Newly documented population extends geographic range and genetic diversity for the Leaf-toed Gecko (Phyllodactylus nocticolus) into the Transverse Ranges of southern California
Dustin A. Wood, Alyssa Worrel-Black, Robert Black, Anna Mitelberg, Mark Fisher, Robert N. Fisher, Amy G. Vandergast, Cameron W. Barrows
2020, Herpetological Review (51) 456-458
Between 19 – 30 May 2018, one of us [AW] discovered a disjunct population of Peninsula leaf-toed geckos, Phyllodactylus nocticolus (Phyllodactylidae) on the northern edge of the Coachella Valley in the Little San Bernardino Mountains of the Transverse Ranges (Fig. 1a). The previously northernmost location for the species is Tahquitz...
Kinematic rupture and 3D wave propagation simulations of the 2019 Mw 7.1 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake
Evan Tyler Hirakawa, Andrew J. Barbour
2020, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (110) 1644-1659
We model the kinematic rupture process of the 2019 Mw">MwMw 7.1 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake using numerical simulations to reproduce the elastodynamic wave field observed by inertial seismometers, high‐rate Global Navigation Satellite System stations,...
Keeping it classy: Classification of live fish and ghost PIT tags detected with a mobile PIT tag interrogation system using an innovative analytical approach
J. Benjamin Stout, Mary Conner, Phaedra E. Budy, Peter Mackinnon, Mark McKinstry
2020, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (7) 1564-1573
The ability of passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag data to improve demographic parameter estimates has led to the rapid advancement of PIT tag systems. However, ghost tags create uncertainty about detected tag status (i.e., live fish or ghost tag) when using mobile interrogation systems. We developed a method to differentiate...
Updating data inputs, assessing trends, and evaluating a method to estimate probable high groundwater levels in selected areas of Massachusetts
Janet R. Barclay, John R. Mullaney
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5036
A method to estimate the probable high groundwater level in Massachusetts, excluding Cape Cod and the islands, was developed in 1981. The method uses a groundwater measurement from a test site, groundwater measurements from an index well, and a distribution of high groundwater levels from wells in similar geologic and...
The prevalence and significance of offset magma reservoirs at arc volcanoes
Allan H. Lerner, Daniel O'Hara, Leif Karlstrom, Susanna K. Ebmeier, Kyle R. Anderson, Shaul Hurwitz
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
Determining the spatial relations between volcanic edifices and their underlying magma storage zones is fundamental for characterizing long-term evolution and short-term unrest. We compile centroid locations of upper crustal magma reservoirs at 56 arc volcanoes inferred from seismic, magnetotelluric, and geodetic studies. We show that magma reservoirs are often horizontally...
The impact of lime additions on mercury dynamics in stream chemistry and macroinvertebrates: A comparison of watershed and direct stream addition management strategies
Geoffrey D. Millard, Karen Riva-Murray, Douglas A. Burns, Mario S. Montesdeoca, Charles T. Driscoll
2020, Ecotoxicology (29) 1627-1643
Acid deposition has declined across eastern North America and northern Europe due to reduced emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides. Ecosystem recovery has been slow with limited improvement in surface water chemistry. Delayed recovery has encouraged acid-neutralization strategies to accelerate recovery of impaired biological communities. Lime application has been shown...
Dietary fat concentrations influence fatty acid assimilation patterns in Atlantic pollock (Pollachius virens)
Suzanne M. Budge, Katherine Townsend, Santosh P Lall, Jeffrey F. Bromaghin
2020, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (375)
A key aspect in the use of fatty acids (FA) to estimate predator diets using Quantitative FA Signature Analysis (QFASA) is the ability to account for FA assimilation through the use of calibration coefficients (CC). Here, we tested the assumption that CC are independent of dietary fat concentrations by feeding...
Snow processes in mountain forests: Interception modeling for coarse-scale applications
N. Helbig, C. David Moeser, M. Teich, L. Vincent, Y. Lejeune, J.-E. Sicart, J.-M. Monnet
2020, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (24) 2545-2560
Snow interception by the forest canopy controls the spatial heterogeneity of subcanopy snow accumulation leading to significant differences between forested and nonforested areas at a variety of scales. Snow intercepted by the forest canopy can also drastically change the surface albedo. As such, accurately modeling snow interception is of importance...
Baseline conditions and projected future hydro-climatic change in National Parks in the conterminous United States
William A. Battaglin, Lauren Hay, David J. Lawrence, Gregory J. McCabe, Parker A. Norton
2020, Water (6)
The National Park Service (NPS) manages hundreds of parks in the United States, and many contain important aquatic ecosystems and/or threatened and endangered aquatic species vulnerable to hydro-climatic change. Effective management of park resources under future hydro-climatic uncertainty requires information on both baseline conditions and the range of projected future...
Conceptualizing alternate regimes in a large floodplain-river ecosystem
Kristen L. Bouska, Jeffrey N. Houser, Nathan R. De Jager, Deanne C. Drake, Scott F. Collins, Caniel K. Gibson-Reniemer, Meredith A. Thomsen
2020, Journal of Environmental Management (264)
Regime shifts –persistent changes in the structure and function of an ecosystem - are well-documented in many ecosystems but remain poorly understood in floodplain-river ecosystems. We apply a resilience perspective to large floodplain-river ecosystems by presenting three examples of plausible sets of alternate regimes that are relevant to natural resource...
Using a bayesian multistate occupancy model to assess seabird and shorebird status in Glacier Bay, Alaska
Steven L. Whitlock, Tania Lewis, James Peterson
2020, Wildlife Society Bulletin (44) 451-467
The U.S. Department of Interior National Park Service is charged with both monitoring avian communities and evaluating the influence of visitors to National Parks on sensitive species; however, this task is challenging considering that sampling programs often involve multiple species, each with differing behavior, habitat requirements,...
Mysterious tsunami in the Caribbean Sea following the 2010 Haiti earthquake possibly generated by dynamically triggered early aftershocks
Uri S. ten Brink, Yong Wei, Wenyuan Fan, Jose-Luis Granja-Bruna, Nathaniel C. Miller
2020, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (540)
Dynamically triggered offshore aftershocks, caused by passing seismic waves from main shocks located on land, are currently not considered in tsunami warnings. The M7.0 2010 Haiti earthquake epicenter was located on land 27 km north of the Caribbean Sea and its focal...
Moving beyond p<0.05 in ecotoxicology: A guide for practitioners
Richard A. Erickson, Barnett A. Rattner
2020, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (39) 1657-1669
Statistical inferences play a critical role in ecotoxicology. Historically, Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST) has been the dominant method for inference in ecotoxicology. As a brief and informal definition of the NHST approach, researchers compare (or test) an experimental treatment or observation against a hypothesis of no relationship or effect...
Changes in physiology and microbial diversity in larval ornate chorus frogs are associated with habitat quality
Cory B. Goff, Susan Walls, David Rodriguez, Caitlin S. Gabor
2020, Conservation Physiology (8)
Environmental change associated with anthropogenic disturbance can lower habitat quality, especially for sensitive species such as many amphibians. Variation in environmental quality may affect an organism’s physiological health and, ultimately, survival and fitness. Using multiple health measures can aid in identifying populations at increased risk of declines. Our objective...
Investigating the effects of land use and land cover on the relationship between moisture and reflectance using Landsat Time Series
Heather J. Tollerud, Jesslyn F. Brown, Thomas Loveland
2020, Remote Sensing (12)
To better understand the Earth system, it is important to investigate the interactions between precipitation, land use/land cover (LULC), and the land surface, especially vegetation. An improved understanding of these land-atmosphere interactions can aid understanding of the climate system and modeling of time series satellite data. Here, we investigate the...
Effects of barrier island salt marsh restoration on marsh bird occurrence in the Northern Gulf of Mexico
Paige A. Byerly, Hardin Waddle, Alexis R. Premeaux, Paul L. Leberg
2020, Restoration Ecology (28) 1610-1620
In the Northern Gulf of Mexico, salt marshes are threatened by sea level rise, erosion, and loss of protective barrier islands. These barrier islands provide critical habitat for wildlife, including globally significant populations of marsh and shorebirds. We investigated salt marsh restoration on two Louisiana barrier islands using presence of...
Annual adult survival drives trends in Arctic-breeding shorebirds but knowledge gaps in other vital rates remain
Emily L. Weiser, Richard B. Lanctot, Stephen C. Brown, H. River Gates, Joel Bety, Megan L. Boldenow, Rodney W. Brook, Glen S. Brown, Willow B. English, Scott A. Flemming, Samantha E. Franks, H. Grant Gilchrist, Marie-Andree Giroux, Andrew C. Johnson, Steve Kendall, Lisa V. Kennedy, Laura Koloski, Eunbi Kwon, Jean-Francois Lamarre, David B. Lank, Christopher J. Latty, Nicolas Lecomte, Joseph R. Liebezeit, Rebecca L McGuire, Laura McKinnon, Erica Nol, David C. Payer, Johanna Perz, Jennie Rausch, Martin D. Robards, Sarah T. Saalfeld, Nathan R. Senner, Paul A. Smith, Mikhail Soloviev, Diana V Solovyeva, David H. Ward, Paul F. Wood, Brett K. Sandercock
2020, The Condor (1222)
Conservation status and management priorities are often informed by population trends. Trend estimates can be derived from population surveys or models, but both methods are associated with sources of uncertainty. Many Arctic-breeding shorebirds are thought to be declining based on migration and/or overwintering population surveys, but data are lacking to...
Proposed species extinction target fails to capture the diversity in biodiversity
David O'Brien, Margaret Hunter, Martin Breed, Laura Bertola, Rob Ogden, Clarisse Palma da Silva, Ivan Paz-Vinas, Gernot Segelbacher, Sean M. Hoban, Rodolfo Jaffe
2020, Science (368) 1193-1195
We believe the 20 species extinction metric is a retrograde proposal, which does not adequately consider the lessons learnt from the 2020 Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Whilst having a single simple overarching target is appealing, we believe a positively-framed target will garner support, rather than one that aims to, at best,...
Historical museum collections and contemporary population studies implicate roads and introduced predatory bullfrogs in the decline of western pond turtles
E. Griffin Nicholson, Stephanie Manzo, Zachary Devereux, Thomas Morgan, Robert N. Fisher, Christopher W. Brown, Rosi Dagit, Peter A Scott, H. Bradley Shaffer
2020, PeerJ (8)
The western pond turtle (WPT), recently separated into two paripatrically distributed species (Emys pallida and Emys marmorata), is experiencing significant reductions in its range and population size. In addition to habitat loss, two potential causes of decline are female-biased road mortality and high juvenile mortality from non-native predatory bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana). However,...
Model-based clustering reveals patterns in central place use of a marine top predator
Brian M. Brost, Mevin Hooten, Robert J. Small
2020, Ecosphere
Satellite telemetry data are commonly used to quantify habitat selection, examine animal movements, and delineate home ranges. These data also contain valuable information concerning dens, nests, roosts, and other central places that are often associated with important life history events and may exhibit unique characteristics; however, using satellite telemetry data...
Regional patterns in hydrologic response, a new three-component metric for hydrograph analysis and implications for ecohydrology, Northwest Volcanic Aquifer Study Area, USA
Jennifer A. Curtis, Erick R. Burns, Roy Sando
2020, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies (30)
Study RegionOregon, California, Idaho, Nevada and UtahStudy FocusSpatial patterns of hydrologic response were examined for the Northwest Volcanic Aquifer Study Area (NVASA). The utility of established hydrograph-separation methods for assessing hydrologic response in permeable volcanic terranes was assessed...
Statewide assessment of karst aquifers in New York with an inventory of closed-depression and focused-recharge features
William M. Kappel, James E. Reddy, Jonathan Casey Root
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5030
Karst is a landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rock or rock containing minerals that are easily dissolved from within the rock. The landscape is characterized by sinkholes, caves, losing streams, springs, and underground drainage systems, which rapidly move water through the karst. The two forms of karst in...
Hydraulic fracturing induced seismicity
Ryan Schultz, Robert Skoumal, Michael R. Brudzinski, David Eaton, Brian Baptie, William L. Ellsworth
2020, Reviews of Geophysics (3)
Hydraulic fracturing (HF) is a technique that is used for extracting petroleum resources from impermeable host rocks. In this process, fluid injected under high pressure causes fractures to propagate. This technique has been transformative for the hydrocarbon industry, unlocking otherwise stranded resources; however, environmental concerns make HF...
Measuring channel planform change from image time series: A generalizable, spatially distributed, probabilistic method for quantifying uncertainty
Christina Leonard, Carl J. Legleiter, Devin M. Lea, John C. Schmidt
2020, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (45) 2727-2744
Channels change in response to natural or anthropogenic fluctuations in streamflow and/or sediment supply and measurements of channel change are critical to many river management applications. Whereas repeated field surveys are costly and time‐consuming, remote sensing can be used to detect channel change at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Repeat...
Influence of hydropower outflow characteristics affecting riverbank stability: The lower Osage River case (Missouri, USA)
Wesam Mohammed-Ali, Cesar Mendoza, Robert R. Holmes Jr.
2020, Hydrological Sciences Journal (65) 1784-1793
This research examined the influences of outflow characteristics affecting riverbank stability. The 130 km stretch of the lower Osage River downstream from Bagnell Dam (Missouri, USA) provided an excellent case study for this purpose. The integrated BSTEM model with the HEC-RAS model was accurately calibrated and validated with data from...
