Demographic rates and population viability of black bears in Louisiana
Jared S. Laufenberg, Joseph D. Clark, Michael J. Hooker, Carrie L. Lowe, Kaitlin C. O’Connell-Goode, Jesse C. Troxler, Maria M. Davidson, Michael J. Chamberlain, Richard B. Chandler
2015, Wildlife Monographs (194) 1-37
The Louisiana black bear (Ursus americanus luteolus) was reduced to a few small, fragmented, and isolated subpopulations in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley by the mid-twentieth century resulting from loss and fragmentation of habitat. In 1992, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) granted the Louisiana black bear threatened...
Collapse risk of buildings in the Pacific Northwest region due to subduction earthquakes
Meera Raghunandan, Abbie B. Liel, Nico Luco
2015, Earthquake Spectra (31) 2087-2115
Subduction earthquakes similar to the 2011 Japan and 2010 Chile events will occur in the future in the Cascadia subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest. In this paper, nonlinear dynamic analyses are carried out on 24 buildings designed according to outdated and modern building codes for the cities of Seattle,...
Dating base flow in streams using dissolved gases and diurnal temperature changes
Ward E. Sanford, Gerolamo C. Casile, Karl B. Haase
2015, Water Resources Research (51) 9790-9803
A method is presented for using dissolved CFCs or SF6 to estimate the apparent age of stream base flow by indirectly estimating the mean concentration of the tracer in the inflowing groundwater. The mean value is estimated simultaneously with the mean residence times of the gas and water in the...
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community prepares for climate change impacts
Eric E. Grossman, Jamie Donatuto, Sarah Grossman, Larry W. Campbell
2015, Report
From changes in traditional foods to concerns of displacement from rising seas, this coastal community in the Pacific Northwest is assessing potential impacts to make decisions for their future....
Management of aspen in a changing environment
Douglas J. Shinneman, Anne S. Halford, Cheri Howell, Kevin Krasnow, Eva K. Strand
Jeanne Chambers, editor(s)
2015, Report
Aspen communities are biologically rich and ecologically valuable, yet they face myriad threats, including changing climate, altered fire regimes, and excessive browsing by domestic and wild ungulates. Recognizing the different types of aspen communities that occur in the Great Basin, and being able to distinguish between seral and stable aspen stands,...
A guide to the use of distance sampling to estimate abundance of Karner blue butterflies
Ralph Grundel
2015, Report
This guide is intended to describe the use of distance sampling as a method for evaluating the abundance of Karner blue butterflies at a location. Other methods for evaluating abundance exist, including mark-release-recapture and index counts derived from Pollard-Yates surveys, for example. Although this guide is not intended to be...
Practitioners' views of science needs for the Great Lakes coastal ecosystem
Victoria Pebbles, Elizabath C. Lillard, Paul W. Seelbach, Lisa Reynolds Fogarty
2015, Report
In 2014, the U.S. Geological Survey Great Lake Science Center (USGS-GLSC) and the USGS-Michigan Water Science Center partnered with the Great Lakes Commission (GLC) to conduct a series of four workshops with coastal practitioners and managers across the Great Lakes basin to highlight the need for, and get input on,...
Optimization and resilience in natural resources management
Byron K. Williams, Fred A. Johnson
Craig Allen, Ahjond S. Garmestani, editor(s)
2015, Book chapter, Adaptive management of social-ecological systems
We consider the putative tradeoff between optimization and resilience in the management of natural resources, using a framework that incorporates different sources of uncertainty that are common in natural resources management. We address one-time decisions, and then expand the decision context to the more complex problem of iterative decision making....
Seasonal foraging responses of beavers to sodium-enhanced foods: An experimental assessment with field feeding trials
Jennifer Strules, Stephen DeStefano
2015, Journal of Mammalogy (97) 89-101
Salt drive is a seasonal phenomenon common to several classes of wild herbivores. Coincident with shifts of nutrient quality when plants resume growth in the spring, sodium is secondarily lost as surplus potassium is excreted. The beaver (Castor canadensis) is an herbivore whose dietary niche closely follows that of other...
Application-ready expedited MODIS data for operational land surface monitoring of vegetation condition
Jesslyn F. Brown, Daniel M. Howard, Bruce K. Wylie, Aaron M. Friesz, Lei Ji, Carolyn Gacke
2015, Remote Sensing (7) 16226-16240
Monitoring systems benefit from high temporal frequency image data collected from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) system. Because of near-daily global coverage, MODIS data are beneficial to applications that require timely information about vegetation condition related to drought, flooding, or fire danger. Rapid satellite data streams in operational applications...
Assessing shoreline exposure and oyster habitat suitability maximizes potential success for sustainable shoreline protection using restored oyster reefs
Megan K. LaPeyre, Kayla Serra, T. Andrew Joyner, Austin T. Humphries
2015, PeerJ (3)
Oyster reefs provide valuable ecosystem services that contribute to coastal resilience. Unfortunately, many reefs have been degraded or removed completely, and there are increased efforts to restore oysters in many coastal areas. In particular, much attention has recently been given to the restoration of shellfish reefs along eroding shorelines to...
Building sandbars in Grand Canyon
Paul E. Grams, John C. Schmidt, Scott Wright, David J. Topping, Theodore S. Melis, David M. Rubin
2015, Newsletter
Now, by implementing a new strategy that calls for repeated releases of large volumes of water from the dam, the U.S. Department of the Interior seeks to increase the size and number of these sandbars. Three years into the “High Flow Experiment” protocol, the releases appear to be achieving the...
Sediment and discharge yields within a minimally disturbed, headwater watershed in North Central Pennsylvania, USA, with an emphasis on Superstorm Sandy
Kelly O. Maloney, Dustin R. Shull
2015, Water and Environment Journal (29) 402-411
We estimated discharge and suspended sediment (SS) yield in a minimally disturbed watershed in North Central Pennsylvania, USA, and compared a typical storm (September storm, 4.80 cm) to a large storm (Superstorm Sandy, 7.47 cm rainfall). Depending on branch, Sandy contributed 9.7–19.9 times more discharge and 11.5–37.4 times more SS...
The influence of food abundance, food dispersion and habitat structure on territory selection and size of an Afrotropical terrestrial insectivore
Thomas R. Stanley, William D. Newmark
2015, Ostrich (87) 199-207
Most tropical insectivorous birds, unlike their temperate counterparts, hold and defend a feeding and breeding territory year-around. However, our understanding of ecological factors influencing territory selection and size in tropical insectivores is limited. Here we examine three prominent hypotheses relating food abundance, food dispersion (spatial arrangement of food items), and...
Estimation of historic flows and sediment loads to San Francisco Bay,1849–2011
H.R. Moftakhari, D.A. Jay, S.A. Talke, David H. Schoellhamer
2015, Journal of Hydrology (529) 1247-1261
River flow and sediment transport in estuaries influence morphological development over decadal and century time scales, but hydrological and sedimentological records are typically too short to adequately characterize long-term trends. In this study, we recover archival records and apply a rating curve approach to develop the first instrumental estimates of...
Remote Sensing of Actual Evapotranspiration from Cropland: Chapter 3
Trent Biggs, George P. Petropoulos, Naga Manohar Velpuri, Michael Marshall, Edward P. Glenn, Pamela L. Nagler, Alex Messina
Prasad S. Thenkabail, editor(s)
2015, Book chapter, Remote sensing handbook, Vol. III: Remote sensing of water resources, disasters, and urban studies
No abstract available....
Resolving bathymetry from airborne gravity along Greenland fjords
Alexandra Boghosian, Kirsty Tinto, James R. Cochran, David Porter, Stefan Elieff, Bethany L. Burton, Robin E. Bell
2015, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (120) 8516-8533
Recent glacier mass loss in Greenland has been attributed to encroaching warming waters, but knowledge of fjord bathymetry is required to investigate this mechanism. The bathymetry in many Greenland fjords is unmapped and difficult to measure. From 2010 to 2012, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Operation IceBridge collected a unique...
A geochemical and geophysical assessment of coastal groundwater discharge at select sites in Maui and O’ahu, Hawai’i
Peter W. Swarzenski, H. Dulaiova, M.L. Dalier, C.R. Glenn, C.G. Smith, Curt D. Storlazzi
2015, Book chapter, Coastal research library: Groundwater in the coastal zones of Asia-Pacific
This chapter summarizes fieldwork conducted to derive new estimates of coastal groundwater discharge and associated nutrient loadings at select coastal sites in Hawai’i, USA. Locations for this work were typically identified based on pronounced, recent ecosystem degradation that may at least partially be attributable to sustained coastal groundwater discharge. Our...
Export of fine particulate organic carbon from redwood-dominated catchments
Mary Ann Madej
2015, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (40) 1533-1541
Recently, researchers have recognized the significant role of small mountainous river systems in the transport of carbon from terrestrial environments to the ocean, and the scale of such studies have ranged from channel bed units to continents. In temperate zones, these mountain river systems commonly drain catchments that are largely...
Internships, employment opportunities, and research grants
Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey
2015, General Information Product 114
As an unbiased, multidisciplinary science organization, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is dedicated to the timely, relevant, and impartial study of the health of our ecosystems and environment, our natural resources, the impacts of climate and land-use change, and the natural hazards that threaten us. Opportunities for undergraduate and graduate...
Effects of groundwater pumping on agricultural drains in the Tule Lake subbasin, Oregon and California
Esther M. Pischel, Marshall W. Gannett
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5087
Since 2001, irrigators in the upper Klamath Basin have increasingly turned to groundwater to compensate for reductions in surface-water allocation caused by shifts from irrigation use to instream flows for Endangered Species Act listed fishes. The largest increase in groundwater pumping has been in and around the Bureau of...
The Gulf Coast Vulnerability Assessment: Mangrove, Tidal Emergent Marsh, Barrier Islands, and Oyster Reef
Amanda Watson, Joshua S. Reece, Blair Tirpak, Cynthia Kallio Edwards, Laura Geselbracht, Mark Woodrey, Megan K. LaPeyre, P. Soupy Dalyander
2015, Report
Climate, sea level rise, and urbanization are undergoing unprecedented levels of combined change and are expected to have large effects on natural resources—particularly along the Gulf of Mexico coastline (Gulf Coast). Management decisions to address these effects (i.e., adaptation) require an understanding of the relative vulnerability of various resources to...
Dynamic reserve design in the face of climate change and urbanization
Stephanie S. Romanach, Fred A. Johnson, Bradley Stith, Mathieu Bonneau
2015, Report
Reserve design is a process that must address many ecological, social, and political factors to successfully identify parcels of land in need of protection to sustain wildlife populations and other natural resources. Making land acquisition choices for a large, terrestrial protected area is difficult because it occurs over a long...
Feather isotope analysis reveals differential patterns of habitat and resource use in populations of white-winged doves
Scott A. Carleton, Carlos Martinez Del Rio, Timothy J. Robinson
2015, Journal of Wildlife Management (79) 948-956
The white-winged dove (Zenaida asiatica) serves an important ecological role as a diurnal pollinator of the saguaro cactus in the Sonoran desert and an economic role as a highly sought after game bird in North America. White-winged doves are intimately linked to anthropogenic changes on the landscape and because of...
Factors influencing recruitment of walleye and white bass to three distinct early ontogenetic stages
Jason A. DeBoer, Kevin L. Pope
2015, Ecology of Freshwater Fish (25) 504-517
Determining the factors that influence recruitment to sequential ontogenetic stages is critical for understanding recruitment dynamics of fish and for effective management of sportfish, particularly in dynamic and unpredictable environments. We sampled walleye (Sander vitreus) and white bass (Morone chrysops) at 3 ontogenetic stages (age 0 during spring: ‘age-0 larval’;...
