur les dynamiques de populations et la condition corporelle de salamandres cendrées. En tout, 64 sites de la région du Témiscamingue ont été échantillonnés à 10 reprises réparties durant l’été 2015 et 2016 dans lesquels deux méthodes d’échantillonnage ont été testées soit les refuges artificiels et des quadrats d’échantillonnage. Les analyses de dynamiques d’abondance ont montré que l’abondance des salamandres des individus ne variaient pas selon les trois différents patrons de coupes de CPI, ni selon les paramètres environnementaux mesurés. Par contre, nos résultats montrent des effets annuels: la condition corporelle des adultes était supérieure en 2015 qu’en 2016 et la probabilité de détection des salamandres adultes était plus élevée en 2016. Pour les juvéniles, leur condition corporelle diminuait avec la progression de la saison et elle était la meilleure dans les traitements en plein et était la plus faible dans les trouées. Ces résultats suggèrent globalement que les CPI maintiennent les attributs d’habitat nécessaires au maintien des populations de salamandres cendrées, 5 à 7 ans après la première coupe. Mots-clés : salamandre cendrée, Plethodon cinereus, dynamiques de populations, coupe partielle, débris ligneux, coupe progressive irrégulièreEcosystem-based management aims to preserve old-growth forest attributes using techniques mimicking natural disturbances. Irregular shelterwood logging is a new method applied to mixed forests, but its impacts on forest floor organisms are poorly known. The aim of this study was to quantify the effects on the population dynamics and body condition of terrestrial salamanders of three different treatments of irregular shelterwood (strips, uniform and gaps) 5 – 7 years following harvesting compared to old-growth forest controls. A total of 64 sites in the Témiscamingue region were sampled on 10 occasions during the summer of 2015 and 2016. Two sampling methods were tested, namely artificial refuges and sampling quadrats. Analyses showed that salamander abundance and body condition of individuals did not vary according to the three different irregular shelterwood cut patterns or the environmental parameters measured at the sites. However, the body condition of adult salamanders was lower in 2016 than in 2015 and the detection probability of adult salamanders was greater in 2016 than in 2015. For juvenile salamanders, the body condition decreased with increasing Julian day and the body condition was also highest in uniform treatments and lowest in gap treatments. We conclude that environmental conditions 5 to 7 years following treatments in the three patterns of irregular shelterwood harvesting, are similar to controls in terms of their capacity to support terrestrial salamander populations. Key words : eastern red-backed salamander, Plethodon cinereus, population dynamics, partial cutting, woody debris, irregular shelterwood harvestin

Monetary Transmission in Hungary

The Hungarian Monetary Transmission Mechanism research project was expected to fill the gaps in our knowledge. Almost fifteen years after the beginning of the Hungarian transition to a market economy, we felt that the time has come to launch a comprehensive research project with the purpose of obtaining an understanding based on more solid econometric results. Our project was also motivated by the Monetary Transmission Network in the Eurosystem, which gave us the opportunity to compare the Hungarian transmission mechanism to that of the euro area. It took almost three years for the colleagues at the Bank's economics department to explore the most important areas of the transmission mechanism. The research faced several challenges. The data used for estimation are still not completely satisfactory. Moreover, the framework of monetary policy, as well as some structural features of the Hungarian economy have changed during the period under investigation. Moreover, the special characteristics of our economy required a focus somewhat different from what is usual in the literature. Due to the uneven information available regarding the various sectors and markets, it was clear from the beginning that some areas would have to receive only limited coverage, rendering the synthesis of individual results difficult. Despite these shortcomings, the empirical work presented in this volume allows us to gain a better understanding of the Hungarian monetary transmission mechanism and has thus served its stated objective well. The benefits of the project are threefold. First, it confirms our assumption about the primacy of the exchange rate channel in Hungary's small open economy. Second, there are some interesting results that may alter our thinking about how the monetary transmission works. For example, we obtained a refined and – at least compared to earlier beliefs – slightly different picture about the way consumption and investments react to monetary policy actions . Third, it brought to the fore important areas where our knowledge is far from being satisfactory. This recognition calls for further research in order to strengthen the theoretical underpinnings of our monetary policy actions. Such areas are, for example, the labour market and credit markets. We also need a deeper understanding of the factors at work determining the exchange rate. This volume collects the papers written by the project participants. The volume is structured as follows. Studies dealing with the first stages of the transmission mechanism, i.e. how the monetary policy actions are transmitted to financial markets and asset prices, are presented first. They are followed by papers estimating the macroeconomic effects of monetary policy and the behavior of aggregate demand. The last study in the volume tries to assess the potential consequences on the transmission mechanism of joining the eurozone.monetary transmission, Hungary, interest rate pass-through, monetary policy shock, exchange rate smoothing, bank-lending, structural VAR, aggregate demand, investment behavior, euro.

Behavioural ecology and conservation of the Egyptian Vulture in human-dominated landscapes: insights from long-term monitoring and movement ecology

327 p.Human activities transformed virtually all landscapes worldwide to fulfil their basic needs (e.g., resource extraction, agriculture or leisure activities). By doing so, they also affect species inhabiting these human-dominated landscapes. Due to their historical link to human activities, apex predators, especially vultures, are especially vulnerable to human-induced behavioural alterations and have undergone population declines worldwide. Therefore, finding a solution that reconciles vulture conservation and human activities in such landscapes is necessary. By using a set of behavioural indicators (e.g., breeding, occupancy/detectability and space use) from long-term monitoring and movement ecology, this thesis aims to build links between behaviour and conservation of Egyptian vulture Neophron percnopterus in human-dominated landscapes. The current dissertation shows that the species invests similar effort in parental care and that incubation and hatching are important tipping points during the breeding season (Chapter 1). This information could be, in turn, used to design cost-effective monitoring while accounting for imperfect detection and breeding phenology and other environmental variables that could help to adapt monitoring programs to different available budgets (Chapter 2). Similarly, the knowledge of breeding behaviour of the species could be used to infer the impact of habitat alterations on species nest occupancy and reproduction patterns and to improve conservation programs (Chapter 3), and test whether management programs and collaboration networks resulted effective in reducing the synergistic effect of various human disturbances (Chapter 4). Finally, it poses an advance in the understanding of how certain human activities that provide continuous and predictable food pulses, such as farming, could alter species space use and favour residency in partial migratory species (Chapter 5), and that human-driven changes in migratory behaviour could even have consequences on fitness and energy use of different migratory phenotypes (Chapter 6). Overall, this work demonstrates the utility of increasing vulture behaviour knowledge to ascertain the effects of human activities on the species and find coherent conservation solutions that favour its persistence and promote vulture-human coexistence in anthropogenic landscapes

Habitat Features and Behavioral Plasticity Promote Barred Owl Presence in Developed Landscapes

Despite extensive accounts in the literature describing Barred Owls (Strix varia) as obligate forest-interior species that are sensitive to development, Barred Owls have increasingly been found in urbanized landscapes. Due to the limited number of studies on Barred Owls within the context of development, our understanding of the processes that facilitate Barred Owls within anthropogenic landscapes is limited. In the Piedmont region of the southeastern United States, South Carolina, the presence of Barred Owls in suburbs and small-town centers precipitated our research team to examine which habitat features facilitate their occurrence near development. We conducted surveys using callbacks and autonomous recording units within a 300 km2 region centered around Clemson, South Carolina. We used detection/nondetection data to model the influence of habitat features on Barred Owl occupancy along a development gradient. Tree height was the best predictor of Barred Owl occupancy, regardless of forest coverage. We did not find Barred Owl occupancy to decline with increasing impervious surface density. To further investigate habitat selection at a finer scale, we deployed GPS transmitters on 20 breeding Barred Owls in our region during a single breeding season. We selected territories containing a variety of development density and habitat types to examine predictors of home range size and habitat selection along an urban-rural gradient. We related nocturnal (foraging) locations to habitat features using resource selection functions (RSFs). We explored differential use along a development gradient by modeling interactions between habitat parameters and measures of development in the home range. After accounting for variation attributable to sex, we found that Barred Owl home ranges expanded significantly in size with increasing forest fragmentation in the landscape. Tree height was one of the most important habitat predictors of foraging selection among the variables we evaluated, thus mature urban canopy could be the key to Barred Owl presence in developed landscapes. Barred Owls exhibited differential use based on development in the home range; owls within zones of higher fragmentation had stronger selection for anthropogenic features, such as roads and forest edges. Although our findings confirm that certain habitat features, such as tall canopy, are integral to supporting a breeding population of Barred Owls within development, our results also demonstrate the plasticity of a forest predator previously described as sensitive to urbanization. The presence of Barred Owls in developed landscapes suggests that retaining key habitat features can promote multi-trophic communities even when other aspects of the habitat are highly altered

Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Sympatric Bobcats \u3cem\u3e(Lynx Rufus)\u3c/em\u3e and Coyotes \u3cem\u3e(Canis Latrans)\u3c/em\u3e in an Agricultural Landscape

Bobcat (Lynx rufus) populations experienced declines in the Midwest during the 20th century due to land conversion for agriculture and over exploitation and were practically nonexistent in areas by the 1970-80s. Populations have been recovering following changes in land-use practices and habitat improvement. Eastern South Dakota was closed to bobcat harvest in 1977 but reopened in 2012 to select counties. Bobcats are elusive, have large home ranges, and occur at low densities, making monitoring their populations difficult. Camera trapping is an effective tool for monitoring elusive carnivores but can be burdened by low detection rates. Researchers often employ attractants to increase detection, but attractants can unequally influence detection of species among different trophic levels. We ran a pilot season in 2019 to evaluate the efficacy of an olfactory lure, a non-consumable attractant, as a means of increasing detection of bobcats. We expanded our species of interest to include additional species (coyote [Canis latrans], raccoon [Procyon lotor], and eastern cottontail [Sylvilagus floridanus]) that represented a range of foraging guilds. We evaluated the influence of the lure at three temporal scales (i.e., daily probability of detection, sequences per detection, and triggers per sequence). The influence of the lure varied between the two most carnivorous species, bobcat and coyote. The lure positively influenced detection of coyote and raccoon, an intermediate omnivore, and negatively influenced detection of bobcat and eastern cottontail, an herbivorous prey. Bobcats are of management interest in South Dakota that are potentially vulnerable to land conversion and may be influenced by coyotes. We used occupancy modeling to evaluate the influences of landscape features on space use of bobcats and coyotes and generated activity curves to quantify temporal overlap between species using remote camera data collected in the summers of 2019 and 2020. Coyote space use was positively associated with slope, small-scale percent agriculture, and edge density. Bobcat space use was limited and positively associated with coyote activity, distance to roads, and large-scale percent woodland/shrubland. Our results indicate that bobcats are using smaller, less-disturbed woodland/shrubland patches, which are associated with higher coyote activity levels. Bobcat and coyote temporal activity had high overlap

Interactive effects of wildfire and disturbance history on amphibians and their parasites

Climate-driven changes in wildfire and other disturbance regimes are expected to affect populations and communities worldwide. Understanding how these changes will affect native species is critical for future conservation efforts, especially on managed forests. Using data from several wildfires that burned between 1988 and 2003 in and next to Glacier National Park, Montana, I examined how fire affected the distribution, abundance, and infection status of 3 native amphibians. In Chapter 1, I used long-term data on wetland occupancy to show the long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum) and Columbia spotted frog (Rana luteiventris) were resistant to change during the first 6 years after wildfire, but declined over longer time periods in areas of high-severity fire. In contrast, boreal toad (Anaxyrus boreas) occupancy increased greatly during the 3 years after wildfire burned low-elevation forests, followed by a gradual decline. In Chapter 2, I measured how the interaction of stand-replacement wildfire and forest management affected amphibian abundance and 2 nematodes that infect amphibians. Population size of salamanders was negatively related to fire severity, with stronger effects on populations that were isolated or in managed forests. These effects were not evident in the abundance of the nematode Cosmocercoides variabilis. Population size of spotted frogs increased weakly with burn extent in managed and protected forests, a pattern that was reflected in the greater infection intensity of the mutualistic nematode Gyrinicola batrachiensis. In Chapter 3, I investigated how environmental variation and habitat use affects the probability that boreal toads had chytridiomycosis, a disease linked with amphibian declines worldwide. Probability of infection was lower for toads captured terrestrially than aquatically, and was lower for toads captured in recently burned habitats compared with unburned habitats. Simulations showed that spatial variation in infection, like that related to habitat use in a heterogeneous landscape, could significantly reduce the risk of metapopulation decline. Collectively, my results underscore the importance of measuring individual-, population-, and community-level responses across a range of disturbances and in both managed and protected forests. These results will provide scientists and land managers a greater understanding of the long-term effects of wildfire on local amphibians and other native species