Michael A. Schroeder's research while affiliated with Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife and other places

... We filtered a range-wide, standardized sage-grouse lek count database O'Donnell et al., 2021) to maximize detection probabilities and minimize observation errors. A state-space model (SSM) was fit to the filtered database using Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques implemented in JAGS (Plummer, 2003) and the statistical programming language and software package R (R Core Team, 2019). ...

... Greater Sage-grouse, a species of conservation concern (Coates, Prochazka, et al., 2021;Knick & Connelly, 2011), are herbivorous as adults and forage nearly exclusively on various species of sagebrush (Artemesia spp.) during fall and winter (Remington & Braun, 1985). Sagebrush in winter has not been thought to be a limiting resource for sage-grouse because of high overwinter survival (Blomberg, Gibson, et al., 2013;Connelly et al., 2011). Recent work, showing variation across habitats in the use of endogenous nutrients to produce eggs, suggests a role for winter foods (i.e., sagebrush) in regulating reproductive effort (Cutting et al., 2021). ...

... Atypical primary replacement or retention, defined as any deviation from the typical primary molt patterns described above (excluding adventitious molt), can create confusing and sometimes contradictory plumages that lead to uncertainty or errors in age classification. Three previous studies have suggested that atypical primary molt occurs in greater sage-grouse (Pyle 2008, Braun and Schroeder 2015, Braun et al. 2020). However, evidence presented for atypical primary retention during definitive prebasic molt in those studies could instead be explained by other phenomena, such as temporary suspension of prebasic molt or atypical replacement through P10 during preformative molt (Braun et al. 2020). ...

... Regulated hunting seasons for sage-grouse started in the 1870s for some states with Montana starting in 1870, Colorado in 1877, Idaho in 1900, Wyoming in 1902, Oregon in 1903, and Washington in 1933 [35,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54]. Sage-grouse were commercially harvested in the late-1800s but transitioned to sport hunting as state management agencies implemented hunting regulations. ...

... During the last century, all species of the North American prairie-grouse (genus Tympanuchus) and sage-grouse (genus Centrocercus) have undergone substantial range contraction (Connelly et al. 2020, Hagen and Giesen 2020, Johnson et al. 2020. As lekking grouse decline worldwide (Storch 2007), active population restoration techniques like translocation (Griffith et al. 1989) become important tools in combating the negative paradigms of small or declining populations (Caughley 1994). ...

... In years with more fall and winter precipitation, evidence suggests sage-grouse lay larger clutches (Blomberg et al., 2014). Chick survival may also be higher in years with more cumulative winter precipitation because the herbaceous understory responds positively to more moisture, and sagegrouse rely on grasses and forbs for energetic demands as well as for cover (Gibson et al., 2017;Wann et al., 2020). We suggest that, as a result of the relative lack of attention to this vital rate, the role of pre-fledging survival in population dynamics and individual fitness has been under-appreciated in sage-grouse (Dahlgren et al., 2016;Taylor et al., 2012) and other species with precocial young (Acevedo et al., 2020;Cooch et al., 2001). ...

... We also evaluated the ability of the resistance surface created from our top ranked model to give rise to the observed data. We simulated genetic data from resistance surfaces created from the top ranked modelled relationship and an undifferentiated surface (isolation by distance or null hypothesis) for both the rangewide and Gunnison Basin extents using the PopGenReport R package (Adamack & Gruber, 2014) alleles per locus (median alleles per locus in observed data), four offspring per reproductive event (based on the product of average clutch = 8 [Young et al., 2020], average hatchability = 82.5% [Young et al., 2020], average nest success = 46.7% [Davis, 2012;Stanley et al., 2019;Young et al., 1994] and rounded up to the nearest whole number), 0.01 as the percentage of individuals moving the maximum dispersal distance (proportion moved > the 99th percentile of all max distances in Aldridge et al., 2012), an empirical estimate of migrants per year (Wilson & Rannala, 2003), and simulated data for 1000 and 500 years for the rangewide and Gunnison Basin extents respectively. ...

... Sage-grouse are the largest grouse in North America and inhabit vast shrub-steppe ecosystems dominated by sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) (Schroeder et al., 2020). Since European occupation of the American West, sage-grouse distribution has been reduced to roughly half its former range . ...

... Additionally, clutch size can be smaller for greater prairiechickens during early and warm springs suggesting that external environmental cues may be related to nest initiation (Londe et al. 2021b). If the initial clutch is lost during laying or early in incubation, females will often renest, and clutch sizes of renests are typically smaller than initial nests (Hagen and Giesen 2005;Johnson et al. 2020). The probability of renesting declines as the nesting season progresses (Pitman et al. 2006a;McNew et al. 2011a). ...

... Biological soil crusts or "biocrusts," communities of moss, lichens, and soil microorganisms on the soil surface, are prominent in dryland rangelands such as North American cold desert sagebrush steppe ecosystem . The sagebrush steppe ecosystem is currently under threat from invasive annual grasses and associated increases in fire frequency ( Knick et al. 2003 ). Biocrust communities may be useful indicators for preventing rangeland degradation in this imperiled system due to their links to various ecosystem functions ( Read et al. 2014 ;Mallen-Cooper et al. 2020 ), particularly soil stability and erosion control ( Duniway et al. 2018 ;Fick et al. 2020 ). ...