Explanipedia

Quantifying the relative importance of survival threats to a long-lived reptile using expert elicitation Open

Jennifer F. Moore, J. Hardin Waddle, Fred A. Johnson, Julien Martin, Evan H. Campbell Grant , et al. · 2025

Long-term survival of a conservation-reliant species requires understanding the impact of threats on population growth rate and the management actions that can help mitigate these threats. We used a threat assessment with expert-elicited e…

Conservation Science and Practice in the Pantanal: From crisis to hope Open

Rafael Morais Chiaravalloti, Walfrido Moraes Tomás, Peter Leimgruber, Thomas S. Akre, Anthony J. Giordano · 2025

Kinosternon abaxillare Baur in Stejneger 1925 – Central Chiapas Mud Turtle, Casquito Pardo Open

Eduardo Reyes-Grajales, John B. Iverson, Andrew D. Walde, Thomas S. Akre · 2025

A Moderate Decrease in Suitability Although an Increasingly Disconnected Landscape: Assessing Distribution and Functional Connectivity for the Central Chiapas Mud Turtle Kinosternon abaxillare Open

Eduardo Reyes-Grajales, Thomas S. Akre, René Bolom‐Huet · 2025

A Moderate Decrease in Suitability Although an Increasingly Disconnected Landscape: Assessing Distribution and Functional Connectivity for the Central Chiapas Mud Turtle Kinosternon abaxillare Open

Eduardo Reyes-Grajales, Thomas S. Akre · 2025

Range extension of Kinosternon leucostomum leucostomum (Duméril & Bribon in Duméril & Duméril, 1851) (Kinosternidae) in the Central Depression of Chiapas, Mexico Open

Eduardo Reyes-Grajales, Nora P. López-León, Antonio Muñoz‐Alonso, Andrew D. Walde, Thomas S. Akre · 2024

Here, we use records between 1998 and 2024 to document the occurrence of a native population of the turtle Kinosternon leucostomum leucostomum (Duméril & Bribon in Duméril & Duméril, 1851) in the Central Depression of …

Ecosystem Service and Biodiversity Patterns Observed across Co-Developed Land Use Scenarios in the Piedmont: Lessons Learned for Scale and Framing Open

John E. Quinn, Craig Fergus, Emilia Hyland, Caroline E. Vickery, Iara Lacher , et al. · 2024

Biodiversity and ecosystem service models are frequently used to consider current conditions or recent changes in the availability of a service. The application of scenarios for biodiversity and ecosystem service assessment remains underde…

Achieving conservation through cattle ranching: The case of the Brazilian Pantanal Open

Rafael Morais Chiaravalloti, Walfrido Moraes Tomás, Thomas S. Akre, Ronaldo Gonçalves Morato, André Restel Camilo , et al. · 2023

Cattle ranching in the ~140,000 km 2 Brazilian Pantanal is considered one of the most important cases of sustainable use of natural resources in the global south. The region has had a successful history of balancing environmental protectio…

Co-benefits of marine protected areas for nature and people Open

A. Justin Nowakowski, Steven W. J. Canty, Nathan Bennett, Courtney Cox, Abel Valdivia , et al. · 2023

Modeling alternative future scenarios for direct application in land use and conservation planning Open

Iara Lacher, Craig Fergus, William J. McShea, Joshua Plisinski, Luca L. Morreale , et al. · 2023

Land use is one of the largest threats to biodiversity, ecosystem function, and ecosystem services. These losses can be mitigated through strategic land use planning efforts that balance the social, economic, and environmental needs of soc…

Living along unfenced, moderately trafficked roads on the Nevada National Security Site Open

Jeanette Perry, Derek Hall, W. Kent Ostler, Jonathan Drescher-Lehma, Thomas S. Akre · 2023

Living Along Unfenced, Moderately Trafficked Roads on the Nevada National Security Site, a Mojave Desert (Gopherus agassizii) Road Study Open

Jeanette A. Perry, Derek B. Hall, W. Kent Ostler, Jonathan Drescher‐Lehman, Thomas S. Akre · 2023

Is the future female for turtles? Climate change and wetland configuration predict sex ratios of a freshwater species Open

H. Patrick Roberts, Lisabeth L. Willey, Michael T. Jones, Thomas S. Akre, David I. King , et al. · 2023

Climate change and land‐use change are leading drivers of biodiversity decline, affecting demographic parameters that are important for population persistence. For example, scientists have speculated for decades that climate change may ske…

Clarifying space use concepts in ecology: range vs. occurrence distributions Open

Jesse M. Alston, Christen H. Fleming, Michael Noonan, Marlee A. Tucker, Inês Silva , et al. · 2022

Quantifying animal movements is necessary for answering a wide array of research questions in ecology and conservation biology. Consequently, ecologists have made considerable efforts to identify the best way to estimate an animal’s home r…

Social science for conservation in working landscapes and seascapes Open

Nathan Bennett, Molly Dodge, Thomas S. Akre, Steven W. J. Canty, Rafael Morais Chiaravalloti , et al. · 2022

Biodiversity is in precipitous decline globally across both terrestrial and marine environments. Therefore, conservation actions are needed everywhere on Earth, including in the biodiversity rich landscapes and seascapes where people live …

Mapping a conservation research network to the Sustainable Development Goals Open

Steven W. J. Canty, A. Justin Nowakowski, Grant M. Connette, Jessica L. Deichmann, Melissa Songer , et al. · 2022

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a global blueprint to end extreme poverty, reduce inequality, and protect the planet. Progress toward these goals is falling short. Achieving the SDGs requires coordination am…

The Potential of Bison Restoration as an Ecological Approach to Future Tribal Food Sovereignty on the Northern Great Plains Open

Hila Shamon, Olivia G. Cosby, Chamois L. Andersen, Helen Augare, Jonny BearCub Stiffarm , et al. · 2022

Future climate projections of warming, drying, and increased weather variability indicate that conventional agricultural and production practices within the Northern Great Plains (NGP) will become less sustainable, both ecologically and ec…

Large-scale collaboration reveals landscape-level effects of land-use on turtle demography Open

H. Patrick Roberts, Michael T. Jones, Lisabeth L. Willey, Thomas S. Akre, Paul R. Sievert , et al. · 2021

Freshwater turtles and tortoises are declining worldwide and currently represent one of the most imperiled major vertebrate groups. Identifying the conditions that promote long-term viable populations is a critical conservation need. Howev…

A comprehensive framework for handling location error in animal tracking data Open

Christen H. Fleming, Jonathan Drescher‐Lehman, Michael Noonan, Thomas S. Akre, Donald J. Brown , et al. · 2020

Animal tracking data are being collected more frequently, in greater detail, and on smaller taxa than ever before. These data hold the promise to increase the relevance of animal movement for understanding ecological processes, but this po…

Scale-insensitive estimation of speed and distance traveled from animal tracking data Open

Michael Noonan, Christen H. Fleming, Thomas S. Akre, Jonathan Drescher‐Lehman, Eliezer Gurarie , et al. · 2019

Background Speed and distance traveled provide quantifiable links between behavior and energetics, and are among the metrics most routinely estimated from animal tracking data. Researchers typically sum over the straight-line displacements…

Projecting Mammal Distributions in Response to Future Alternative Landscapes in a Rapidly Transitioning Region Open

Michael V. Cove, Craig Fergus, Iara Lacher, Thomas S. Akre, William J. McShea · 2019

Finding balance between the needs of people and wildlife is an essential component of planning sustainable landscapes. Because mammals make up a diverse and ecologically important taxon with varying responses to human disturbance, we used …

Effects of grassland management on overwintering bird communities Open

Amy E. M. Johnson, T. Scott Sillett, David Luther, Valentine Herrmann, Thomas S. Akre , et al. · 2019

Birds that depend on grassland and successional‐scrub vegetation communities are experiencing a greater decline than any other avian assemblage in North America. Habitat loss and degradation on breeding and wintering grounds are among the …

Concurrent visual encounter sampling validates eDNA selectivity and sensitivity for the endangered wood turtle (Glyptemys insculpta) Open

Thomas S. Akre, Lillian D. Parker, Ellery Ruther, Jesús E. Maldonado, Lorien Lemmon , et al. · 2019

Environmental DNA (eDNA) has been used to record the presence of many different organisms in several different aquatic and terrestrial environments. Although eDNA has been demonstrated as a useful tool for the detection of invasive and/or …

Stakeholder-informed scenarios to investigate the impact of land use/land change on nutrients, sediment and runoff in the Shenandoah National Park, Virginia Open

Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf, Iara Lacher, Craig Fergus, Brian Leslie Benham, Karen Kline , et al. · 2018

Land use/land cover (LULC) change could adversely affect watershed health by elevating nutrients and sediment levels and intensifying the risk of flooding. In this study, a spatially-explicit LULC change modeling framework was coupled with…

A comprehensive analysis of autocorrelation and bias in home range estimation Open

Michael Noonan, Marlee A. Tucker, Christen H. Fleming, Thomas S. Akre, Susan C. Alberts , et al. · 2018

Home range estimation is routine practice in ecological research. While advances in animal tracking technology have increased our capacity to collect data to support home range analysis, these same advances have also resulted in increasing…

Time and environment explain the current richness distribution of non‐marine turtles worldwide Open

João Fabrício Mota Rodrigues, Miguel Á. Olalla‐Tárraga, John B. Iverson, Thomas S. Akre, José Alexandre Felizola Diniz‐Filho · 2016

Ecological, historical, and evolutionary hypotheses are important to explain geographical diversity gradients in many clades, but few studies have combined them into a single analysis allowing a comparison of their relative importance. Thi…

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