In populations that are distributed across steep environmental gradients, the potential for local adaptation is largely determined by the spatial scale of fitness variation relative to dispersal distance. Since altitudinal gradients are generally characterized by dramatic ecological transitions over relatively short linear distances, adaptive divergence across such gradients will typically requ...

First posted December 20, 2022 For additional information, contact: Director, Fort Collins Science CenterU.S. Geological Survey2150 Centre Ave., Bldg. CFort Collins, CO 80526-8118 This standard operating procedure (SOP) provides instructions and considerations for conducting mobile acoustic surveys along road transects to collect bat data following the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NAB...

Monitoring fish assemblages is needed to assess whether Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are meeting their conservation and fisheries management goals, as it allows one to track the progress of recovery of exploited species and associated communities. Underwater Visual Census techniques (UVC) are used to monitor fish assemblages in MPAs. UVCs should be adapted to fish abundance, body-size and beha...

Methods for improving estimation of cetacean abundance from line transect and markrecapture surveys are proposed. Using either generalized linear or generalized additive models (GLMs or GAMs), two approaches are suggested which allow heterogeneity in the spatial distribution of cetaceans to be modelled from standard line transect data. In the rst approach, the transect lines are divided into sm...

BACKGROUND Despite being one of the first documented, there is little known of the causative agent or environmental stressors that promote white-band disease (WBD), a major disease of Caribbean Acropora palmata. Likewise, there is little known about the spatiality of outbreaks. We examined the spatial patterns of WBD during a 2004 outbreak at Buck Island Reef National Monument in the US Virgin ...