Twelve-year dynamics and rainfall thresholds for alternating creep and rapid movement of the Hooskanaden landslide from integrating InSAR, pixel offset tracking, and borehole and hydrological measurements
Y. Xu, Z. Lu, William H. Schulz, J. Kim
2020, JGR Earth Surface
The Hooskanaden landslide is a large (~600 m wide × 1,300 m long), deep (~30 – 45 m) slide located in southwestern Oregon. Since 1958, it has had five moderate/major movements that catastrophically damaged the intersecting U.S. Highway 101, along with persistent slow wet‐season movements and a long‐term accelerating trend due to coastal erosion. Multiple remote sensing...
Improved prediction of management-relevant groundwater discharge characteristics throughout river networks
Janet R. Barclay, J. Jeffrey Starn, Martin A. Briggs, Ashley Helton
2020, Water Resources Research (56)
Groundwater discharge zones connect aquifers to surface water, generating baseflow and serving as ecosystem control points across aquatic ecosystems. The influence of groundwater discharge on surface flow connectivity, fate and transport of contaminants and nutrients, and thermal habitat depends strongly on hydrologic characteristics such as the...
Tradeoffs with growth limit host range in complex life-cycle helminths
Daniel P. Benesh, Geoffrey G. Parker, James C Chubb, Kevin D. Lafferty
2020, The American Naturalist (197) E40-E54
Parasitic worms with complex life cycles have several developmental stages, with each stage creating opportunities to infect additional host species. Using a dataset for 973 species of trophically transmitted acanthocephalans, cestodes, and nematodes, we confirmed that worms with longer life cycles (i.e. more successive hosts) infect a greater diversity of...
Quantifying drought’s influence on moist soil seed vegetation in California’s Central Valley through remote sensing
Kristin B. Byrd, Austen Lorenz, James Anderson, Cynthia Wallace, Kara Moore-O'Leary, Jennifer Isola, Ricardo Ortega, Matt Reiter
2020, Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America (101)
Across the Central Valley of California, millions of wintering waterfowl rely on moist soil seed (MSS) plants that grow in managed seasonal wetlands as a critical source of food. Estimates of MSS plant production are used to set waterfowl habitat targets yet this information is not well known. We created...
Photoluminescence imaging of whole zircon grains on a petrographic microscope—An underused aide for geochronologic studies
Ryan J. McAleer, Aaron M. Jubb, Paul C. Hackley, Gregory J. Walsh, Arthur J. Merschat, Sean P. Regan, William C. Burton, Jorge A. Vazquez
2020, Minerals (10)
The refractory nature of zircon to temperature and pressure allows even a single zircon grain to preserve a rich history of magmatic, metamorphic, and hydrothermal processes. Isotopic dating of micro-domains exposed in cross-sections of zircon grains allows us to interrogate this history. Unfortunately, our ability to select...
Assessing the exposure of three diving bird species to offshore wind areas on the U.S. Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf using satellite telemetry
Iain J Stenhouse, Alicia Berlin, Andrew T Gilbert, M Wing Goodale, Carrie O Gray, William A Montevecchi, Lucas Savoy, Caleb S. Spiegel
2020, Diversity and Distributions (26) 1703-1714
AimThe United States Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) has considerable offshore wind energy potential. Capturing that resource is part of a broader effort to reduce CO2 emissions. While few turbines have been constructed in U.S. waters, over a dozen currently planned offshore wind projects have the potential to...
Coordinated river infrastructure decisions improve net social-ecological benefits
Samuel G. Roy, Adam Daignault, Joseph D. Zydlewski, Allison Truhlar, Sean Smith, Shaleen Jain, David Hart
2020, Environmental Research Letters (15)
We explore the social, ecological, economic, and technical dimensions of sustainable river infrastructure development and the potential benefits of coordinating decisions such as dam removal and stream crossing improvement. Dam removal is common practice for restoring river habitat connectivity and ecosystem health. However, stream crossings such as...
Two ensemble approaches for forecasting sulfur dioxide concentrations from Kīlauea volcano
Lacey Holland, Steven Businger, Tamar Elias, Tiziana Cherubini
2020, Weather and Forecasting (35) 1923-1937
Kīlauea volcano, located on the island of Hawaii, is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. It was in a state of nearly continuous eruption from 1983 to 2018 with copious emissions of...
Annotated bibliography of scientific research on greater sage-grouse published from 2015 to 2019
Sarah K. Carter, Robert S. Arkle, Heidi L. Bencin, Benjamin R. Harms, Daniel J. Manier, Aaron N. Johnston, Susan L. Phillips, Steven E. Hanser, Zachary H. Bowen
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1103
The greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter GRSG) has been a focus of scientific investigation and management action for the past two decades. The 2015 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listing determination of “not warranted” was in part due to a large-scale collaborative effort to develop strategies to conserve GRSG populations...
Integrating climate change considerations into natural resource planning—An implementation guide
Jessi Kershner, Andrea Woodward, Alicia A. Torregrosa
2020, Techniques and Methods 6-C2
Executive SummaryClimate change vulnerability assessments and associated adaptation strategies and actions connect existing climate science with possible effects on natural resources and highlight potential responses. However, these assessments, which are commonly generated for large regional areas, suggest management options in general terms without guidance for choosing among strategies and actions...
Trends in concentration, loads, and sources of trace metals and nutrients in the Spokane River Watershed, northern Idaho, water years 1990–2018
Lauren M. Zinsser
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5096
A long history of mining and widespread metals contamination in the Coeur d’Alene River watershed and downstream into the Spokane River has led to the area’s designation as a Superfund site and to extensive, ongoing (as of 2020) remedial actions. Long-term water-quality and streamflow data, collected by the U.S. Geological...
Pesticide mixtures show potential toxicity to aquatic life in U.S. streams, water years 2013-2017
S. Alex Covert, Megan E. Shoda, Sarah M. Stackpoole, Wesley W. Stone
2020, Science of the Total Environment (745)
During water years (WY) 2013–2017, the U.S. Geological Survey, National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project, sampled the National Water Quality Network – Rivers and Streams (NWQN) year-round and reported on 221 pesticides at 72 sites across the United States in agricultural, developed, and mixed land use watersheds. The Pesticide Toxicity...
Case Study 4: NABat acoustic monitoring allows inferences about bat populations at multiple scales
Brian Reichert, Thomas J. Rodhouse, Susan Loeb, Jason Rae
2020, Book chapter, Bat echolocation research: A handbook for planning and conducting acoustic studies
North American bats face unprecedented risks from continuing and emerging threats including white-nose syndrome, wind energy development, and habitat loss. Many species of bats are thought to be recently experiencing unparalleled population declines unlike any previously observed (O’Shea et al. 2016). The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) was...
Mapping stream and floodplain geomorphic characteristics with the Floodplain and Channel Evaluation Tool (FACET) in the Mid-Atlantic Region, United States
Marina J. Metes, Kristina G. Hopkins, Labeeb Ahmed, Samuel Lamont, Peter R. Claggett, Gregory E. Noe
2020, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the geomorphometry 2020 conference
Quantifying channel and floodplain geomorphic characteristics is essential for understanding and modeling sediment and nutrient dynamics in fluvial systems. The increased availability of high-resolution elevation data from light detection and ranging (lidar) has helped improve methods for extracting these metrics at a greater accuracy across regional scales. The Floodplain and...
Pressure coring operations during The University of Texas-Gulf of Mexico 2-1 (UT-GOM2-1) Hydrate Pressure Coring Expedition in Green Canyon Block 955, northern Gulf of Mexico
Carla Thomas, Stephen C. Phillips, Peter B. Flemings, Manasij Santra, Helen Hammon, Timothy Collett, Ann Cook, Tom Pettigrew, Mike Mimitz, Melanie Holland, Peter Schultheiss
2020, AAPG Bulletin (104) 1877-1901
In May 2017, The University of Texas Hydrate Pressure Coring Expedition Gulf of Mexico 2-1 (UT-GOM2-1) drilled two adjacent holes in Green Canyon Block 955 in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico as part of The University of Texas at Austin and US Department of Energy Deepwater Methane Hydrate Characterization and...
Assessing the long-term earthquake risk for the US National Bridge Inventory (NBI)
Kishor S. Jaiswal, N. Simon Kwong, S. S. Yen, D. Bausch, Kuo-wan Lin, Nico Luco, David J. Wald, J. Rozelle
2020, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering
We estimate annualized earthquake loss associated with over 600,000 bridges located throughout the contiguous United States. Each year, the Federal Highway Administration, in partnership with State Departments of Transportation, undertake a massive exercise to update the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) by combining data from states, federal agencies, local jurisdictions, and...
Photosynthetic and respiratory acclimation of understory shrubs in response to in situ experimental warming of a wet tropical forest
Kelsey R. Carter, Tana E Wood, Sasha C. Reed, Elsa C. Schwartz, Madeline B. Reinsel, Xi Yang
2020, Frontiers in Forests and Global Change (3)
Despite the importance of tropical forests to global carbon balance, our understanding of how tropical plant physiology will respond to climate warming is limited. In addition, the contribution of tropical forest understories to global carbon cycling is predicted to increase with rising temperatures, however, in situ warming studies of tropical forest plants...
Assessing the distribution and habitat needs of the Least Darter and sympatric species of the Ozark and Arbuckle Mountain ecoregions
Shannon K. Brewer, D. Sewdberg, R. Mollenhauer, J. Dattilo
2020, Cooperator Science Series CSS-146-2020
Limited information is known about factors driving the distribution of Least Darter in Oklahaoma. The Least Darter occurs in the Ozark Highland and Arbuckle Uplift ecoregions of Oklahoma which represent the southern extent of its range. Least Darter was historically recorded in Oklahoma from groundwater-fed streams. Our study objectives were...
An ecological and conservation perspective
C. LeAnn White, Julia S. Lankton, Daniel P. Walsh, Jonathan M. Sleeman, Craig Stephen
2020, Book chapter, One health: The theory and practice of integrated health approaches
Natural ecosystems are facing unprecedented threats which directly threaten human well-being through decreases in critical ecosystem services (IPBES 2019). The top five drivers causing the largest global impacts to biodiversity and ecosystem services include: 1) changes in land and sea use; 2) direct exploitation of organisms; 3) climate change; 4)...
Impacts of grade control structure installations on hydrology and sediment transport as an adaptive management strategy
Deborah Tosline, Laura M. Norman, Blair P. Greimann, Jay Cederberg, Victor Huang, Benjamin L. Ruddell
2020, Final Report ST-2017-1751-01
The goal of this research was to examine the impacts of Grade Control Structure (GCS) installations at the Heard Scout Pueblo (HSP) study site in the City of Phoenix, Arizona, USA. The study site is around a high-use trail system and is comprised of eroded and incised channels that conduct...
Assessing the efficacy of protected and multiple-use lands for bird conservation in the U.S.
L. Lynnette Dornak, Jocelyn L. Aycrigg, John R. Sauer, Courtney J. Conway
2020, PLoS ONE (15)
Setting land aside has long been a primary approach for protecting biodiversity; however, the efficacy of this approach has been questioned. We examined whether protecting lands positively influences bird species in the U.S., and thus overall biodiversity. We used the North American Breeding Bird Survey and Protected Areas Database of...
Comparative genomics and genomic epidemiology of mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis strains
Karen Stevenson, Christina Ahlstrom
2020, Book chapter, Paratuberculosis: Organism, disease, control
Two phenotypically distinct strains of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) were recognized in the 1930s but it was not until the introduction of restriction endonuclease analysis (REA) in the mid-1980s that these two strains, MAP-C and MAP-S, could be distinguished genetically. Since then, a plethora of molecular typing techniques has...
Mississippi Alluvial Valley Forest-breeding landbird population & quantitative habitat objectives
Dean W. Demarest, Blaine Elliott, Robert Ford, David Hanni, S. Keith McKnight, Anne E. Mini, Daniel J. Twedt, R. Randy Wilson
2020, Report
The Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV) is a 9 million ha (22-million-acre) floodplain that supports a diverse and ecologically rich bottomland hardwood forest ecosystem – one of the most productive in North America. It extends from roughly Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to the Gulf of Mexico and features a mosaic of ridges,...
Using video survey to examine the effect of habitat on gag grouper encounter
G. Alvarez, D. Gandy, Brian J. Irwin, Cecil A. Jennings, Adam Fox
2020, Conference Paper
Gag is a reef fish that was declared overfished in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) in 2009. Although Gag are no longer listed as overfished, fisheries managers are concerned that stocks may not be recovering. Our objective was to identify habitat characteristics important to Gag, and their effect on the...
Shallow basin structure and attenuation are key to predicting long shaking duration in Los Angeles Basin
Voon H Lai, Robert Graves, Chunquan Yu, Zhongwen Zhan, Don Helmberger
2020, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth (125)
Ground motions in the Los Angeles Basin during large earthquakes are modulated by earthquake ruptures, path effects into the basin, basin effects, and local site response. We analyzed the direct effect of shallow basin structures on shaking duration at a period of 2–10 s in the Los...
