Bradley Cosentino

Hobart and William Smith Colleges · Department of Biology

Urbanization is the dominant trend of global land use change. The replicated nature of environmental change associated with urbanization should drive parallel evolution, yet insight into the repeatability of evolutionary processes in urban areas has been limited by a lack of multi-city studies. Here we leverage community science data on coat color...

Phenotypic differences between urban and rural populations are well-documented, but the evolutionary processes driving trait variation along urbanization gradients are often unclear. We combined spatial data on abundance, trait variation, and meas- urements of fitness to understand cline structure and test for natural selection on heritable coat co...

Sexual and asexual organisms often vary in their distribution and abundances among habitats. These patterns of “geographical parthenogenesis” can shed light on ecological conditions underlying the evolution of sex. Habitat disturbance is hypothesized to be a mechanism that generates geographical parthenogenesis. Parthenogens are predicted to be mor...

Context Landscape modification is an important driver of biodiversity declines, yet we lack insight into how ongoing landscape change and legacies of historical land use together shape biodiversity. Objectives We examined how a history of agricultural land use and current forest fragmentation influence the abundance of red-backed salamanders (Pl...

Islands are hotspots of biological and cultural diversity that face growing threats from invasive species and climate change. Invasive mammal eradication on islands is a proven conservation intervention that prevents biodiversity loss and is a foundational activity for restoring degraded island-ocean ecosystems. However, these interventions are pri...

Salamanders serve as bioindicators of mercury (Hg) in both terrestrial and aquatic habitats and are an important link in the food web between low‐trophic prey and higher‐trophic predators. We investigated the drivers of methylmercury (MeHg) exposure in three common plethodontid salamander species in New York State, USA, including comparisons among...

Range contraction and expansion from glaciation has led to genetic divergence that may be particularly pronounced in fossorial species with low dispersal. The plains pocket gopher (Geomys bursarius) is a fossorial species that ranges widely across North America but has a poorly understood phylogeny. We used mitogenomes (14,996 base pairs) from 56 i...

Context Understanding genetic structure at multiple spatial scales and identifying drivers of genetic isolation are important for developing comprehensive conservation plans including for grassland conservation efforts. However, few studies account for multiple genetic isolation processes nor partition genetic variance among these processes. Objec...

Animal personality should be highly relevant to recovery of species following habitat restoration, but empirical evaluations remain scarce. In the Chihuahuan Desert of the southwestern United States and globally, grasslands are threatened with shrub encroachment, prompting landscape-scale restoration efforts to remove shrubs and improve habitat for...

Phenotypic differences between urban and rural populations are well-documented, but the evolutionary processes driving trait variation along urbanization gradients are often unclear. We combined spatial data on abundance, trait variation, and measurements of fitness to understand cline structure and test for natural selection on heritable coat colo...

Habitat loss and fragmentation from conversion to agriculture are known threats to grassland species. However, continued agricultural intensification may further reduce a species distribution and realized niche. Here, we create species distribution models (SDMs) for the plains pocket gopher (Geomys bursarius), an ecosystem engineer in grasslands, f...

Pilot data collected by two great undergrads to help us characterize the melanism cline in urban Eastern Gray Squirrels in Syracuse, NY. We plan to expand upon and replicate this work in multiple cities across the Northeastern US. Let us know if you would like to partner up!

Urbanization is the dominant trend of global land use change. The replicated nature of environmental change associated with urbanization should drive parallel evolution, yet insight into the repeatability of evolutionary processes in urban areas has been limited by a lack of multi-city studies. Here we leverage community science data on coat color...

Questions: With calls for afforestation to sequester carbon due to climate change, agricultural land will be converted to forests in the near future. Little is known about how the ecosystem services of reforested landscapes with an agricultural land‐use history will differ from reference forests. Our objectives were to (i) test the hypothesis that...

Shrub encroachment is transforming arid and semiarid grasslands worldwide. Such transitions should influence predator-prey interactions because vegetation cover often affects risk perception by prey and contributes to their landscape of fear. We examined how the landscape of fear of two desert lago-morphs (black-tailed jackrabbit, Lepus californicu...

Collisions with buildings cause up to 1 billion bird fatalities annually in the United States and Canada. However, efforts to reduce collisions would benefit from studies conducted at large spatial scales across multiple study sites with standardized methods and consideration of species‐ and life‐history‐related variation and correlates of collisio...

Urbanization dramatically reduces levels of regional biodiversity, yet urban environments can serve as refuges for biodiversity because some biological stressors are more prevalent outside cities than inside. We evaluated whether urbanization can promote rare genotypes, focusing on gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis), which have genetically based...

Citizen science holds great promise for collecting useful environmental data over large spatial scales. However, statistical issues that arise in the analysis of citizen science data may be relatively unfamiliar to scientists accustomed to data collected with traditional research methods. In particular, citizen science projects are often designed w...

The faculty workshop model has long been used for disseminating innovative methods in STEM education. Despite significant investments by researchers and funding agencies, there is a dearth of evidence regarding downstream impacts of faculty development. CREATE is an evidence-based strategy for teaching science using primary literature. In this stud...

Landscape‐scale alterations that accompany urbanization may negatively affect the population structure of wildlife species such as freshwater turtles. Changes to nesting sites and higher mortality rates due to vehicular collisions and increased predator populations may particularly affect immature turtles and mature female turtles. We hypothesized...

Wetlands provide habitat for a diverse array of aquatic and semiaquatic species, many of which provide direct economic and recreational value. Despite the ecosystem services provided by wetland fauna and flora, historical wetland loss has been dramatic. Wetland loss was >50% in the USA and 60-70% in Europe by the 1980s, with most losses resulting f...

For species inhabiting naturally patchy or fragmented landscapes, conservation often is guided by metapopulation theory. A metapopulation is a set of spatially separated populations connected by movement of individuals among populations. The metapopulation can persist, despite extinctions of local populations, if populations are connected enough to...

For species inhabiting naturally patchy or fragmented landscapes, conservation often is guided by metapopulation theory. A metapopulation is a set of spatially separated populations connected by movement of individuals among populations. The metapopulation can persist, despite extinctions of local populations, if populations are connected enough to...

Wetlands provide habitat for a diverse array of aquatic and semiaquatic species, many of which provide direct economic and recreational value. Despite the ecosystem services provided by wetland fauna and flora, historical wetland loss has been dramatic. Wetland loss was >50 % in the USA and 60–70 % in Europe by the 1980s, with most losses resulting...

Striped and unstriped colour morphs of the eastern red-backed salamander, Plethodon cinereus, vary in their preattack behavioural response to predators, but it is unknown whether the morphs vary in post-Attack strategies. Both morphs employ tail autotomy, a post-Attack defensive mechanism enabling an individual to release a portion of their tail to...

Characteristics of buildings and land cover surrounding buildings influence the number of bird-window collisions, yet little is known about whether bird-window collisions are associated with urbanization at large spatial scales. We initiated a continent-wide study in North America to assess how bird-window collision mortality is influenced by build...

Evolutionary change has been demonstrated to occur rapidly in human-modified systems , yet understanding how multiple components of global change interact to affect adaptive evolution remains a critical knowledge gap. Climate change is predicted to impose directional selection on traits to reduce thermal stress, but the strength of directional sele...

Landscape modification (loss, fragmentation and degradation of habitat) is a universal form of human-induced rapid environmental change that creates strong spatial variation in environmental conditions. Behaviourally mediated responses to landscape modification may generate behavioural divergence among populations along environmental gradients. We...

Aim Understanding the scales over which land use affects animal populations is critical for conservation planning, and it can provide information about the mechanisms that underlie correlations between species distributions and land use. We used a citizen science database of anuran surveys to examine the relationship between road density, land use...

Genetic founder effects are often expected when animals colonize restored habitat in fragmented landscapes, but empirical data on genetic responses to restoration are limited. We examined the genetic response of banner-tailed kangaroo rats (Dipodomys spectabilis) to landscape-scale grassland restoration in the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico, USA....

Background/Question/Methods Bird-window collisions (BWCs) are an important human-related threat to bird survival in developed landscapes. BWCs are thought to be affected by building structural features and land use at local and landscape scales, but we know little about whether the drivers of BWCs are consistent among urban areas. In 2013, the ER...

Background/Question/Methods Restoration of habitats that minimize dispersal costs could be essential for supporting population connectivity and the recovery of wildlife species. In the Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico, grasslands have been replaced with shrubs due to overgrazing, drought, and lack of fire. We tested the hypothesis that la...

Collisions with building windows are thought to be a significant source of mortality for urban birds. Past studies on bird-window collisions have used a variety of survey methods to estimate the magnitude of mortality, and few have constructed methods in light of the biases related to scavengers and worker abilities that lead to imperfect detection...

Collisions with building windows are thought to be a significant source of mortality for urban birds. Past studies on bird-window collisions have used a variety of survey methods to estimate the magnitude of mortality, and few have constructed methods in light of the biases related to scavengers and worker abilities that lead to imperfect detection...

Habitat restoration is typically focused on reestablishing suitable conditions at a local scale, but landscape constraints may be important for keystone species with limited dispersal. We tested for time lags and examined the relative importance of local and landscape constraints on the response of the banner-tailed kangaroo rat (Dipodomys spectabi...

Background/Question/Methods Habitat loss and fragmentation represent significant threats to amphibians. Fragmentation is particularly harmful because many amphibians migrate between aquatic and terrestrial habitats, and even narrow bands of unsuitable habitat can act as barriers to movement. Additionally, amphibians are slow-moving and prone to r...

Many grasslands in the Chihuahuan Desert have transformed to shrublands dominated by creosotebush (Larrea tridentata). Grassland restoration efforts have been directed at controlling creosotebush by applying herbicide over large spatial scales. However, we have a limited understanding of how landscape-scale restoration affects biodiversity. We exam...

Collisions with windows are an important human-related threat to birds in urban landscapes. However, the proximate drivers of collisions are not well understood, and no study has examined spatial variation in mortality in an urban setting. We hypothesized that the number of fatalities at buildings varies with window area and habitat features that i...

List of study buildings, land cover categories, window area, development, presence of feeder stations, and number of carcasses documented and predicted in Illinois, USA, 2010. (PDF)

Relationship between carcass observability and mean (±1 SE) detection probability of carcasses for two field workers at 20 buildings. (PDF)

Analysis of detection probability. (PDF)

Most-supported models of carcass detection probability at 20 buildings in an urban landscape in Illinois, USA, 2010. (PDF)

Seasonal sampling structure that corresponded to migration strategy and timing of breeding in Illinois, USA, 2010. (PDF)

Maximum number of individuals observed for each species during point count surveys and total carcasses (shaded and in parentheses) resulting from window collisions at each study building and season in Illinois, USA, 2010. (PDF)

We evaluated time-lapse cameras aimed at man-made basking rafts (camera traps) by estimating probabilities of occupancy and detection for Trachemys scripta and Chrysemys picta at 15 isolated ponds or wetlands in three regions of Illinois. Evaluation of camera traps relied on comparisons with hoop nets and published accounts of relative abundances o...

Background/Question/Methods Over the last century, many grasslands in the Chihuahuan Desert have converted to shrublands dominated by creosotebush (Larrea tridentata). The loss and spatial isolation of perennial grasslands has led to declines of grassland-dependent wildlife species. Grassland restoration efforts have been dominated by the applica...

Collisions with windows remain an important human-related threat to bird survival in urban landscapes. Accurately estimating the magnitude of avian mortality at windows is difficult and may be influenced by many sources of error, such as scavenging of carcasses. Failure to account for removal of carcasses by scavengers can bias estimates of window...

In stream organisms, the landscape affecting intraspecific genetic and phenotypic divergence is comprised of two fundamental components: the stream network and terrestrial matrix. These components are known to differentially influence genetic structure in stream species, but to our knowledge, no study has compared their effects on genetic and pheno...

Theory predicts that founder effects have a primary role in determining metapopulation genetic structure. However, ecological factors that affect extinction-colonization dynamics may also create spatial variation in the strength of genetic drift and migration. We tested the hypothesis that ecological factors underlying extinction-colonization dynam...

Background/Question/Methods In metapopulations with demographic turnover, theory predicts that founder effects have an important role in determining spatial genetic structure. However, among-patch heterogeneity in ecological factors (e.g., area, isolation, habitat quality) that affect extinction and colonization probabilities may also create spat...

In predator-prey metapopulations, persistence of prey in patches with predators may depend on the rescue effect in which immigration from nearby sources prevents local extinction. Thus, constraints on spatial connectivity may have important implications for predator-prey ...

Knowledge of how habitat heterogeneity affects dispersal is critical for conserving connectivity in current and changing landscapes. However, we generally lack an understanding of how dispersal costs and animal movements vary among crops characteristic of agroecosystems. We hypothesized that a physiological constraint, desiccation risk, influences...

Habitat area and isolation have been useful predictors of species occupancy and turnover in highly fragmented systems. However, habitat quality also can influence occupancy dynamics, especially in patchy systems where habitat selection can be as important as stochastic demographic processes. We studied the spatial population dynamics of Chrysemys p...

and of the northern in four New Hampshire headwater streams Bradley J. , Winsor H. Lowe and Gene E. Likens

To better understand the evolutionary and ecological effects of dispersal, there is growing emphasis on the need to integrate direct data on movement behaviour into landscape-scale analyses. However, little is known about the general link between movement behaviour and large-scale patterns of dispersal and gene flow. Likewise, although recent studi...

1. When movement behaviour is correlated with traits affecting fitness, it may affect population performance directly, independent of extrinsic habitat conditions. 2. In a previous 3-year, capture–recapture study, upstream movement by the salamander Gyrinophilus porphyriticus compensated for low reproduction in the upper 500 m of Merrill Brook, a f...

... EJ750244 - An Identification Key to Rodent Prey in Owl Pellets from the Northwestern and Southeastern United States : Employing Incisor Size to Distinguish among Genera . ...

Keywords: amphibian, , Gyrinophilus porphyriticus, headwater streams, population biology of theory on how popu- lation dynamics and may be