George C. Brooks

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Verified

George verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD
• Research Associate at University of Wisconsin–Madison

Vertebrate life histories evolve in response to selection imposed by abiotic and biotic environmental conditions while being limited by genetic, developmental, physiological, demographic and phylogenetic processes that constrain adaptation. Despite the well-recognized shifts in selective pressures accompanying transitions among environments, the co...

The Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) is considered a keystone species because its burrows provide refuge for an entire suite of other species (hereafter burrow associates) that occupy the habitats in which it resides. The Gopher Tortoise has declined across its range in large part due to habitat loss and land use change resulting in burrow aba...

The objective was to assess the impact of environmental complexity on affective state (anxiety) in fast- and slow-growing broilers (Gallus gallus domesticus) as they gain weight. Six hundred fast-growing broilers (Ross 708; “fast-growers”) and 600 slow-growing broilers (Hubbard Redbro Mini; “slow-growers”) were raised in 24 pens with simple (standa...

The endangered bog turtle ( Glyptemys muhlenbergii ) exemplifies issues related to rare species conservation; presence surveys have low detection and variables used in habitat models can lack relevance to established biological relationships of the species to its environment. The species' use of groundwater saturated soils and stream networks as co...

The objective was to assess the impact of environmental complexity on affective state (anxiety) in fast- and slow-growing broilers ( Gallus gallus domesticus ) as they gain weight. Six hundred fast-growing broilers (Ross 708; “fast-growers”) and 600 slow-growing broilers (Hubbard Redbro Mini; “slow-growers”) were raised in 24 pens with simple (stan...

Detecting declines and quantifying extinction risk of long‐lived, highly fecund vertebrates, including fishes, reptiles, and amphibians, can be challenging. In addition to the false notion that large clutches always buffer against population declines, the imperiled status of long‐lived species can often be masked by extinction debt, wherein adults...

The evolution of vertebrate life histories has been fuelled by key transitions among water and land. Life history diversity evolves according to the interplay of predation on juveniles and adults, the physical properties of the environment, and the developmental context of each lineage. The selection pressures of each environment dictate which life...

Modeling population dynamics in response to various threats or potential management actions has become an increasingly common aspect of conservation programs for imperiled species. However, these models typically require a detailed understanding of various demographic processes that are often challenging to quantitatively assess. We combined data f...

Population viability analyses (PVAs) represent a key component of many recovery plans for threatened and endangered species. Demography links the processes that affect individuals to population‐level patterns, and hence projections constructed from demographic data are the most common tools for PVAs. We constructed a size‐structured integral projec...

Detecting declines and quantifying extinction risk of long-lived, highly fecund vertebrates including fishes, reptiles, and amphibians, can be challenging. In addition to the false notion that large clutches always buffer against population declines, the imperiled status of long-lived species can often be masked by extinction debt, wherein adults p...

Virtually all natural community assemblages are dominated by a handful of common species. Dominant species can exert negative impacts on biodiversity through competitive exclusion, and thus there is a strong incentive to understand imbalances in community composition, changes in dominance hierarchies through time, and mechanisms of coexistence. Pon...

Amphibians breeding in ephemeral wetlands within pine-dominated (Pinus spp.) natural communities are less likely to persist in wetlands that have developed high canopy cover and low herbaceous groundcover in the absence of regular plant growing-season wildfires. The reintroduction of historic fire regimes, in conjunction with mechanical or herbicid...

Ephemeral wetlands are globally important systems that are regulated by regular cycles of wetting and drying, which are primarily controlled by responses to relatively short-term weather events ( e.g. , precipitation and evapotranspiration). Climate change is predicted to have significant effects on many ephemeral wetland systems and the organisms...

The objective was to evaluate the impacts of a complex environment and stocking density on Ross 708 broiler chicken behaviors. Eight pens contained either high complexity (HC) or low complexity (LC) environments, and high (HD) or low (LD) density. Through focal-animal sampling, the frequency and duration of behaviors were recorded continuously for...

The field of conservation has seen a shift in focus from monitoring trends in census population size to trends in ‘effective’ population size. Numerous genetic methods exist for estimating effective population size, resulting in uncertainty among conservation practitioners as to which methods are most appropriate when conducting population assessme...

Data on ecology, life histories, behaviour and body sizes of birds are summarised. We aimed for extracting data separately for males and females, whenever possible. If several data points were available for a given species, we included the ones that were extracted from breeding individuals, or had larger sample sizes. We hope this datafile - the re...

Understanding how natural selection determines species’ life histories can reveal their resilience or sensitivity to anthropogenic changes. For example, the safe harbor hypothesis posits that natural selection will favor life histories that maximize the time spent in the safest life stages; a second theoretical prediction suggests that species with...

Local extinction and undetected presence are two very different biological phenomena, but they can be challenging to differentiate. Stochastic environments hamper the development of standardized monitoring schemes for wildlife, and make it more challenging to plan and evaluate the success of conservation efforts. To avoid reintroductions of species...

Individual growth rates are intrinsically related to survival and lifetime reproductive success and hence, are key determinants of population growth. Efforts to quantify age-size relationships are hampered by difficulties in aging individuals in wild populations. In addition, species with complex life-histories often show distinct shifts in growth...

We present a joint effort at Virginia Tech between a research group in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and Data Services in the University Libraries to improve data management for long-term ecological field research projects in the Florida Panhandle. Consultative research data management support from Data Services in the University...

In conservation science, metapopulation models are frequently used to explore the spatial dynamics of organisms, and ultimately guide management decisions for threatened and endangered species. Pond‐breeding amphibians are often touted as a classic example of metapopulation structure. However, empirical assessment of this assumption is lacking for...

The prevalence of studies that discern the drivers of animal migrations is increasing exponentially, in line with raised concerns over climate-driven shifts in phenological patterns. Amphibians that breed in ephemeral wetlands are particularly vulnerable owing to the stochastic nature of their breeding habitat and high survival and reproductive cos...

USA: ALABAMA: Covington Co.: County Rd. 24 (31.10239°N, 86.43944°W; WGS 84). 17 July 2012. J. Newman, G. Brooks, and C. Thawley. Verified by David Laurencio. AUM AHAP-D 597 (digital photograph file). New county record (Mount 1975. The Reptiles and Amphibians of Alabama. Auburn Printing Co., Auburn, Alabama. 270 pp.). Funding for this research was p...