Salt, primarily NaCl, is commonly used to de‐ice winter roads. The usage of road salt is steadily increasing as the area of urbanised land expands, and chloride concentrations in many lakes and flowing waters near roads have been steadily increasing...
Biparental care presents an interesting case of cooperation and conflict between unrelated individuals. Several models have been proposed to explain how parents should respond to changes in each other’s parental care to maximize their own fitness, predicting no change, partial...
Testing the full impact of neighbourhood crowding within natural vegetation requires more than just effects incurred by established plants. It must also include measurements that take into account suppressive effects on the earliest plant life stages of resident individuals —...
Behavioral responses to alarm cues in aquatic species are typically examined with emphasis on the potential survival benefits accrued by conspecific receivers. By contrast, heterospecific responses to alarm cues and changes in responses with ontogeny in fishes are relatively unexplored...
Phenology match–mismatch usually refers to the extent of an organism's ability to match reproduction with peaks in food availability, but when mismatch occurs, it may indicate a response to another selective pressure. We assess the value of matching reproductive timing...
Avian aerial insectivores, a taxonomically diverse guild of birds, are facing dire population declines. The primary commonality among these birds is that they forage on flying insects, suggesting that diet has exposed these birds to environmental challenges that cause their...
Variation in immune gene sequences is known to influence resistance to infectious diseases and parasites, and hence survival and mate choice, across animal taxa. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) comprise one essential gene family in the vertebrate innate immune system...
Identifying the mechanisms of ecological change is challenging in the absence of long-term data, but stable isotope ratios of museum specimen tissues may provide a record of diet and habitat change through time. Aerial insectivores are experiencing the steepest population...
Mate choice experiments are essential to further our understanding of sexual selection, but can be challenging to design and conduct with most wild animals. 3D printing technology is creating opportunities to conduct mate choice experiments in the field by facilitating...
Although locomotor performance and behaviour are closely linked to survival in many wild animals, our understanding of the potentially important co-adaptations between locomotor performance and behaviour is still limited. Our objective was to quantify the among-individual correlation (rind...
Recent technological advancements in next generation sequencing techniques, enabling the use of thousands of genetic markers across an individual’s genome, and continued improvements to the spatial resolution and information content of remote sensing data, present a unique opportunity to investigate...
Chronic, low‐intensity parasite infections can reduce host fitness through negative impacts on reproduction and survival, even if they produce few overt symptoms. As a result, these parasites can influence the evolution of host morphology, behaviour and physiology. The physiological consequences...
Understanding the trade-offs that affect potentially adaptive traits is fundamental to our understanding of evolutionary diversification and speciation. Heterogeneous landscapes may lead to spatial variation in such traits among populations as they may experience different selective pressures. In this study...
The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) plays a key role in vertebrate immunity, and pathogen-mediated selection often favours certain allelic combinations. Assessing potential mates' MHC profiles may provide receivers with genetic benefits (identifying MHC-compatible mates and producing optimally diverse offspring) and/or...
Fish are commonly sedated to render them immobile and thus easier to handle for research, veterinary, and aquaculture practices. Since sedation itself imposes a significant challenge on the targeted fish, the selection of sedation methods that minimize physiological and behavioral...
After a fish snaps an angler’s line, the hook(s) still embedded in its mouth, the question arises: what will the encounter cost the fish? The consequences of retained gear on the physiology and behaviour of fish is not well understood. This...
Paternal care, where the male provides sole care for the developing brood, is a common form of reproductive investment among teleost fish and ubiquitous in the Centrarchidae family. Throughout the parental care period, nesting males expend energy in a variety...
The spatial structure of populations determines the relative importance of reproduction, survival and movement on population dynamics. However, the mechanisms by which local individuals and immigrants interact and the subsequent effects of immigrants on productivity are poorly known. We developed...
The increasing popularity of catch-and-release angling indicates a need to identify best practices that minimize sublethal injuries, impairments, and mortality. One factor impacting the viability of catch and release is the risk of hooking injury, which can impact survival in...
Many species form social groups with dominance hierarchies. Often, individuals possess a status signal that indicates dominance rank. Songbirds produce songs that are used to attract mates or repel rivals, and acoustic features within songs can also indicate an individual's...
Basking is the primary mechanism used by many freshwater turtles to maintain their body temperature (Tb) in a range that maximizes physiological performance. Basking turtles are easily disturbed by motorboats, but the consequences of the increasingly popular...
While the use of aquatic protected areas that exclude angling might be considered an evolutionarily enlightened management approach to dealing with fisheries‐induced evolution (FIE), there is little empirical data on the effectiveness of this approach at maintaining the diversity of...
Selectively removing fish based on particular traits, such as body size, may shift trait abundance in the remaining population, resulting in a phenomenon called fisheries-induced evolution. Recently, there is growing interest in evaluating the effects of fisheries-induced evolution on fish...
Electric fish handling gloves (FHGs) have been developed to immobilize fish during handling, with the potential benefit of reducing the time needed for sedation and recovery of fish relative to chemical anaesthetics. We examined the secondary stress responses (i.e., hematocrit...
The dear enemy effect arises when territorial animals respond more intensely to unfamiliar strangers than to familiar neighbours. This widespread behavioural phenomenon occurs because strangers represent a threat to both an animal's territory and parentage whereas neighbours represent a threat only...
The detection and monitoring of surface water and its extent are critical for understanding floodwater hazards. Flooding and undermining caused by surface water flow can result in damage to critical infrastructure and changes in ecosystems. Along major transportation corridors, such...
Populations of many aerially insectivorous birds are declining, yet conservation efforts remain focused on habitat due to an absence of data on changes in prey availability. We evaluate the potential for prey and habitat availability at multiple spatial scales to...
Context: Identifying key spatio–temporal periods of an organism’s activity is an important focus of many ecological studies. Bat activity, as assessed by passive acoustic monitoring, can be extremely variable and currently there exists no agreed-upon method for identifying periods of...
A central tenet of ecoimmunology is that an organism's environment shapes its optimal investment in immunity. For example, the benefits of acquired (relatively pathogen specific) versus innate (nonspecific) immune defenses are thought to vary with the risk of encountering familiar...
The United Nations’ (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development defines the formidable challenge of integrating historically separate economic, social, and environmental goals into a unified ‘plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity.’ We highlight the substantial contribution inland fisheries...
Upon hearing a conspecific signal, animals must assess their relationship with the signaller and respond appropriately. Territorial animals usually respond more aggressively to strangers than neighbors in a phenomenon known as the “dear enemy effect”. This phenomenon likely evolved because...
Physiologically, oxidative stress is considered a homeostatic imbalance between reactive oxygen species production and absorption. From an ecological perspective, oxidative stress may serve as an important constraint to life-history traits, such as lifespan, reproduction and the immune system, and is...
Parental care is an advantageous reproductive behavior, as the fitness of the caregiver is increased through improving the chances of its offspring’s survival. Parental care occurs in a variety of teleost fishes. The body size of parental fish and the...
Infectious disease represents an emerging threat to natural populations, particularly when hosts are more susceptible to novel parasites (allopatric) than to parasites from the local area (sympatric). This pattern could arise through evolutionary processes (host populations become adapted to their...
Breeding site fidelity has evolved in many vertebrate taxa, suggesting both that site selection has an important influence on fitness potential and that the decision to reuse a nesting site is related to the individual’s prior nesting success at that...
In the face of a changing world, there has been increasing interest in the behavioural and physiological responses of wild animals to stressors. Many factors can influence stress responsiveness, but two that have not been extensively studied during the stress-induced...
We examined whether particular years of mast seed production in sugar maple (Acer saccharum) are associated with increased likelihood of cohort recruitment success into the sapling stage over three decades of heavy browsing pressure from white-tailed deer in...
Glucocorticoid hormones facilitate responses to environmental challenges by mediating diverse physiological and behavioral changes, including resource mobilization and altered reproductive effort. Elevated glucocorticoids might indicate that an individual is facing high levels of environmental challenges and thus, elevated concentrations might be associated with...
Colonist quantity, quality, and arrival frequency can all individually drive the dynamics and extinction of new populations. However, we do not understand which has the strongest influence, nor the circumstances under which their relative importance may change. We conducted a...
Aposematism is an evolved, cross-species association between a preys’ unprofitability and the presence of conspicuous signals. Avian predators have been widely employed to understand the evolution of these warning signals However, insect predators are abundant, diverse, and highly visual foragers...
Competitive ability in plants is defined traditionally by a ‘size advantage’ hypothesis – i.e. larger species are generally expected to be more successful under competition because of greater capacity for resource capture, and thus capacity to deny resources to...
Despite a growing body of literature on the impacts of recreational fisheries on wild populations, surprisingly little is known regarding how individual differences in fish behaviour and their interaction with a baited hook influences hooking injury. We used an underwater...
Employing science-based best angling practices is important for sustainable catch-and-release fisheries. In situations where fish lose equilibrium (unable to maintain upright posture to swim in a coordinated manner), anglers often provide assisted ventilation by hand, which typically involves maneuvering fish to...
We tracked 20 males and 2 females breeding in four regions of Canada using geolocators. Wintering locations ranged from the gulf coast of central Mexico to Costa Rica. Individuals from the northern-most breeding site and females tended to winter furthest...
The drowning of freshwater turtles following incidental capture in fishing gear has the potential to cause population declines. Fyke nets can be equipped with bycatch reduction devices that enable the escape of turtles before they drown. We employed quantitative and...
The nonconsumptive consequences of predators on prey behavior, survival, and demography have recently garnered significant attention by ecologists. However, the impacts of top predators on free-ranging prey are challenging to evaluate because the most common fright response for prey is...
Bycatch, the incidental capture of non‐target organisms, occurs in most commercial fisheries. Although immediate bycatch mortality is frequently documented in fisheries, detrimental sub‐lethal effects and potential post‐release mortality remain largely unknown despite the potential population‐level consequences. Turtles are captured as...
Bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus) are one of the classic systems for studying male alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) in teleost fishes. In this species, there are two distinct life histories: parental and cuckolder, encompassing three reproductive tactics, parental, satellite...
Ecological light pollution occurs when artificial lights disrupt the natural regimes of individual organisms or their ecosystems. Increasing development of shoreline habitats leads to increased light pollution (e.g., from cottages, docks, automobile traffic), which could impact the ecology of littoral...
The ideal free distribution concept predicts that organisms will distribute themselves between habi-tats in a density-dependent manner so that individuals, on average, achieve the same fitness in each habitat. In ecto-therms, environmental temperature has a strong impact on fitness, but...
Within species of birds, variation in plumage may allow potential mates or competitive rivals to quickly assess the quality of an individual. Little is known about the role of white tail feather patches (“tail white”) in male Cerulean Warblers (...
The concept of behavioural syndromes (i.e. correlations between behavioural traits) has provided an important framework for understanding individual variation in animal behaviour and its link to individual variation in physiology and life-history traits. The pace-of-life syndrome concept posits that behavioural, physiological...
Many territorial animals are less aggressive towards neighbours than they are towards strangers. This phenomenon is known as the ‘dear enemy’ effect and it occurs because strangers represent a considerably higher threat to territory take-over compared to neighbours. Some evidence...
A sample of woody angiosperm species was used to test a central prediction of the ‘leafing intensity premium’ hypothesis: higher leafing intensity (number of leaves produced per unit dry mass of shoot vegetative tissue produced in the same growing season)...
Sexually selected traits can signal an individual's ability to contribute offspring care. Differential allocation theory posits that when these same traits also influence brood value, it may be adaptive for partners to adjust care in response to their mates' traits. Evaluating...
Propagule pressure has consistently been identified as a primary factor in invader success, and reducing it can be one of the most effective methods for preventing the establishment of non-native species. However, when policy is implemented to reduce propagule pressure...
Parental care is an essential life-history component of reproduction for many animal species, and it entails a suite of behavioural and physiological investments to enhance offspring survival. These investments can incur costs to the parent, reducing their energetic and physiological...
Each remote sensing technique has its unique set of strengths and weaknesses, but by combining techniques the classification accuracy can be increased. The goal of this project is to underline the strengths and weaknesses of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), LiDAR...
Freshwater ecosystems are threatened by a wide range of anthropogenic infrastructure related to hydropower, irrigation, municipal withdrawals, and industrial cooling. Technology can be used to mitigate the loss of fish associated with such infrastructure by exploiting the sensory physiology of...
Studies of community structure and co-occurrence patterns rely on the premise that community data reflect where species successfully grow and which species they grow with. However, plant censuses generally do not distinguish between species with reproductive individuals and those...
