Jodi Whittier | University of Missouri Columbia (original) (raw)

Papers by Jodi Whittier

Remote temperature loggers are often used to measure water temperatures for ecological studies an... more Remote temperature loggers are often used to measure water temperatures for ecological studies and by regulatory agencies to determine whether water quality standards are being maintained. Equipment specifications are often given a cursory review in the methods; however, the effect of temperature logger model is rarely addressed in the discussion. In a laboratory environment, we compared measurements from three models of temperature loggers at 5 to 40 °C to better understand the utility of these devices. Mean water temperatures recorded by logger models differed statistically even for those with similar accuracy specifications, but were still within manufacturer accuracy specifications. Maximum mean temperature difference between models was 0.4 °C which could have regulatory and ecological implications, such as when a 0.3 °C temperature change triggers a water quality violation or increases species mortality rates. Additionally, precision should be reported as the overall precision ...

Native species traits used for calculations of functional diversity.

Water, Jun 29, 2023

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

Ecological Applications, Dec 1, 2011

To date, the predominant use of systematic conservation planning has been to evaluate and conserv... more To date, the predominant use of systematic conservation planning has been to evaluate and conserve areas of high terrestrial biodiversity. Although studies in freshwater ecosystems have received recent attention, research has rarely considered the potential tradeoffs between protecting different dimensions of biodiversity and the ecological processes that maintain diversity. We provide the first systematic prioritization for freshwaters (focusing on the highly threatened and globally distinct fish fauna of the Lower Colorado River Basin, USA) simultaneously considering scenarios of: taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity; contemporary threats to biodiversity (including interactions with nonnative species); and future climate change and human population growth. There was 75% congruence between areas of highest conservation priority for different aspects of biodiversity, suggesting that conservation efforts can concurrently achieve strong complementarity among all types of diversity. However, sizable fractions of the landscape were incongruent across conservation priorities for different diversity scenarios, underscoring the importance of considering multiple dimensions of biodiversity and highlighting catchments that contribute disproportionately to taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity in the region. Regions of projected human population growth were not concordant with conservation priorities; however, higher human population abundance will likely have indirect effects on native biodiversity by increasing demand for water. This will come in direct conflict with projected reductions in precipitation and warmer temperatures, which have substantial overlap with regions of high contemporary diversity. Native and endemic fishes in arid ecosystems are critically endangered by both current and future threats, but our results highlight the use of systematic conservation planning for the optimal allocation of limited resources that incorporates multiple and complementary conservation values describing taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity.

145th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society, Aug 17, 2015

Ecological Indicators, Nov 1, 2022

Contemporary and future threats to native species persistence.

Remote temperature loggers are often used to measure water temperatures for ecological studies an... more Remote temperature loggers are often used to measure water temperatures for ecological studies and by regulatory agencies to determine whether water quality standards are being maintained. Equipment specifications are often given a cursory review in the methods; however, the effect of temperature logger model is rarely addressed in the discussion. In a laboratory environment, we compared measurements from three models of temperature loggers at 5 to 40 °C to better understand the utility of these devices. Mean water temperatures recorded by logger models differed statistically even for those with similar accuracy specifications, but were still within manufacturer accuracy specifications. Maximum mean temperature difference between models was 0.4 °C which could have regulatory and ecological implications, such as when a 0.3 °C temperature change triggers a water quality violation or increases species mortality rates. Additionally, precision should be reported as the overall precision ...

Predictor variables used in species distribution models.

Non-native species that were modeled with MARS, as well as species included as point occurrences ... more Non-native species that were modeled with MARS, as well as species included as point occurrences in Zonation.

Methodological details of Zonation implementation.

Conservation ranking (%) of the landscape averaged over taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic d... more Conservation ranking (%) of the landscape averaged over taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity scenarios.

Changes in the proportion of species distribution that remain as planning units in the basin are ... more Changes in the proportion of species distribution that remain as planning units in the basin are removed.

File List LCRB Conservation Priorities - Fish Taxonomic Diversity.kmz<br> LCRB Conservation... more File List LCRB Conservation Priorities - Fish Taxonomic Diversity.kmz<br> LCRB Conservation Priorities - Fish Functional Diversity.kmz<br> LCRB Conservation Priorities - Fish Phylogenetic Diversity.kmz Description To facilitate the usage of the results of our study by conservation practitioners, we have appended a file of taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic conservation priorities for the Lower Colorado River Basin (from Figure 1 of the manuscript) and instructions for viewing in Google Earth. <i>Instructions</i>:<br> 1. Download and install Google Earth (http://www.google.com/earth/index.html)<br&gt; 2. Open Google Earth, navigate to File > Open.<br> 3. Navigate to download location of .kmz file; select and click Open. Conservation priorities are displayed using the same color scheme and ranking as in Figure 1 of the manuscript. Clicking on catchments on the map will bring up the name of the river or stream assigned by the Geographic Na...

Ecosphere, 2017

Environmental filtering and competitive exclusion are hypotheses frequently invoked in explaining... more Environmental filtering and competitive exclusion are hypotheses frequently invoked in explaining species' environmental niches (i.e., geographic distributions). A key assumption in both hypotheses is that the functional niche (i.e., species traits) governs the environmental niche, but few studies have rigorously evaluated this assumption. Furthermore, phylogeny could be associated with these hypotheses if it is predictive of functional niche similarity via phylogenetic signal or convergent evolution, or of environmental niche similarity through phylogenetic attraction or repulsion. The objectives of this study were to investigate relationships between environmental niches, functional niches, and phylogenies of fishes of the Upper (UCRB) and Lower (LCRB) Colorado River Basins of southwestern North America. We predicted that functionally similar species would have similar environmental niches (i.e., environmental filtering) and that closely related species would be functionally similar (i.e., phylogenetic signal) and possess similar environmental niches (i.e., phylogenetic attraction). Environmental niches were quantified using environmental niche modeling, and functional similarity was determined using functional trait data. Nonnatives in the UCRB provided the only support for environmental filtering, which resulted from several warmwater nonnatives having dam number as a common predictor of their distributions, whereas several cool-and coldwater nonnatives shared mean annual air temperature as an important distributional predictor. Phylogenetic signal was supported for both natives and nonnatives in both basins. Lastly, phylogenetic attraction was only supported for native fishes in the LCRB and for nonnative fishes in the UCRB. Our results indicated that functional similarity was heavily influenced by evolutionary history, but that phylogenetic relationships and functional traits may not always predict the environmental distribution of species. However, the similarity of environmental niches among warmwater centrarchids, ictalurids, fundulids, and poeciliids in the UCRB indicated that dam removals could influence the distribution of these nonnatives simultaneously, thus providing greater conservation benefits. However, this same management strategy would have more limited effects on nonnative salmonids, catostomids, and percids with colder temperature preferences, thus necessitating other management strategies to control these species.

Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, 2017

Climate change is poised to alter the distributional limits, center, and size of many species. Tr... more Climate change is poised to alter the distributional limits, center, and size of many species. Traits may influence different aspects of range shifts, with trophic generality facilitating shifts at the leading edge, and greater thermal tolerance limiting contractions at the trailing edge. The generality of relationships between traits and range shifts remains ambiguous however, especially for imperiled fishes residing in xeric riverscapes. Our objectives were to quantify contemporary fish distributions in the Lower Colorado River Basin, forecast climate change by 2085 using two general circulation models, and quantify shifts in the limits, center, and size of fish elevational ranges according to fish traits. We examined relationships among traits and range shift metrics either singly using univariate linear modeling or combined with multivariate redundancy analysis. We found that trophic and dispersal traits were associated with shifts at the leading and trailing edges, respectively, although projected range shifts were largely unexplained by traits. As expected, piscivores and omnivores with broader diets shifted upslope most at the leading edge while more specialized invertivores exhibited minimal changes. Fishes that were more mobile shifted upslope most at the trailing edge, defying predictions. No traits explained changes in range center or size. Finally, current preference Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

Remote temperature loggers are often used to measure water temperatures for ecological studies an... more Remote temperature loggers are often used to measure water temperatures for ecological studies and by regulatory agencies to determine whether water quality standards are being maintained. Equipment specifications are often given a cursory review in the methods; however, the effect of temperature logger model is rarely addressed in the discussion. In a laboratory environment, we compared measurements from three models of temperature loggers at 5 to 40 °C to better understand the utility of these devices. Mean water temperatures recorded by logger models differed statistically even for those with similar accuracy specifications, but were still within manufacturer accuracy specifications. Maximum mean temperature difference between models was 0.4 °C which could have regulatory and ecological implications, such as when a 0.3 °C temperature change triggers a water quality violation or increases species mortality rates. Additionally, precision should be reported as the overall precision ...

Native species traits used for calculations of functional diversity.

Water, Jun 29, 2023

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

Ecological Applications, Dec 1, 2011

To date, the predominant use of systematic conservation planning has been to evaluate and conserv... more To date, the predominant use of systematic conservation planning has been to evaluate and conserve areas of high terrestrial biodiversity. Although studies in freshwater ecosystems have received recent attention, research has rarely considered the potential tradeoffs between protecting different dimensions of biodiversity and the ecological processes that maintain diversity. We provide the first systematic prioritization for freshwaters (focusing on the highly threatened and globally distinct fish fauna of the Lower Colorado River Basin, USA) simultaneously considering scenarios of: taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity; contemporary threats to biodiversity (including interactions with nonnative species); and future climate change and human population growth. There was 75% congruence between areas of highest conservation priority for different aspects of biodiversity, suggesting that conservation efforts can concurrently achieve strong complementarity among all types of diversity. However, sizable fractions of the landscape were incongruent across conservation priorities for different diversity scenarios, underscoring the importance of considering multiple dimensions of biodiversity and highlighting catchments that contribute disproportionately to taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity in the region. Regions of projected human population growth were not concordant with conservation priorities; however, higher human population abundance will likely have indirect effects on native biodiversity by increasing demand for water. This will come in direct conflict with projected reductions in precipitation and warmer temperatures, which have substantial overlap with regions of high contemporary diversity. Native and endemic fishes in arid ecosystems are critically endangered by both current and future threats, but our results highlight the use of systematic conservation planning for the optimal allocation of limited resources that incorporates multiple and complementary conservation values describing taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity.

145th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society, Aug 17, 2015

Ecological Indicators, Nov 1, 2022

Contemporary and future threats to native species persistence.

Remote temperature loggers are often used to measure water temperatures for ecological studies an... more Remote temperature loggers are often used to measure water temperatures for ecological studies and by regulatory agencies to determine whether water quality standards are being maintained. Equipment specifications are often given a cursory review in the methods; however, the effect of temperature logger model is rarely addressed in the discussion. In a laboratory environment, we compared measurements from three models of temperature loggers at 5 to 40 °C to better understand the utility of these devices. Mean water temperatures recorded by logger models differed statistically even for those with similar accuracy specifications, but were still within manufacturer accuracy specifications. Maximum mean temperature difference between models was 0.4 °C which could have regulatory and ecological implications, such as when a 0.3 °C temperature change triggers a water quality violation or increases species mortality rates. Additionally, precision should be reported as the overall precision ...

Predictor variables used in species distribution models.

Non-native species that were modeled with MARS, as well as species included as point occurrences ... more Non-native species that were modeled with MARS, as well as species included as point occurrences in Zonation.

Methodological details of Zonation implementation.

Conservation ranking (%) of the landscape averaged over taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic d... more Conservation ranking (%) of the landscape averaged over taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity scenarios.

Changes in the proportion of species distribution that remain as planning units in the basin are ... more Changes in the proportion of species distribution that remain as planning units in the basin are removed.

File List LCRB Conservation Priorities - Fish Taxonomic Diversity.kmz<br> LCRB Conservation... more File List LCRB Conservation Priorities - Fish Taxonomic Diversity.kmz<br> LCRB Conservation Priorities - Fish Functional Diversity.kmz<br> LCRB Conservation Priorities - Fish Phylogenetic Diversity.kmz Description To facilitate the usage of the results of our study by conservation practitioners, we have appended a file of taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic conservation priorities for the Lower Colorado River Basin (from Figure 1 of the manuscript) and instructions for viewing in Google Earth. <i>Instructions</i>:<br> 1. Download and install Google Earth (http://www.google.com/earth/index.html)<br&gt; 2. Open Google Earth, navigate to File > Open.<br> 3. Navigate to download location of .kmz file; select and click Open. Conservation priorities are displayed using the same color scheme and ranking as in Figure 1 of the manuscript. Clicking on catchments on the map will bring up the name of the river or stream assigned by the Geographic Na...

Ecosphere, 2017

Environmental filtering and competitive exclusion are hypotheses frequently invoked in explaining... more Environmental filtering and competitive exclusion are hypotheses frequently invoked in explaining species' environmental niches (i.e., geographic distributions). A key assumption in both hypotheses is that the functional niche (i.e., species traits) governs the environmental niche, but few studies have rigorously evaluated this assumption. Furthermore, phylogeny could be associated with these hypotheses if it is predictive of functional niche similarity via phylogenetic signal or convergent evolution, or of environmental niche similarity through phylogenetic attraction or repulsion. The objectives of this study were to investigate relationships between environmental niches, functional niches, and phylogenies of fishes of the Upper (UCRB) and Lower (LCRB) Colorado River Basins of southwestern North America. We predicted that functionally similar species would have similar environmental niches (i.e., environmental filtering) and that closely related species would be functionally similar (i.e., phylogenetic signal) and possess similar environmental niches (i.e., phylogenetic attraction). Environmental niches were quantified using environmental niche modeling, and functional similarity was determined using functional trait data. Nonnatives in the UCRB provided the only support for environmental filtering, which resulted from several warmwater nonnatives having dam number as a common predictor of their distributions, whereas several cool-and coldwater nonnatives shared mean annual air temperature as an important distributional predictor. Phylogenetic signal was supported for both natives and nonnatives in both basins. Lastly, phylogenetic attraction was only supported for native fishes in the LCRB and for nonnative fishes in the UCRB. Our results indicated that functional similarity was heavily influenced by evolutionary history, but that phylogenetic relationships and functional traits may not always predict the environmental distribution of species. However, the similarity of environmental niches among warmwater centrarchids, ictalurids, fundulids, and poeciliids in the UCRB indicated that dam removals could influence the distribution of these nonnatives simultaneously, thus providing greater conservation benefits. However, this same management strategy would have more limited effects on nonnative salmonids, catostomids, and percids with colder temperature preferences, thus necessitating other management strategies to control these species.

Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, 2017

Climate change is poised to alter the distributional limits, center, and size of many species. Tr... more Climate change is poised to alter the distributional limits, center, and size of many species. Traits may influence different aspects of range shifts, with trophic generality facilitating shifts at the leading edge, and greater thermal tolerance limiting contractions at the trailing edge. The generality of relationships between traits and range shifts remains ambiguous however, especially for imperiled fishes residing in xeric riverscapes. Our objectives were to quantify contemporary fish distributions in the Lower Colorado River Basin, forecast climate change by 2085 using two general circulation models, and quantify shifts in the limits, center, and size of fish elevational ranges according to fish traits. We examined relationships among traits and range shift metrics either singly using univariate linear modeling or combined with multivariate redundancy analysis. We found that trophic and dispersal traits were associated with shifts at the leading and trailing edges, respectively, although projected range shifts were largely unexplained by traits. As expected, piscivores and omnivores with broader diets shifted upslope most at the leading edge while more specialized invertivores exhibited minimal changes. Fishes that were more mobile shifted upslope most at the trailing edge, defying predictions. No traits explained changes in range center or size. Finally, current preference Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (