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Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean volumes of undiscovered, technically recoverable resources of 463 million barrels of oil, 11.2 trillion cubic feet of gas, and 35 million barrels of natural gas liquids in the Cherokee Platform Province area of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri....

Oil development in the Bakken shale region has increased rapidly as a result of new technologies and strong demand for fossil fuel. This region also supports a particularly high density and diversity of grassland bird species, which are declining across North America. We examined grassland bird response to unconventional oil...

We examined effects of flooding on supply rates of 14 nutrients in floodplain areas invaded by Phalaris arundinacea (reed canarygrass), areas restored to young successional forests (browsed by white-tailed deer and unbrowsed), and remnant mature forests in the Upper Mississippi River floodplain. Plant Root Simulator ion-exchange probes were deployed for...

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts)—communities of mosses, lichens, cyanobacteria, and heterotrophs living at the soil surface—are fundamental components of drylands worldwide, and destruction of biocrusts dramatically alters biogeochemical processes, hydrology, surface energy balance, and vegetation cover. While there has been long-standing concern over impacts of 5 physical disturbances on biocrusts (e.g.,...

In 2009, the largest steelhead trout conservation hatchery in the state of Idaho, Dworshak National Fish Hatchery (NFH), lost over 50% of the juvenile steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) population being reared for release. The causative agent of this high mortality was the viral pathogen infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV). This was neither the first...

Anthropogenic development has great potential to affect fragile desert environments. Large-scale development of renewable energy infrastructure is planned for many desert ecosystems. Development plans should account for anthropogenic effects to distributions and abundance of rare or sensitive wildlife; however, baseline data on abundance and distribution of such wildlife are often...

Trends in pesticide concentrations in 38 major rivers of the United States were evaluated in relation to use trends for 11 commonly occurring pesticide compounds. Pesticides monitored in water were analyzed for trends in concentration in three overlapping periods, 1992–2001, 1997–2006, and 2001–2010 to facilitate comparisons among sites with...

Physical processes can generate spatiotemporal heterogeneity in habitat quality for fish and also influence the overlap of pre-recruit individuals (e.g., larvae) with high-quality habitat through hydrodynamic advection. In turn, individuals from different stocks that are produced in different spawning locations or at different times may experience dissimilar habitat conditions, which...

White-nose syndrome (WNS) was first detected in North American bats in New York in 2006. Since that time WNS has spread throughout the northeastern United States, southeastern Canada, and southwest across Pennsylvania and as far west as Missouri. Suspect WNS cases have been identified in Minnesota and Iowa, and the...

In 2012, the total amount of water withdrawn in Florida was estimated to be 14,237 million gallons per day (Mgal/d). Saline water accounted for 7,855 Mgal/d (55 percent), and freshwater accounted for 6,383 Mgal/d (45 percent). Groundwater accounted for 4,167 Mgal/d (65 percent) of freshwater withdrawals, and surface water accounted...

The Frazier Mountain paleoseismic site is located within the northern Big Bend of the southern San Andreas Fault (lat 34.8122° N., lon 118.9034° W.), in a small structural basin formed by the fault (fig. 1). The site has been the focus of over a decade of paleoseismic study due to...

We analyzed counts from the annual Midwinter Bald Eagle Survey to examine state, regional, and national trends in counts of wintering Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) within the conterminous 48 United States from 1986 to 2010. Using hierarchical mixed model methods, we report trends in counts...

I report on the unusual behavior of an adult House Wren (Troglodytes aedon) leading recently fledged young back to the nest for two consecutive nights. The ambient temperature reached below 0°C during both nights. Despite disadvantages associated with remaining in the nest, this observation suggests that adult birds may assess...

Conservation planning, the process of deciding how to protect, conserve, enhance and(or) minimize loss of natural and cultural resources, is a fundamental process to achieve conservation success in a time of rapid environmental change. Conservation targets, the measurable expressions of desired resource conditions, are an important tool in biological planning...

The Arctic is rapidly transitioning toward a seasonal sea ice-free state, perhaps one of the most apparent examples of climate change in the world. This dramatic change has numerous consequences, including a large increase in air temperatures, which in turn may affect terrestrial methane emissions. Nonetheless, terrestrial and marine environments...

The Anniston Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) Site is located in the vicinity of the municipality of Anniston in Calhoun County, in the north-eastern portion of Alabama. Although there are a variety of land-use activities within the Choccolocco Creek watershed, environmental concerns in the area have focused mainly on releases of PCBs...

No abstract available....

Identifying magma pathways is important for understanding and interpreting volcanic signals. At Kīlauea volcano, seismicity illuminates subsurface plumbing, but the broad spectrum of seismic phenomena hampers event identification. Discrete, long-period events (LPs) dominate the shallow (5-10 km) plumbing, and deep (40+ km) tremor has been observed offshore. However, our inability...

Global inventories of sediment discharge to the ocean highlight the importance of small, steep watersheds (i.e., those having drainage areas less than 100,000 km2 and over 1000 m of relief) that collectively provide a dominant flux of sediment. The smallest of these coastal watersheds (e.g., those that have drainage areas...

Aim. Studies of fire activity along environmental gradients have been undertaken, but the results of such studies have yet to be integrated with fire-regime analysis. We characterize fire-regime components along climate gradients and a gradient of human influence. Location. We focus on a climatically diverse region of north-western North America...

Prediction is fundamental to scientific enquiry and application; however, ecologists tend to favour explanatory modelling. We discuss a predictive modelling framework to evaluate ecological hypotheses and to explore novel/unobserved environmental scenarios to assist conservation and management decision-makers. We apply this framework to develop an optimal predictive model...

Aquaculture operations are a frequent and prominent cause of anthropogenic disturbance to marine and estuarine communities and may alter species composition and abundance. However, little is known about how such disturbances affect trophic linkages or ecosystem functions. In Puget Sound, Washington, aquaculture of the Pacific geoduck clam (Panopea...

Magmatic minerals record the pre-eruptive timescales of magma ascent and mixing in crustal reservoirs and conduits. Investigations of the mineral records of magmatic processes are fundamental to our understanding of what controls eruption style, as ascent rates and magma mixing processes are well known to control and/or trigger potentially hazardous...

Questions(i) What role does the type of managed disturbance play in structuring sagebrush steppe plant communities? (ii) How does the composition of post-disturbance plant communities change with time since disturbance? (iii) Does plant community diversity change over time following managed disturbance?LocationField study within the sagebrush steppe ecosystem. Rich County, Utah,...

After 3 years of mild gases emissions, the Ubinas volcano entered in a new eruptive phase on September 2nd, 2013. The MIROVA system (a space-based volcanic hot-spot detection system), allowed us to detect in near real time the thermal emissions associated with the eruption and provided early evidence of magma...