Weekly Highlights

NOROCK Weekly Highlights are a non-technical summary of Center activities sent to the Department of Interior (DOI) Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, DOI Public Affairs Officer, Secretary of DOI, and the White House.

February 2013

I. Regional/National/Departmental/Bureau News

Upcoming

Supervisory Biologist Rick Sojda will be presenting a poster on the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center’s collaborative project with Montana State University on adaptive management for Greater Sage-Grouse at the Montana Chapter of The Wildlife Society Annual Conference in Whitefish, Montana, the week of February 25th. Sojda is particularly interested in getting feedback on his conceptual model depicting sage grouse demographics in relation to climate change. (Rick Sojda, 406-994-1820, sojda@usgs.gov)

Current

Statistician Kathi Irvine has been invited by Bat Conservation International to participate in “A Workshop to Develop Methods for Monitoring and Modeling Bat Populations and Responses to White-nose Syndrome” to be held in Fort Collins, Colorado, February 5-7. Irvine will serve as a core team member of the workshop which is one of three meetings scheduled to work on these timely issues facing bat populations across North America. (Kathi Irvine, 406-994-7492, kirvine@usgs.gov)

II. Science Center Work on Presidential Priorities

III. Notable Congressional Activity

IV. Press/Media Inquiries

Newspapers/magazines/wires, etc.

Ecologist Greg Pederson was contacted by senior editor Kate Beaudoin of Outside Bozeman on February 11th. Beaudoin is writing a feature for the upcoming spring issue on climate change and Yellowstone National Park. Pederson discussed regional snowpack and his research on climate change in the Yellowstone area. Date of publication is unknown. (Greg Pederson, 406-994-7390, gpederson@usgs.gov)

Fisheries Biologist Robert Al-Chokhachy provided information about how climate change is impacting fishing and cutthroat trout in the Yellowstone region to senior editor Kate Beaudoin of Outside Bozeman on February 12th. Beaudoin is writing a feature for the upcoming spring issue on climate change and Yellowstone National Park. Date of publication is unknown. (Robert Al-Chokhachy, 406-994-7842, ral-chokhachy@usgs.gov)

Broadcast and Film

Upcoming News Releases

The Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center is preparing a news release highlighting a long-term ecological study published in the journal Ecology. The paper, entitled “Understanding relationships among abundance, extinction and climate at ecoregional scales”, discusses how climate appears to be affecting the abundance and density of American pika populations in the Great Basin. (Leslie Allen, 406-994-7367, laallen@usgs.gov)

Other (forum meeting, press conference, media training, etc.

V. New Products

Cross, Paul C., Damien Caillaud, Dennis M. Heisey. 2013. Underestimating the effects of spatial heterogeneity due to individual movement and spatial scale: infectious disease as an example. Landscape Ecology. doi: 10.1007/s10980-012-9830-4

Cassirer, E. F., Plowright, R. K., Manlove, K. R., Cross, P. C., Dobson, A. P., Potter, K. A., Hudson, P. J. 2013. Spatio-temporal dynamics of pneumonia in bighorn sheep. Journal of Animal Ecology. doi:10.1111/1365-2656.12031

D'Angelo, Vincent S. and Clint C. Muhlfeld. 2013. Factors Influencing the Distribution of Native Bull Trout and Westslope Cutthroat Trout in Streams of Western Glacier National Park, Montana. Northwest Science. doi:10.3955/046.087.0101

VI. Center Achievement

Biologist Adam Sepulveda received the Best Professional Paper award from the Montana Chapter of the American Fisheries Society for his talk entitled, “Highly sensitive new method for detection of New Zealand mudsnails using environmental DNA”. (Adam Sepulveda, 406-994-7975, asepulveda@usgs.gov)

VII. Current International Activity

VIII. Other

Past reports available upon request.