The Shawangunk Formation, a quartz pebble conglomerate of Middle Silurian age, extends from the lower mid-Hudson Valley through New Jersey and into Pennsylvania. It overlies the Ordovician Martinsburg Formation, which is composed of shales and graywackes. The Martinsburg crops out on the Shawangunk Ridge and is quarried by Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, NY, in order to prevent erosion and provide good footing on the trails. The quarry, locally known as the “Shale Bank”, contains a diverse marine fauna of brachiopods, crinoids, bivalves, ostracods, corals, trilobites, and conulariids. In this community, the partition of feeding niches results in a reduced competitive trophic structure and therefore increased community stability. Within the Shawangunk Formation, there are rare “pods”, domelike structures that are filled with a gray matrix of rounded quartz grains supported by a clay matrix. The pods appeared to have formed along cleavage surfaces. A previously unrecognized metal sulfide deposit has been discovered in the conglomerate along Eagle Cliff. This deposit consists of the Fe-sulfide phases pyrite and marcasite, lesser amounts of the Cu-Fe sulfide chalcopyrite, and trace amounts of anglesite (Pb-sulfate). An outcrop of the Middle Devonian Onondaga Limestone in the Port Jervis Trough contains large crinoid columnals, the coral Amplexiphyllum, trilobite fragments, and the brachiopod Levenea subcarinata. The Onondaga in this area is part of a carbonate ramp that was a shallow carbonate shelf in the Helderberg-Coxsackie area, a thick accumulation of shelf-margin bryozoan bafflestone between Leeds and Saugerties, and an even thicker accumulation of sparse to packed biocalcisiltites deposited on a carbonate ramp dipping southward into the Port Jervis area.

The presence of inland grasslands on the Atlantic coastal plain, including an extensive “tall-grass prairie” at Hempstead Plains on Long Island, NY, remote from the “prairie peninsula”, has never been explained. In 2008, surveys of Homoptera: Auchenorrhyncha on prairie grasses were conducted from Long Island north to Maine. Multiple prairie-endemic species were found on glades from Rhode Island to New Hampshire, including flightless Cercopidae found only on sand plains. The ranges of 12 species were compared to those of another 50 Cercopidae, Cicadellidae, and Caliscelidae specializing on 15 genera of grasses found in tall-grass prairies. Most support evidence that sand-adapted prairie grasses constitute the easternmost extent of the prairie peninsula that could have come eastward to glaciated New England by following recent glacial moraines before forests re-established themselves in the area 11,000–9000 years ago. This periglacial ecosystem was distinct from a grassland ecosystem in the southeastern states that expanded northwards to Long Island and Cape Cod, MA.

This first comprehensive assessment of the ant fauna of Nantucket Island, MA revealed that 43% of New England ant species and 70% of New England ant genera occur on an island occupying only 0.07% of New England's land area. Ants collected by four different research groups between 2000 and 2009 included 32, 158 individual ants (2911 incidences) from 384 spatially and temporally distinct samples representing 14 different vegetation community types. The majority of the ant species were collected from anthropogenically derived and maintained sandplain grasslands, sandplain heathlands, and Scrub Oak shrublands. These three communities are state-ranked S1 community types; the lower state-ranked communities of beaches and sand dunes, bogs, salt marshes, and forest fragments had distinct ant assemblages with much lower species richness. The large number of samples described here, from a wide range of vegetation community types, expands the known list of Nantucket ant species more than three-fold and provides a baseline for future assessment of the effects of ongoing, long-term ecosystem management on Nantucket.

Given the presence of foraging and reproducing adult Cordulegaster (spiketail) dragonflies in Nelson Swamp (Madison County, NY), we examined nymph distribution and abundance in the seeps and springs found within the swamp. From 9 September–4 November 2010, we surveyed 8 sites along Chittenango Creek in order to determine: (1) the species present and their distribution/occurrence among sites, (2) factors influencing species presence and abundances, and (3) patterns in size and age distribution among and within sites. For sites, we delineated habitat zones (inlet, middle, outlet), determined the benthic substrate, and measured shoreline perimeters. For nymphs, we measured head width, body length, and wing pad length and identified some to species. The majority of spiketails we identified were Cordulegaster diastatops (Delta-spotted Spiketail); Cordulegaster maculata (Twin-spotted Spiketail) was also present. Most nymphs occurred in inlets with muck and cobble bottoms and in water depths less than 10 cm. Spiketail densities ranged from 0.13–8.13 individuals/m of shoreline. Smaller individuals occurred in cobble substrate, while muck substrates had individuals of larger size and greater abundance. We demarcated at least 2 age cohorts of nymphs based on their body measurements in relation to growth patterns observed in other spiketail species.

As the climate changes, plants will need to respond to new environmental scenarios to survive. Belowground movements are one way in which plants respond to lethal temperatures. Plants use various methods to control belowground movements, notably contractile roots and droppers. I monitored populations of Erythronium americanum (Trout Lily) for contractile roots and documented the capacity of both annual corm growth and droppers to move the corm deeper in the soil. There was no evidence of contractile roots. While both corm growth and droppers lowered the corms, droppers provided for greater movement. Shallower corms produced longer droppers, and the average depth of a new corm formed from a dropper was consistent among corms of various original depths. Erythronium americanum can, therefore, use droppers to control corm depth, thus providing it a mechanism with which to escape potentially dangerous soil temperatures.

Woody plant expansion is a global phenomenon and has been demonstrated to have impacts on the global carbon (C) cycle as a substantial C sink. Land-cover change in western New York has followed a pattern common to the northeastern US as presettlement forests were extensively cleared for agriculture use. In the past several decades, a substantial portion of this agricultural land has been left to natural succession. This study investigates soil C dynamics across a chronosequence of habitats representing this land-cover change including old fields, shrublands, and early successional forests. Despite substantial shifts in plant community composition and structure, neither soil respiration nor soil organic matter changed significantly with habitat type. While consequences of this land-cover change in western New York remain inconclusive, the scale of this change could result in substantial shifts in regional ecosystem C dynamics.

The floristic quality index is a widely used method for ecological condition assessments in the United States. The foundation of the index is the conservatism concept, which estimates a species' ecological sensitivity or propensity to occur in areas least altered by humans. Plant species are assigned coefficients of conservatism (CoC) where ruderal and exotic species receive the lowest scores, competitors and matrix species intermediate scores, and remnant-dependent species the highest scores. The method has spread to over half of the United States, but New York and New England still lack CoC coverage. With funding from the Environmental Protection Agency and using nine of the region's most experienced botanists, an effort was undertaken to select CoC for the complete vascular flora of each New England state and New York State. Frequency distributions and rank correlations of CoC varied widely among states, except that each flora contained a large proportion of exotic species. Few taxa were scored with low confidence, although CoC at the extreme ends of the scale tended to be scored with higher confidence than more intermediate CoC. Differences in mean CoC and other summary measures for two botanists working independently on the same state indicate estimator bias in the ranking process, and calls for additional expert opinions, more careful instruction, and calibration of botanists, or the use of objective scoring methods.

Biodiversity distributions can be quantified as alpha (taxonomic richness), and beta (compositional heterogeneity) components. In both cases, accurate and detailed assessments require substantial resources, so surrogate measures have been proposed and tested. Scientists from the New York Natural Heritage Program (NHP), working in over 140 New York State Parks, recorded occurrences of 128 different ecological communities, 98 significant (rare or exemplary) ecological communities, and 312 rare species. I used their data to test whether community distributions were valid surrogates for rare species diversity at alpha and beta levels. I found that (1) alpha patterns among the State Parks were similar for NHP significant communities and rare species; (2) beta patterns were contrasting, such that NHP significant communities were weak surrogates at this level; (3) alpha distributions were poor predictors of Beta distributions among parks; and (4) a large fraction of beta diversity is attributable to variation in geographic region, but most State Parks and all State Park Regions make unique contributions.

Presence/absence data of 11 species of fish collected during 2008, 2009, and 2010 from five selected stations along the freshwater reach of the Saw Mill River, Westchester County, NY were examined using correspondence and parsimony analysis. The length of the river sampled extended from its northern source in Chappaqua (river km 36.9) south to Executive Boulevard (river km 6.4) in Yonkers, a distance of approximately 30.5 km. Correspondence analysis showed the distribution of stations in “species space” and indicated that two stations (Chappaqua and Hawthorne Cinema) aligned to the left of the origin of Axis #1 but in different quadrants, while the other three stations (Rumbrook, Lawrence Street, and Executive Boulevard) aligned to the right of the origin of Axis #1, with Rumbrook in a different quadrant than the Lawrence Street and Executive Boulevard stations. However, the analysis does not indicate specifically which fish assemblages are associated with each station. Parsimony analysis, which treats each collection site as if it were a “taxon” and the presence/absence of the fish as “character states” of those “taxa”, addressed this problem and aggregated the stations into two main groups, one containing two stations (Lawrence Street and Rumbrook) united by the presence of Rhinichthys cataractae (Longnose Dace) and the other consisting of three stations (Chappaqua, Hawthorne Cinema, and Executive Boulevard) united by the presence of Micropterus salmoides (Largemouth Bass). Within this larger group is a sub-group consisting of two stations (Chappaqua and Hawthorne Cinema) united by the presence of Lepomis gibbosus (Pumpkinseed). In addition, the analysis allows one to readily visualize aspects of the fish distributions along the length of the river. For example, Catostomus commersonii (White Sucker), Lepomis auritus (Redbreast Sunfish), and Rhinichthys atratulus (Blacknose Dace) were found at all sites, while Semotilus atromaculatus (Creek Chub) was found at both Chappaqua, the northernmost station, and also at Rumbrook, the approximate mid-point station of the section of the river sampled. The Longnose Dace was only found in the southern reaches of the river from Rumbrook south to Lawrence Street, and Etheostoma olmstedi (Tessellated Darter) was found at Executive Boulevard and Lawrence Street, our two southernmost stations. The analysis also readily identifies species that are endemic to a particular section of the river: Ambloplites rupestris (Rock Bass) at the Lawrence Street station, Salmo trutta (Brown Trout) at the Hawthorne Cinema site, and Pimephales promelas (Fathead Minnow) at Chappaqua.

We characterized the landscape-level habitat use of Megascops asio (Eastern Screech Owl) in a suburban/urban region of New York and Connecticut using citizen-science methodologies and GIS-based land-use information. Volunteers sampled their properties using call-playback surveys in the summers of 2009 and 2010. We modeled detection and occupancy as functions of distance to forest and two coarse measures of development. AIC_c-supported models were validated with an independent dataset collected by trained professionals. Validated models indicated a negative association between occupancy and percent forest cover or, similarly, a positive association with percent impervious cover. When compared against the systematic dataset, models that used forest cover as a predictor had the highest accuracy (kappa = 0.73 ± 0.18) in predicting the occupancy observations in the systematic survey. After accounting for detection, both datasets support similar owl-habitat patterns of predicting occupancy in developed areas compared to highly rural. While there is likely a minimum amount of forest cover and/or maximum level of urbanization that Screech Owls can tolerate, such limits appear to be beyond the ranges sampled in this study. Future research that seeks to determine this development limit should focus on very urbanized areas. The high accuracy of the citizen-science models in predicting the systematic dataset indicates that volunteer-based efforts can provide reliable data for wildlife studies.

Management of overabundant Odocoileus virginianus (White-tailed Deer) populations in suburban and rural landscapes remains controversial, and deer-reduction techniques in these areas are often impeded by public attitudes and safety concerns. Cornell University implemented an “earn-a-buck” (EAB) hunting program to mitigate deer-related impacts on lands surrounding its campus (722 ha) in Ithaca, NY in 2008, and at the University-owned Arnot Teaching and Research Forest (ATRF; 1649 ha) in Cayuta, NY in 1999. The focus of EAB was to increase the harvest of female deer and lower herd size. For the benefit of other entities challenged with White-tailed Deer overabundance, we describe implementation of an EAB hunting program on campus lands. We recorded 257 deer harvested (69–99 each hunting season) on lands near campus. At ATRF, there was an increased harvest of adult does and fawns upon EAB implementation. Moreover, the number of antlered bucks harvested dropped during the first 2 years of EAB when compared to pre-EAB levels. We demonstrated an increased harvest of female deer and improved adult sex ratio during EAB. We monitored program progress via data collected at deer check stations. Deer harvests at ATRF have declined slightly over time, proving beneficial for forest regeneration and biodiversity; however, the question remains how to maintain hunter interest in EAB programs during years of decreased deer numbers.

Based upon studies between 2001 and 2010 and the continued presence of adult shrimp including gravid females, Palaemon macrodactylus (Oriental Shrimp) is established in the estuarine waters of New York City. In summer 2010, we sampled a 1000-m² area of the East River and found that P. macrodactylus represented 4.3% of the total shrimp population, and 15.2% of the Palaemonidae (84.8% consisted of the native species Palaemonetes vulgaris [Common Grass Shrimp]). In 2001/2002, P. macrodactylus comprised 4.2% of all palaemonids, suggesting an increase in the past decade of non-native relative to native palaemonids. While not yet appearing to be “invasive” based upon population size, the feeding habits and reproductive biology of P. macrodactylus suggest that future interactions with native shrimp may occur. A key to regional shrimp is presented.

We treated the invasive wetland grass, Phragmites australis (Common Reed), with herbicide in 99 (total of 14 ha) interdunal wetland swales of Sandy Neck barrier beach on Cape Cod, MA from 2002–2008. The herbicide applications have significantly reduced the number of Phragmites stems within invaded swales, with parallel reductions in personnel and chemical costs of the control program. After seven years of treatment, we have achieved substantial containment and suppression of Phragmites, but the plant persists in all but a few of the treated swales. Whether eradication or near-eradication can be ultimately achieved remains uncertain.