Delayed dynamic triggering of deep tremor along the Parkfield-Cholame section of the San Andreas Fault following the 2014 M6.0 South Napa earthquake
Zhigang Peng, David R. Shelly, William L. Ellsworth
2015, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 7916-7922
Large, distant earthquakes are known to trigger deep tectonic tremor along the San Andreas Fault and in subduction zones. However, there are relatively few observations of triggering from regional distance earthquakes. Here we show that a small tremor episode about 12–18 km NW of Parkfield was triggered during and immediately following...
Dynamics of a recovering Arctic bird population: the importance of climate, density dependence, and site quality
Jason E. Bruggeman, Ted Swem, David E. Andersen, Patricia L. Kennedy, Debora A. Nigro
2015, Ecological Applications (25) 1932-1943
Intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect vital rates and population-level processes, and understanding these factors is paramount to devising successful management plans for wildlife species. For example, birds time migration in response, in part, to local and broadscale climate fluctuations to initiate breeding upon arrival to nesting territories, and prolonged inclement...
Environmental predictors of shrubby cinquefoil (Dasiphora fruticosa) habitat and quality as host for Maine’s endangered Clayton’s copper butterfly (Lycaena dorcas claytoni)
Sarah A. Drahovzal, Cynthia S. Loftin, Judith Rhymer
2015, Wetlands Ecology and Management (23) 891-908
Population size of habitat-specialized butterflies is limited in part by host plant distribution and abundance. Effective conservation for host-specialist species requires knowledge of host-plant habitat conditions and relationships with the specialist species. Clayton’s copper butterfly (Lycaena dorcas claytoni) is a Maine state-endangered species that relies exclusively on shrubby...
Mineral Resource of the Month: Iodine
Emily Schnebele
2015, Earth (October 2015)
Iodine is a bluish-black lustrous solid (violet-colored in its gaseous state) found primarily in seaweed, underground brines associated with petroleum deposits and caliche ore deposits. ...
Abrupt termination of Marine Isotope Stage 16 (Termination VII) at 631.5 ka in Santa Barbara Basin, California
Walter E. Dean, James P. Kennett, Richard J. Behl, Craig Nicholson, Christopher C. Sorlien
2015, Paleoceanography (30) 1373-1390
The Marine Isotope Stage 16–15 boundary (Termination VII) is the first deglacial warming step of the late Quaternary following the mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT), when 41 kyr climatic cycles shifted to strong 100 kyr cycles. The detailed structure of this important climatic event has remained unknown until now. Core MV0508-19JPC from Santa Barbara...
Rates of As and trace-element mobilization caused by Fe reduction in mixed BTEX–ethanol experimental plumes
Brady A. Ziegler, Jennifer T. McGuire, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli
2015, Environmental Science & Technology (49) 13179-13189
Biodegradation of organic matter, including petroleum-based fuels and biofuels, can create undesired secondary water-quality effects. Trace elements, especially arsenic (As), have strong adsorption affinities for Fe(III) (oxyhydr)-oxides and can be released to groundwater during Fe-reducing biodegradation. We investigated the mobilization of naturally occurring As, cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), and nickel...
Characterization of shrubland ecosystem components as continuous fields in the northwest United States
George Z. Xian, Collin G. Homer, Matthew B. Rigge, Hua Shi, Debbie Meyer
2015, Remote Sensing of Environment (168) 286-300
Accurate and consistent estimates of shrubland ecosystem components are crucial to a better understanding of ecosystem conditions in arid and semiarid lands. An innovative approach was developed by integrating multiple sources of information to quantify shrubland components as continuous field products within the National Land Cover Database (NLCD). The approach...
Estimating demographic parameters using a combination of known-fate and open N-mixture models
Joshua H. Schmidt, Devin S. Johnson, Mark S. Lindberg, Layne G. Adams
2015, Ecology (96) 2583-2589
Accurate estimates of demographic parameters are required to infer appropriate ecological relationships and inform management actions. Known-fate data from marked individuals are commonly used to estimate survival rates, whereas N-mixture models use count data from unmarked individuals to estimate multiple demographic parameters. However, a joint approach combining the strengths of...
Spatial occupancy models for predicting metapopulation dynamics and viability following reintroduction
Richard B. Chandler, Erin L. Muths, Brent H. Sigafus, Cecil R. Schwalbe, Christopher J. Jarchow, Blake R. Hossack
2015, Journal of Applied Ecology (52) 1325-1333
The reintroduction of a species into its historic range is a critical component of conservation programmes designed to restore extirpated metapopulations. However, many reintroduction efforts fail, and the lack of rigorous monitoring programmes and statistical models have prevented a general understanding of the factors affecting metapopulation viability following...
Adaptive invasive species distribution models: A framework for modeling incipient invasions
Daniel R. Uden, Craig R. Allen, David G. Angeler, Lucia Corral, Kent A. Fricke
2015, Biological Invasions (17) 2831-2850
The utilization of species distribution model(s) (SDM) for approximating, explaining, and predicting changes in species’ geographic locations is increasingly promoted for proactive ecological management. Although frameworks for modeling non-invasive species distributions are relatively well developed, their counterparts for invasive species—which may not be at equilibrium within recipient environments and often...
Soil geochemical survey of abandoned mining sites in the Eastern-Central Peloritani Mountains, Sicily, Italy
A. Consenza, A. Lima, Robert A. Ayuso, Nora K. Foley, S. Albanese, A. Messina, B. De Vivo
2015, Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis (15) 361-372
This investigation focused on topsoils (n = 122) and vertical profiles (n = 6) distributed over an area of 250 km2 in the eastern-central Peloritani Mountains, northeastern Sicily. Georeferenced concentration of 53 elements (including potentially harmful ones), determined by ICP-MS after an aqua regia leach, were used to produce geochemical maps by means of a...
The rise of fire: Fossil charcoal in late Devonian marine shales as an indicator of expanding terrestrial ecosystems, fire, and atmospheric change
Susan M. Rimmer, Sarah J. Hawkins, Andrew C. Scott, Walter L. Cressler III
2015, American Journal of Science (315) 713-733
Fossil charcoal provides direct evidence for fire events that, in turn, have implications for the evolution of both terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere. Most of the ancient charcoal record is known from terrestrial or nearshore environments and indicates the earliest occurrences of fire in the Late Silurian. However, despite the...
Temperature and depth mediate resource competition and apparent competition between Mysis diluviana and kokanee
Erik R. Schoen, David A. Beauchamp, Anna R. Buettner, Nathanael C. Overman
2015, Ecological Applications (25) 1962-1975
In many food webs, species in similar trophic positions can interact either by competing for resources or boosting shared predators (apparent competition), but little is known about how the relative strengths of these interactions vary across environmental gradients. Introduced Mysis diluviana shrimp interact with planktivorous fishes such as kokanee salmon (lacustrine Oncorhynchus nerka)...
Using time series structural characteristics to analyze grain prices in food insecure countries
Frank Davenport, Chris Funk
2015, Food Security (7) 1055-1070
Two components of food security monitoring are accurate forecasts of local grain prices and the ability to identify unusual price behavior. We evaluated a method that can both facilitate forecasts of cross-country grain price data and identify dissimilarities in price behavior across multiple markets. This method, characteristic based clustering (CBC),...
FORUM: Effective management of ecological resilience – are we there yet?
Bryan M. Spears, Stephen C. Ives, David G. Angeler, Craig R. Allen, Sebastian Birk, Laurence Carvalho, Stephen Cavers, Francis Daunt, R. Daniel Morton, Michael J. O. Pocock, Glenn Rhodes, Stephen J. Thackeray
2015, Journal of Applied Ecology (52) 1311-1315
Ecological resilience is developing into a credible paradigm for policy development and environmental management for preserving natural capital in a rapidly changing world. However, resilience emerges from complex interactions, limiting the translation of theory into practice.Main limitations include the following: (i) difficulty in quantification and detection of...
Estuarine fish communities respond to climate variability over both river and ocean basins
Frederick V. Feyrer, James E. Cloern, Larry R. Brown, Maxfield Fish, Kathryn Hieb, Randall Baxter
2015, Global Change Biology (21) 3608-3619
Estuaries are dynamic environments at the land–sea interface that are strongly affected by interannual climate variability. Ocean–atmosphere processes propagate into estuaries from the sea, and atmospheric processes over land propagate into estuaries from watersheds. We examined the effects of these two separate climate-driven processes on pelagic and demersal fish community...
Development of the Global Earthquake Model’s neotectonic fault database
Annemarie Christophersen, Nicola Litchfield, Kelvin Berryman, Richard Thomas, Roberto Basili, Laura Wallace, William Ries, Gavin P. Hayes, Kathleen M. Haller, Toshikazu Yoshioka, Richard D. Koehler, Dan Clark, Monica Wolfson-Schwehr, Margaret S. Boettcher, Pilar Villamor, Nick Horspool, Teraphan Ornthammarath, Ramon Zuniga, Robert M. Langridge, Mark W. Stirling, Tatiana Goded, Carlos Costa, Robert Yeats
2015, Natural Hazards (79) 111-135
The Global Earthquake Model (GEM) aims to develop uniform, openly available, standards, datasets and tools for worldwide seismic risk assessment through global collaboration, transparent communication and adapting state-of-the-art science. GEM Faulted Earth (GFE) is one of GEM’s global hazard module projects. This paper describes GFE’s development of a modern neotectonic...
Riverbed clogging associated with a California riverbank filtration system: An assessment of mechanisms and monitoring approaches
Craig Ulrich, Susan S. Hubbard, Joan Florsheim, Donald O. Rosenberry, Sharon Borglin, Marcus Trotta, Donald Seymour
2015, Journal of Hydrology (529) 1740-1753
An experimental field study was performed to investigate riverbed clogging processes and associated monitoring approaches near a dam-controlled riverbank filtration facility in Northern California. Motivated by previous studies at the site that indicated riverbed clogging plays an important role in the performance of the riverbank filtration system, we investigated the...
Effects of climate and land cover on hydrology in the southeastern U.S.: Potential impacts on watershed planning
Jacob H. LaFontaine, Lauren E. Hay, Roland J. Viger, R. Steve Regan, Steven L. Markstrom
2015, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (51) 1235-1261
The hydrologic response to statistically downscaled general circulation model simulations of daily surface climate and land cover through 2099 was assessed for the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin located in the southeastern United States. Projections of climate, urbanization, vegetation, and surface-depression storage capacity were used as inputs to the Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System...
Determination of 1-chloro-4-[2,2,2-trichloro-1-(4-chlorophenyl)ethyl]benzene and related compounds in marine pore water by automated thermal desorption-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry using disposable optical fiber
Robert P. Eganhouse, Erica L DiFilippo
2015, Journal of Chromatography A (1415) 38-47
A method is described for determination of ten DDT-related compounds in marine pore water based on equilibrium solid-phase microextraction (SPME) using commercial polydimethylsiloxane-coated optical fiber with analysis by automated thermal desorption-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (TD-GC/MS). Thermally cleaned fiber was directly exposed to sediments and allowed to reach equilibrium under static conditions...
On the reconstruction of palaeo-ice sheets: Recent advances and future challenges
Chris R. Stokes, Lev Tarasov, Robin Blomdin, Thomas M. Cronin, Timothy G. Fisher, Richard Gyllencreutz, Clas Hattestrand, Jakob Heyman, Richard C. A. Hindmarsh, Anna L. C. Hughes, Martin Jakobsson, Nina Kirchner, Stephen J. Livingstone, Martin Margold, Julian B. Murton, Riko Noormets, W. Richard Peltier, Dorothy M. Peteet, David J. W. Piper, Frank Preusser, Hans Renssen, David H. Roberts, Didier M. Roche, Francky Saint-Ange, Arjen P. Stroeven, James T. Teller
2015, Quaternary Science Reviews (125) 15-49
Reconstructing the growth and decay of palaeo-ice sheets is critical to understanding mechanisms of global climate change and associated sea-level fluctuations in the past, present and future. The significance of palaeo-ice sheets is further underlined by the broad range of disciplines concerned with reconstructing their behaviour, many of which have...
Landsat-8: Status and on-orbit performance
Brian L. Markham, Julia A. Barsi, Ron Morfitt, Mike Choate, Matthew Montanaro, Terry Arvidson, James R. Irons
2015, Conference Paper, Proc. SPIE 9639, Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation Satellites XIX
Landsat 8 and its two Earth imaging sensors, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) have been operating on-orbit for 2 ½ years. Landsat 8 has been acquiring substantially more images than initially planned, typically around 700 scenes per day versus a 400 scenes per day requirement,...
Ionospheric current source modeling and global geomagnetic induction using ground geomagnetic observatory data
Jin Sun, Anna Kelbert, G. D. Egbert
2015, Journal of Geophysical Research (120) 6771-6796
Long-period global-scale electromagnetic induction studies of deep Earth conductivity are based almost exclusively on magnetovariational methods and require accurate models of external source spatial structure. We describe approaches to inverting for both the external sources and three-dimensional (3-D) conductivity variations and apply these methods to long-period (T≥1.2 days) geomagnetic observatory data....
Impact of wastewater infrastructure upgrades on the urban water cycle: Reduction in halogenated reaction byproducts following conversion from chlorine gas to ultraviolet light disinfection
Larry B. Barber, Michelle Hladik, Alan M. Vajda, Kevin C. Fitzgerald, Chris Douville
2015, Science of the Total Environment (529) 264-274
The municipal wastewater treatment facility (WWTF) infrastructure of the United States is being upgraded to expand capacity and improve treatment, which provides opportunities to assess the impact of full-scale operational changes on water quality. Many WWTFs disinfect their effluent prior to discharge using chlorine gas,...
A preliminary investigation of the variables affecting the distribution of giant gartersnakes (Thamnophis gigas) in the Sacramento Valley, California
Brian J. Halstead, Shannon M. Skalos, Michael L. Casazza, Glenn D. Wylie
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1178
Giant gartersnakes (Thamnophis gigas) comprise a species of rare, semi-aquatic snake precinctive to the Central Valley of California. Because of the loss of more than 90% of their natural habitat, giant gartersnakes are listed as Threatened by the United States and California endangered species acts. Little is known, however, about...
