Seismic velocities within the sedimentary succession of the Canada Basin and southern Alpha-Mendeleev Ridge, Arctic Ocean: evidence for accelerated porosity reduction?
John Shimeld, Qingmou Li, Deping Chian, Nina Lebedeva-Ivanova, Ruth Jackson, David Mosher, Deborah R. Hutchinson
2016, Geophysical Journal International (204) 1-20
The Canada Basin and the southern Alpha-Mendeleev ridge complex underlie a significant proportion of the Arctic Ocean, but the geology of this undrilled and mostly ice-covered frontier is poorly known. New information is encoded in seismic wide-angle reflections and refractions recorded with expendable sonobuoys between 2007 and 2011. Velocity–depth samples...
Discontinuities concentrate mobile predators: Quantifying organism-environment interactions at a seascape scale
Christina G. Kennedy, Martha E. Mather, Joseph M. Smith, John T. Finn, Linda A. Deegan
2016, Ecosphere (7)
Understanding environmental drivers of spatial patterns is an enduring ecological problem that is critical for effective biological conservation. Discontinuities (ecologically meaningful habitat breaks), both naturally occurring (e.g., river confluence, forest edge, drop-off) and anthropogenic (e.g., dams, roads), can influence the distribution of highly mobile organisms that have land- or seascape...
CDMetaPOP: An individual-based, eco-evolutionary model for spatially explicit simulation of landscape demogenetics
Erin L. Landguth, Andrew Bearlin, Casey Day, Jason B. Dunham
2016, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (8) 4-11
1. Combining landscape demographic and genetics models offers powerful methods for addressing questions for eco-evolutionary applications.2. Using two illustrative examples, we present Cost–Distance Meta-POPulation, a program to simulate changes in neutral and/or selection-driven genotypes through time as a function of individual-based movement, complex spatial population dynamics, and multiple and...
Wildfire may increase habitat quality for spring Chinook salmon in the Wenatchee River subbasin, WA, USA
Rebecca L. Flitcroft, Jeffrey A. Falke, Gordon H. Reeves, Paul F. Hessburg, Kris M. McNyset, Lee E. Benda
2016, Forest Ecology and Management (359) 126-140
Pacific Northwest salmonids are adapted to natural disturbance regimes that create dynamic habitat patterns over space and through time. However, human land use, particularly long-term fire suppression, has altered the intensity and frequency of wildfire in forested upland and riparian areas. To examine the potential...
Predictive habitat models derived from nest-box occupancy for the endangered Carolina northern flying squirrel in the southern Appalachians
W. Mark Ford, A.M. Evans, Richard H. Odom, Jane L. Rodrigue, C.A. Kelly, Nicole Abaid, Corinne A. Diggins, Doug Newcomb
2016, Endangered Species Research (27) 131-140
In the southern Appalachians, artificial nest-boxes are used to survey for the endangered Carolina northern flying squirrel (CNFS; Glaucomys sabrinus coloratus), a disjunct subspecies associated with high elevation (>1385 m) forests. Using environmental parameters diagnostic of squirrel habitat, we created 35 a priori occupancy models in the program PRESENCE for boxes surveyed in...
Consequences of seasonal variation in reservoir water level for predatory fishes: linking visual foraging and prey densities
Stephen L. Klobucar, Phaedra E. Budy
2016, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (73) 53-64
In reservoirs, seasonal drawdown can alter the physical environment and may influence predatory fish performance. We investigated the performance of lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) in a western reservoir by coupling field measurements with visual foraging and bioenergetic models at four distinct states (early summer, mid-summer, late summer, and fall). The...
Conflation and integration of archived geologic maps and associated uncertainties
Thomas G. Shoberg
2016, Journal of Geography and Geology (8) 28-40
Old, archived geologic maps are often available with little or no associated metadata. This creates special problems in terms of extracting their data to use with a modern database. This research focuses on some problems and uncertainties associated with conflating older geologic maps in regions where modern geologic maps are,...
Rating curve uncertainty: A comparison of estimation methods
Mason Jr., Julie E. Kiang, Timothy A. Cohn
George Constantinescu, Marcelo H. Garcia, Dan Hanes, editor(s)
2016, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the international conference on fluvial hydraulics (river flow 2016)
The USGS is engaged in both internal development and collaborative efforts to evaluate existing methods for characterizing the uncertainty of streamflow measurements (gaugings), stage-discharge relations (ratings), and, ultimately, the streamflow records derived from them. This paper provides a brief overview of two candidate methods that may be used to characterize...
Upper bound of pier scour in laboratory and field data
Stephen Benedict, Andral W. Caldwell
2016, Transportation Research Record (2588) 145-153
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the South Carolina Department of Transportation, conducted several field investigations of pier scour in South Carolina and used the data to develop envelope curves defining the upper bound of pier scour. To expand on this previous work, an additional cooperative investigation was...
Earthquake probabilities for the Wasatch front region in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming
Ivan G. Wong, William R. Lund, Christopher B. DuRoss, Patricia Thomas, Walter Arabasz, Anthony J. Crone, Michael D. Hylland, Nico Luco, Susan S. Olig, James C. Pechmann, Stephen Personius, Mark D. Petersen, David P. Schwartz, Robert B. Smith, Steve Rowman
2016, Report
In a letter to The Salt Lake Daily Tribune in September 1883, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) geologist G.K. Gilbert warned local residents about the implications of observable fault scarps along the western base of the Wasatch Range. The scarps were evidence that large surface-rupturing earthquakes had occurred in the past...
A tube seepage meter for in situ measurement of seepage rate and groundwater sampling
John E. Solder, Troy E. Gilmore, David P. Genereux, D. Kip Solomon
2016, Groundwater (54) 588-595
We designed and evaluated a “tube seepage meter” for point measurements of vertical seepage rates (q), collecting groundwater samples, and estimating vertical hydraulic conductivity (K) in streambeds. Laboratory testing in artificial streambeds show that seepage rates from the tube seepage meter agreed well with expected values. Results of field testing...
Status and trends in the Lake Superior fish community, 2015
Mark R. Vinson, Lori M. Evrard, Owen T. Gorman, Daniel L. Yule
2016, Report, Compiled reports to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission of the annual bottom trawl and acoustics surveys, 2015
In 2015, the Lake Superior fish community was sampled with daytime bottom trawls at 76 nearshore and 33 offshore stations. Spring and summer water temperatures in 2015 were colder than average, but warmer than that observed in 2014. In the nearshore zone, a total of 11,882 individuals from 22 species...
Advanced hierarchical distance sampling
J. Andrew Royle
2016, Book chapter
In this chapter, we cover a number of important extensions of the basic hierarchical distance-sampling (HDS) framework from Chapter 8. First, we discuss the inclusion of “individual covariates,” such as group size, in the HDS model. This is important in many surveys where animals form natural groups that are the...
Exotic annual Bromus invasions: Comparisons among species and ecoregions in the western United States
Matthew L. Brooks, Cynthia S. Brown, Jeanne C. Chambers, Carla M. D'Antonio, Jon E. Keeley, Jayne Belnap
2016, Book chapter, Exotic brome-grasses in arid and semiarid ecosystems of the western US
Exotic annual Bromus species are widely recognized for their potential to invade, dominate, and alter the structure and function of ecosystems. In this chapter, we summarize the invasion potential, ecosystem threats, and management strategies for different Bromus species within each of five ecoregions of the western United States. We characterize...
Effects of a growth check on daily age estimates of age-0 alligator gar
Richard A. Snow, James M. Long
2016, Journal of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (3) 6-10
Accurate age and growth information is essential for a complete knowledge of life history, growth rates, age at sexual maturity, and average life span in fishes. Alligator gar are becoming increasingly managed throughout their range and because this species spawns in backwater flooded areas, their offspring are prone to stranding...
Evaluation of the initial thematic output from a continuous change-detection algorithm for use in automated operational land-change mapping by the U.S. Geological Survey
Bruce Pengra, Alisa L. Gallant, Zhe Zhu, Devendra Dahal
2016, Remote Sensing (8) 1-33
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has begun the development of operational, 30-m resolution annual thematic land cover data to meet the needs of a variety of land cover data users. The Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC) algorithm is being evaluated as the likely methodology following early trials. Data for...
Modeling abundance using multinomial N-mixture models
J. Andrew Royle
2016, Book chapter
Multinomial N-mixture models are a generalization of the binomial N-mixture models described in Chapter 6 to allow for more complex and informative sampling protocols beyond simple counts. Many commonly used protocols such as multiple observer sampling, removal sampling, and capture-recapture produce a multivariate count frequency that has a multinomial distribution...
Early Mesozoic geology in Virginia
Joseph P. Smoot
Christopher M. Bailey, W. Cullen Sherwood, L. Scott Eaton, David S. Powars, editor(s)
2016, Book chapter, The geology of Virginia (Virginia Museum of Natural History Special Publication 18)
No abstract available....
Managed island ecosystems
Kathryn McEachern, Tanya Atwater, Paul W. Collins, Kate R. Faulkner, Daniel V. Richards
2016, Book chapter, Ecosystems of California
This long-anticipated reference and sourcebook for California’s remarkable ecological abundance provides an integrated assessment of each major ecosystem type—its distribution, structure, function, and management. A comprehensive synthesis of our knowledge about this biologically diverse state, Ecosystems of California covers the state from oceans to mountaintops using multiple lenses: past and...
Assessing the potential for rainbow trout reproduction in tributaries of the Mountain Fork River below Broken Bow Dam, southeastern Oklahoma
James M. Long, Trevor A. Starks, Tyler Farling, Robert Bastarache
2016, e-Research Paper SRS–58
Stocked trout (Salmonidae) in reservoir tailwater systems in the Southern United States have been shown to use tributary streams for spawning and rearing. The lower Mountain Fork of the Little River below Broken Bow Dam is one of two year-round tailwater trout fisheries in Oklahoma, and the only one with...
Diet overlap and predation between largemouth bass and walleye in Wisconsin lakes using DNA barcoding to improve taxonomic resolution
Craig J. Kelling, Daniel A. Isermann, Brian L. Sloss, Keith N. Turnquist
2016, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (36) 621-629
Over the last decade, the abundance of Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides has increased in many northern Wisconsin lakes, causing concern among anglers and biologists regarding the potential for Largemouth Bass to negatively affect populations of Walleye Sander vitreus through predation or competition for prey. Our objectives were to determine whether...
Fire in the Earth System: Bridging data and modeling research
Srijn Hantson, Silvia Kloster, Michael Coughlan, Anne-Laure Daniau, Boris Vanniere, Tim Bruecher, Natalie M. Kehrwald, Brian I. Magi
2016, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (97) 1069-1072
Significant changes in wildfire occurrence, extent, and severity in areas such as western North America and Indonesia in 2015 have made the issue of fire increasingly salient in both the public and scientific spheres. Biomass combustion rapidly transforms land cover, smoke pours into the atmosphere, radiative heat from fires initiates...
A simple prioritization tool to diagnose impairment of stream temperature for coldwater fishes in the Great Basin
Jeffrey A. Falke, Jason B. Dunham, David Hockman-Wert, Randy A. Pahl
2016, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (36) 147-160
We provide a simple framework for diagnosing the impairment of stream water temperature for coldwater fishes across broad spatial extents based on a weight-of-evidence approach that integrates biological criteria, species distribution models, and geostatistical models of stream temperature. As a test case, we applied our approach to identify stream reaches...
Conservation of imperiled crayfish species - Cambarus veteranus (Decapoda: Cambaridae)
Stuart A. Welsh, Zachary J. Loughman, Roger F. Thoma, James W. Fetzner
2016, Journal of Crustacean Biology (35) 850-860
Natural soil reservoirs for human pathogenic and fecal indicator bacteria
Maria L Boschiroli, Joseph Falkinham, Sabine Favre-Bonte, Sylvie Nazaret, Pascal Piveteau, Michael J. Sadowsky, Muruleedhara Byappanahalli, Pascal Delaquis, Alain Hartmann
2016, Book chapter, Manual of environmental microbiology
Soils receive inputs of human pathogenic and indicator bacteria through land application of animal manures or sewage sludge, and inputs by wildlife. Soil is an extremely heterogeneous substrate and contains meso- and macrofauna that may be reservoirs for bacteria of human health concern. The ability to detect and quantify bacteria...
