Effects Of Recreational Disturbance On Mexican Spotted Owls On The Colorado Plateau In Southern Utah

The Mexican spotted owl (Strix occidentalis lucida) was listed as a “threatened” subspecies in 1993 by the USDI Fish and Wildlife Service. In the Canyonlands of Southern Utah, the spotted owl is associated with fragmented habitats characterized by steep rocky canyons that attract high levels of human use for recreation, including climbing, hiking, hunting, and ORVs. Human-use levels have strongly increased in the canyonland region, e.g., permits for access to popular canyon hikes increased 1714 percent during 1998-2002 in Zion National Park. To assess owl population status and estimate effects of human-use on spotted owls, we conducted an occupancy-based research project during the 2008, 2009, and 2010 breeding seasons (defined as March-August). We designed our study to estimate occupancy rates and detection probability among owl territories in four areas: Zion and Capitol Reef National Parks, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and Cedar Mesa. A primary objective was to estimate the potential effects of human recreation on occupancy of the owl territories (“sites”). In addition to occupancy, we estimated reproductive status. Preliminary results from our data analysis showed varying occupancy rates, with 83 percent occupancy at mesic sites (Zion and Cedar Mesa), and 43 percent at xeric sites (Capitol Reef and GSENM). Detection probability was estimated to be 89 percent. Human use did not appear to reduce occupancy or detection. Reproduction varied by year, with 2009 showing the highest number of young, and several years with relatively low production of juveniles. Our results suggest that current management of human-use in our study areas is not adversely affecting occupancy and reproduction by Mexican spotted owls

Modeling Carnivore Sign Data: A Case Study with the Carnivore Guild in a Ranch in Eastrn Montana

Track deposition patterns by carnivores on a 54 km2 ranch in eastern Montana were recorded with a sand strip passive index survey method over the course of 33 days. Carnivore tracks identified included coyotes (n= 17), bobcats (n= 8), feral cats (n= 6), pumas (n= 1), and long-tailed weasels (n= 1). Using temporal, weather, and habitat covariates, coyote intrusions were modeled with generalized linear models using a negative binomial distribution and log link. An information theoretic approach using the Akaike information criterion adjusted for sample size (AICc) to compare the relative support of multiple models indicated that habitat type had a strong influence on coyote track deposition, and that weather and temporal covariates were comparatively poor descriptors of coyote track patterns. Autocorrelation functions revealed no evidence for daily temporal autocorrelation of coyote intrusion numbers in either habitat, and a Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient suggested little between-habitat daily intrusion correlation (r = -0.21). Use of open areas by coyotes has been well documented in the literature, and the data analyzed in this report are in agreement with said studies

Occupancy Dynamics, Roost Habitat and Prey of Mexican Spotted Owls in Utah

Mexican spotted owls (Strix occidentalis lucida) occupy canyon habitats that have received less attention than owls in forested environments, and yet canyon environments represent a significant portion of the owl’s range. In Utah, the owls occupy narrow and steep-walled canyons that attract high levels of human use, including climbing and hiking through nest areas, and human use levels have strongly increased in the canyons, for example, permits for access to popular climbs and hikes increased over 1700% during 1998 to 2002 in Zion National Park. To examine potential effects of recreation on the owls, we studied temporal variability of detection, occupancy, local extinction, and colonization probabilities. Our study sites included several National Parks and BLM resource areas. Our primary objective was to examine effects of recreation on site occupancy dynamics. We also investigated reproductive success, roost habitat, and prey selection. The analysis of detection rate showed strong support for constant detection probability of 89% for spotted owls among 47 sites. For both single owls and owl pairs we estimated initial occupancy rate of 83% for mesic sites and 43% for relatively xeric sites. We found that recreation was not associated with occupancy, detection, nor extinction and recolonization probabilities. Although reproductive rates varied by year, recreation was not negatively associated with production of fledgling owls per site. We also studied prey selection and roost habitat in the canyon environments. Roosts were placed on steep-walled cliffs with greater number of perches than adjacent habitats, and roosts possessed relatively high overhead tree cover, cool daytime temperatures, and thus a suitable thermal environment in the arid canyons. Pellets collected at roosts sites, upon dissection, indicated that rodents were primary prey, but also included birds, bats, and various anthropods. Woodrats (Neotoma sp.) dominated the prey frequency and biomass

Evaluation of wildlife Guards at Access Roads

The reconstruction of 90.6 km of U.S. Highway 93 from Evaro to Polson, MT on the Flathead Indian Reservation includes 41 fish and wildlife crossing structures and 13.4 km of road with wildlife fencing. These measures are aimed at reducing wildlife–vehicle collisions, while allowing wildlife to cross the road. In fenced road sections, gaps for side roads are mitigated by wildlife guards (similar to cattle guards). We focused on a 1-km fenced section where animals can either cross the road using five crossing structures (4 culverts, 1 bridge), or they can access the road through two guards on the east side and cross using jump-outs, i.e., earthen ramps that allow animals in fenced areas to jump down to safety, on the west side. We monitored wildlife movements with cameras at the two guards and in one large crossing structure adjacent to a guard. We investigated how effective these guards are in keeping deer (Odocoileus spp.) from accessing the road. We also compared movements across a guard to those through a crossing structure. The guards were 85 percent or more effective in keeping deer from accessing the road, and 93.5 percent of deer used the crossing structure instead of an adjacent guard when crossing the road. Though the guards were not an absolute barrier to deer, the results indicated that deer were substantially discouraged from crossing the guards, and the vast majority crossed the road using the crossing structure rather than the guard, indicating that guards are an effective means of mitigation

Coiled phononic crystal with periodic rotational locking: subwavelength bragg band gaps

Phononic crystals (PnC) are spatially periodic materials with band gaps that form by Bragg scattering of elastic waves. Within the frequency range of a band gap, wave propagation is not admitted. A long-standing limitation of this class of materials is that the wavelength for band-gap formation must be on the order of the unit-cell size. This restricts the presence of band gaps to relatively high frequencies for a given lattice spacing. Locally resonant metamaterials, on the other hand, enable the opening of low-frequency, subwavelength band gaps through resonance hybridization. However, their band gaps are characteristically narrow and require large or massive local resonators to form. Here, we break both limitations using beam-based PnCs by (1) locking the rotation degree of freedom at the edges of the primitive unit cell, and (2) coiling the PnC by applying full beam-axis rotations at the locked locations. These respective kinematic and geometric transformations convert a conventional beam PnC from its extended form with a nominal lattice constant to an extremely compact coiled configuration with a greatly reduced lattice constant. With the periodic rotational locking, the band gaps remain intact and are still large, and in fact increase noticeably in size. With the subsequent coiling, the band gaps remain based on Bragg scattering and are quantitatively conserved except now appearing at lower frequencies as dictated by the ratio of the extended-to-coiled lattice constants. This ratio defines a coiling factor, which is a measure of the reduction in the PnC unit-cell length in the direction of wave transmission while maintaining the band structure of its original extended form except for the favorable changes induced by the periodic rotational locking. A coiling factor of ß lowers, by construction, the location of the normalized central frequency of any given band gap by a factor of ß . The only limitation is the need for lateral space to accommodate the coiling of the beam segments. The vibration behavior of a finite version of the coiled structure is experimentally tested demonstrating a matching band-gap response, despite the reduction in length, to that obtained by finite-element analysis of the extended rotationally locked version. This concept creates effectively subwavelength Bragg band gaps. It clears the path for PnCs to serve in applications that are orders-of-magnitude smaller in scale than are currently possible, while featuring band gaps that are significantly larger than those generated by locally resonant metamaterials.This research is funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under grant number 20RXCOR058.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Non-perturbative dynamics of hot non-Abelian gauge fields: beyond leading log approximation

Many aspects of high-temperature gauge theories, such as the electroweak baryon number violation rate, color conductivity, and the hard gluon damping rate, have previously been understood only at leading logarithmic order (that is, neglecting effects suppressed only by an inverse logarithm of the gauge coupling). We discuss how to systematically go beyond leading logarithmic order in the analysis of physical quantities. Specifically, we extend to next-to-leading-log order (NLLO) the simple leading-log effective theory due to Bodeker that describes non-perturbative color physics in hot non-Abelian plasmas. A suitable scaling analysis is used to show that no new operators enter the effective theory at next-to-leading-log order. However, a NLLO calculation of the color conductivity is required, and we report the resulting value. Our NLLO result for the color conductivity can be trivially combined with previous numerical work by G. Moore to yield a NLLO result for the hot electroweak baryon number violation rate.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figur

The Genome Sequence of Caenorhabditis briggsae: A Platform for Comparative Genomics

The soil nematodes Caenorhabditis briggsae and Caenorhabditis elegans diverged from a common ancestor roughly 100 million years ago and yet are almost indistinguishable by eye. They have the same chromosome number and genome sizes, and they occupy the same ecological niche. To explore the basis for this striking conservation of structure and function, we have sequenced the C. briggsae genome to a high-quality draft stage and compared it to the finished C. elegans sequence. We predict approximately 19,500 protein-coding genes in the C. briggsae genome, roughly the same as in C. elegans. Of these, 12,200 have clear C. elegans orthologs, a further 6,500 have one or more clearly detectable C. elegans homologs, and approximately 800 C. briggsae genes have no detectable matches in C. elegans. Almost all of the noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) known are shared between the two species. The two genomes exhibit extensive colinearity, and the rate of divergence appears to be higher in the chromosomal arms than in the centers. Operons, a distinctive feature of C. elegans, are highly conserved in C. briggsae, with the arrangement of genes being preserved in 96% of cases. The difference in size between the C. briggsae (estimated at approximately 104 Mbp) and C. elegans (100.3 Mbp) genomes is almost entirely due to repetitive sequence, which accounts for 22.4% of the C. briggsae genome in contrast to 16.5% of the C. elegans genome. Few, if any, repeat families are shared, suggesting that most were acquired after the two species diverged or are undergoing rapid evolution. Coclustering the C. elegans and C. briggsae proteins reveals 2,169 protein families of two or more members. Most of these are shared between the two species, but some appear to be expanding or contracting, and there seem to be as many as several hundred novel C. briggsae gene families. The C. briggsae draft sequence will greatly improve the annotation of the C. elegans genome. Based on similarity to C. briggsae, we found strong evidence for 1,300 new C. elegans genes. In addition, comparisons of the two genomes will help to understand the evolutionary forces that mold nematode genomes