@article{foster_peterson_cubbage_mcmahon_2019, title={Evaluating natural resource planning for longleaf pine ecosystems in the Southeast United States}, volume={100}, ISSN={1389-9341}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/J.FORPOL.2018.11.008}, DOI={10.1016/j.forpol.2018.11.008}, abstractNote={Natural resource plans play a critical role in guiding the sustainable management of forest ecosystems. However, little is known about the quality of management plans. In this study, we evaluated and compared the quality of 35 management plans from federal, state, and nongovernment groups managing longleaf pine ecosystems in the Southeast United States. We developed a plan evaluation tool consisted of five components: (1) Problem and Objective Statement, (2) Fact Base, (3) Actions and Implementation, (4) Integration with Other Plans, and (5) Stakeholder Participation, to examine to what extent plans incorporated planning best practices. We tested a hypothetical model for understanding the relationship among plan components, and our results suggested stakeholder participation predicted clear problem statements, better integration with other plans, and better actions and implementation protocols. The Fact Base component scored highest across most plans while the Actions and Implementation component scored lowest. Newer plans scored modestly higher than older plans, suggesting agencies may be learning to develop better plans over time and indicating older plans should be prioritized for revision. Plans from federal and state agencies scored higher than plans from nongovernmental organizations. Our findings suggest planners should consider incorporating more stakeholder participation, which was positively related to better actions and implementation and improved problem and objective statements.}, journal={Forest Policy and Economics}, publisher={Elsevier BV}, author={Foster, Michaela and Peterson, M. Nils and Cubbage, Frederick and McMahon, Gerard}, year={2019}, month={Mar}, pages={142–153} }
 @article{qian_cuffney_mcmahon_2012, title={Multinomial regression for analyzing macroinvertebrate assemblage composition data}, volume={31}, ISSN={["2161-9565"]}, DOI={10.1899/11-026.1}, abstractNote={Abstract.  Macroinvertebrate species composition data are often expressed as proportional abundances when assessing water-quality conditions or responses to disturbance. Proportional abundances represent the probability of belonging to one of many mutually exclusive and exhaustive groups (taxa). Proportional abundances have some unique properties that must be considered when analyzing these data: 1) the probabilities of group membership must sum to 1 and 2) a change in any 1 group affects all other groups. We used multinomial regressions to analyze changes in proportional abundances along gradients of urbanization in 9 metropolitan areas across the USA. Multinomial regression can be used to address multiple nonlinear responses simultaneously, whereas simple linear regressions must be used to analyze linear or polynomial responses of each group independently. We established that: 1) abundance ratios of tolerant and moderately tolerant groups responded consistently (3–5% increase in the ratios for every 1% increase in developed land cover in the watershed) across the urban gradient, 2) functional groups did not change significantly, and 3) ratios based on assemblage metrics were better indicators of environmental disturbance than ratios based on individual taxa. Multinomial regression, with its flexible model form, can capture patterns of species succession along a resource or stressor gradient. Our results also demonstrate that users of multinomial regression may encounter numerical problems with rare taxa, especially when these taxa have a complete separation along the gradient. Consequently, multinomial regressions are more suitable for analyzing aggregations of taxa or taxon traits.}, number={3}, journal={FRESHWATER SCIENCE}, author={Qian, Song S. and Cuffney, Thomas F. and McMahon, Gerald}, year={2012}, month={Sep}, pages={681–694} }