A habitat-centered framework for wildlife climate change vulnerability assessments: Application to Gunnison sage-grouse
Nathan D. Van Schmidt, Jessica E. Shyvers, Julie A. Heinrichs, D. Joanne Saher, Cameron L. Aldridge
2024, Ecosphere (15)
The persistence of threatened wildlife species depends on successful conservation and restoration of habitats, but climate change and other stressors make these tasks increasingly challenging. Applying climate change vulnerability analyses to contemporary wildlife management can be difficult because most analyses predict direct effects of future climate on wildlife species at...
Geographic distribution of feather δ34S in Europe
Vojtech Brlik, Petr Procházka, Luana Bontempo, Federica Camin, Frederic Jiguet, Gergely Osvath, Craig A. Stricker, Michael B. Wunder, Rebecca L. Powell
2024, Ecosphere (15)
Geographic distribution models of environmentally stable isotopes (the so-called “isoscapes”) are widely employed in animal ecology, and wildlife forensics and conservation. However, the application of isoscapes is limited to elements and regions for which the spatial patterns have been estimated. Here, we focused on the ubiquitous yet less commonly used...
Metabolism regimes in regulated rivers of the Illinois River basin, USA
Judson Harvey, Jay Choi, Katherine Quion
2024, Scientific Data (11)
Metabolism estimates organic carbon accumulation by primary productivity and removal by respiration. In rivers it is relevant to assessing trophic status and threats to river health such as hypoxia as well as greenhouse gas fluxes. We estimated metabolism in 17 rivers of the Illinois River basin...
Detection of prions from spiked and free-ranging carnivore feces
H. N. Inzalacoa, E. E. Brandell, S.P. Wilson, M. Hunsaker, D. R. Stahler, K. Woelfel, Daniel P. Walsh, T. Nordeen, D. J. Storm, S. S. Lichtenberg, Wendy Christine Turner
2024, Scientific Reports (14)
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a highly contagious, fatal neurodegenerative disease caused by infectious prions (PrPCWD) affecting wild and captive cervids. Although experimental feeding studies have demonstrated prions in feces of crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos), coyotes (Canis latrans), and cougars (Puma concolor), the role of scavengers and...
Microplastic-mediated new mechanism of liver damage: From the perspective of the gut-liver axis
Xiaomei Wang, Kaili Deng, Pei Zhen Zhang, Qiqing Chen, Jason Tyler Magnuson, Wenhui Qiu, Yuping Zhou
2024, Science of the Total Environment (919)
Microplastics (MPs) are environmental contaminants that are present in all environments and can enter the human body, accumulate in various organs, and cause harm through the ingestion of food, inhalation, and dermal contact. The connection between bowel and liver disease and the interplay between...
Integrating genetic and demographic data to refine indices of abundance for Atlantic sturgeon in the Hudson River, New York
Shannon L. White, Richard M. Pendleton, Amanda Higgs, Barbara A. Lubinski, Robin L. Johnson, David C. Kazyak
2024, Endangered Species Research (55) 115-126
Critical to Atlantic sturgeon Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus recovery and monitoring is the ability to estimate abundance and identify age- and stock-specific threats to survival. As adult Atlantic sturgeon spend much of their lives broadly distributed in marine and estuarine environments, it is challenging to collect data needed to estimate these demographic...
Estimating internal transmitter and external tag retention by Walleye in the Laurentian Great Lakes over multiple years
S.F. Colborne, M.D. Faust, T.O. Brenden, T.A. Hayden, J.M. Robinson, T.M. MacDougall, H.A. Cook, Daniel A. Isermann, D.J. Dembkowski, M. Haffley, C.S. Vandergoot
2024, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (44) 377-393
ObjectiveBoth electronic tags (e.g., acoustic and radio transmitters) and conventional external tags are used to evaluate movement and population dynamics of fish. External tags are also sometimes used to facilitate the recovery of internal electronic tags or other instrumentation because healing can make it difficult to identify...
Lava flow impacts on the built environment: Insights from a new global dataset
Elinor S. Meredith, Susanna F. Jenkins, Josh L. Hayes, David Lallemant, Natalia I. Deligne, Natalie Teng Rui Xue
2024, Journal of Applied Volcanology (13)
The recent destruction of thousands of homes by lava flows from La Palma volcano, Canary Islands, and Nyiragongo volcano, Democratic Republic of Congo, serves as a reminder of the devastating impact that lava flows can have on communities living in volcanically active regions. Damage to buildings...
Videographic monitoring at caves to estimate population size of the endangered yǻyaguak (Mariana swiftlet) on Guam
P. Marcos Gorresen, Paul M. Cryan, Megan Parker, Frank Alig, Melia Gail Nafus, Eben H. Paxton
2024, Endangered Species Research (53) 139-149
The yǻyaguak (Mariana swiftlet; Aerodramus bartschi) is an endangered cave-nesting species historically found on Guam and the southern Mariana Islands, Micronesia. The population on Guam has been severely affected by the introduction of the brown treesnake Boiga irregularis. Population status assessments have, however, been challenging due to the limitations of traditional...
Rotation of the microplates within the plate boundary in southwestern United States
James C. Savage
2024, JGR Solid Earth (129)
I investigate the long‐term, rigid motions of the 20 microplates identified by McCaffrey (2005,https://doi.org/10.1029/2004jb003307) within the Pacific‐North America plate boundary in southwestern United States. Those motions are described by the Euler vectors (Ωi0 for the ith microplate) given by McCaffrey for each microplate. McCaffrey noticed that the Euler poles for...
Monitoring of wave, current, and sediment dynamics along the Fog Point Living Shoreline, Glenn Martin National Wildlife Refuge, Maryland
H. Wang, Q. Chen, W.D. Capurso, N. Wang, L.M. Niemoczynski, M. Whitbeck, L. Zhu, G.A. Snedden, C.A. Wilson, M.S. Brownley
2024, Open-File Report 2024-1004
Living shorelines with salt marsh species, rock breakwaters, and sand nourishment were built along the coastal areas in the Glenn Martin National Wildlife Refuge, Maryland, in 2016 in response to Hurricane Sandy (2012). The Fog Point living shoreline at Glenn Martin National Wildlife Refuge was designed with the “headland -...
Deformation-induced graphitization and muscovite recrystallization in a ductile fault zone
Martha Stokes, Aaron M. Jubb, Ryan J. McAleer, David Bish, Robert Wintsch
2024, Journal of Metamorphic Geology (42) 529-550
A suite of slate samples collected along a 2 km transect crossing the Lishan fault in central Taiwan were evaluated to assess the role of ductile deformation in natural graphitization at lower greenschist facies metamorphic conditions. The process of natural aromatization, or graphitization, of an...
A systematic review of the effects of climate variability and change on black and brown bear ecology and interactions with humans
Katherine Anne Kurth, Kate Malpeli, Joseph D. Clark, Heather E. Johnson, Frank T. van Manen
2024, Biological Conservation (291)
Climate change poses a pervasive threat to humans and wildlife by altering resource availability, changing co-occurrences, and directly or indirectly influencing human-wildlife interactions. For many wildlife agencies in North America, managing bears (Ursus spp.) and human-bear interactions is a priority, yet...
Identifying conservation introduction sites for endangered birds through the integration of lidar-based habitat suitability models and population viability analyses
Lucas Fortini, Erica Gallerani, Christopher C Warren, Eben H. Paxton
2024, Remote Sensing (16)
Similar to other single-island endemic Hawaiian honeycreepers, the critically endangered ‘ākohekohe (Palmeria dolei) is threatened by climate-driven disease spread. To avert the imminent risk of extinction, managers are considering novel measures, including the conservation introduction (CI) of ‘ākohekohe from Maui to higher elevation habitats on the Island of...
Polar bear energetic and behavioral strategies on land with implications for surviving the ice-free period
Anthony M. Pagano, Karyn D. Rode, Nicholas J. Lunn, David McGeachy, Stephen N. Atkinson, Sean D. Farley, Joy A. Erlenbach, Charles T. Robbins
2024, Nature Communications (15)
Declining Arctic sea ice is increasing polar bear land use. Polar bears on land are thought to minimize activity to conserve energy. Here, we measure the daily energy expenditure (DEE), diet, behavior, movement, and body composition changes of 20 different polar bears on land over 19–23 days from August to...
Travertine records climate-induced transformations of the Yellowstone hydrothermal system from the late Pleistocene to the present
Lauren N. Harrison, Shaul Hurwitz, James B. Paces, Cathy Whitlock, Sara Peek, Joseph Licciardi
2024, GSA Bulletin (136) 3605-3618
Chemical changes in hot springs, as recorded by thermal waters and their deposits, provide a window into the evolution of the postglacial hydrothermal system of the Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field. Today, most hydrothermal travertine forms to the north and south of the ca. 631 ka Yellowstone caldera where groundwater flow...
Environmental variation structures reproduction and recruitment in long-lived mega-herbivores: Galapagos giant tortoises
Stephen Blake, Fredy Cabrera, Sebastian Cruz, Diego Ellis-Soto, Charles Yackulic, Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau, Martin Wikelski, Franz Kuemmeth, James P. Gibbs, Sharon L. Deem
2024, Ecological Monographs (94)
Migratory, long-lived animals are an important focus for life-history theory because they manifest extreme trade-offs in life-history traits: delayed maturity, low fecundity, variable recruitment rates, long generation times, and vital rates that respond to variation across environments. Galapagos tortoises are an iconic example: they are long-lived, migrate seasonally, face multiple...
Thermal traits of anurans database for the southeastern United States (TRAD): A database of thermal trait values for 40 anuran species
Traci P. DuBose, Victorjose Catalan, Chloe E. Moore, Vincent R. Farallo, Abigail Benson, Jessica Dade, William A. Hopkins, Meryl C. Mims
2024, Ichthyology & Herpetology (112) 21-30
Thermal traits, or how an animal responds to changing temperatures, impacts species persistence and thus biodiversity. Trait databases, as repositories of consolidated, measured organismal attributes, allow researchers to link study species with specific trait values, enabling comparisons within and among species. Trait databases also help lay the groundwork to build...
Water-level and recoverable water in storage changes, High Plains Aquifer, predevelopment to 2019 and 2017 to 2019
Virginia L. McGuire, Kellan R. Strauch
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5143
The High Plains aquifer underlies 111.8 million acres (about 175,000 square miles) in parts of eight States: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. Water-level declines began in parts of the High Plains aquifer soon after the beginning of substantial groundwater irrigation (about 1950). This report...
Establishing fluvial silicon regimes and their stability across the Northern Hemisphere
Keira Johnson, Kathi Jo Jankowski, Joanna C. Carey, Nicholas Lyon, William H. McDowell, Arial J. Shogren, Adam S. Wymore, Lienne R. Sethna, Wilfred M. Wollheim, Amanda Poste, Pirkko Kortelainen, Ruth C. Heindel, Hjalmar Laudon, Antti Raike, Jeremy B. Jones, Diane M. McKnight, Paul Julian, Sidney A. Bush, Pamela L. Sullivan
2024, Limnology and Oceanography Letters (9) 237-246
Fluvial silicon (Si) plays a critical role in controlling primary production, water quality, and carbon sequestration through supporting freshwater and marine diatom communities. Geological, biogeochemical, and hydrological processes, as well as climate and land use, dictate the amount of Si exported by streams. Understanding Si...
Incorporating intensity distance attenuation into PLUM ground-motion-based earthquake early warning in the United States: The APPLES configuration
Jessie K. Saunders, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Julian Bunn, Annemarie S. Baltay Sundstrom, Sarah E. Minson, Colin T O’Rourke
2024, Earth's Future (12)
We develop Attenuated ProPagation of Local Earthquake Shaking (APPLES), a new configuration for the United States West Coast version of the Propagation of Local Undamped Motion (PLUM) earthquake early warning (EEW) algorithm that incorporates attenuation into its ground-motion prediction procedures. Under APPLES, instead of using a fixed...
Vegetation responses to large dam removal on the Elwha River, Washington, USA
Patrick B. Shafroth, Laura G. Perry, James M. Helfield, Joshua Chenoweth, Rebecca L. Brown
2024, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (12)
Large dam removal can trigger changes to physical and biological processes that influence vegetation dynamics in former reservoirs, along river corridors downstream of former dams, and at a river’s terminus in deltas and estuaries. We present the first comprehensive review of vegetation response to major fluvial disturbance caused by...
Population genetics of museum specimens indicate decreasing genetic resiliency: The case of two bumble bees of conservation concern
Ashley Rhode, Michael Branstetter, Karen E. Mock, Joyce Knoblett, David Pilliod, Jeffrey Everett, Paul Galpern, James P. Strange
2024, Biological Conservation (291)
Genetic resiliency is the likelihood that populations retain sufficient genetic diversity to respond to environmental change. It is rarely examined through time in conservation genetic studies due to challenges of acquiring and sequencing historical specimens. Focusing on populations of...
A brief note on substantial sub-daily arsenic variability in pumping drinking-water wells in New Hampshire
Paul M. Bradley, Emily C. Hicks, Joseph P. Levitt, David C. Lloyd, Mhairi M. McDonald, Kristin M. Romanok, Kelly Smalling, Joseph D. Ayotte
2024, Science of the Total Environment (919)
Large variations in redox-related water parameters, like pH and dissolved oxygen (DO), have been documented in New Hampshire (United States) drinking-water wells over the course of a few hours under pumping conditions. These findings suggest that comparable sub-daily variability in dissolved concentrations of redox-reactive...
Ecology of an insular snake assemblage in coastal Maine
John D. Willson, Ethan J. Royal, Jacquelyn C. Guzy, Meredith C. Swartwout, Chelsea S. Kross
2024, Northeastern Naturalist (31) 13-34
Wildlife populations at the peripheries of their distributions or on isolated islands often display divergent and poorly understood morphological or life-history characteristics compared to core populations. We used a capture–mark–recapture dataset collected over a 19-year period to characterize a northern, insular snake assemblage in...
