Assessment of parametric uncertainty for groundwater reactive transport modeling,
Xiaoqing Shi, Ming Ye, Gary P. Curtis, Geoffery L. Miller, Philip D. Meyer, Matthias Kohler, Steve Yabusaki, Jichun Wu
2014, Water Resources Research (50) 4416-4439
The validity of using Gaussian assumptions for model residuals in uncertainty quantification of a groundwater reactive transport model was evaluated in this study. Least squares regression methods explicitly assume Gaussian residuals, and the assumption leads to Gaussian likelihood functions, model parameters, and model predictions. While the Bayesian methods do not...
Alaska
F. Stuart Chapin III, Sarah F. Trainor, Patricia Cochran, Henry Huntington, Carl J. Markon, Molly McCammon, A. David McGuire, Mark Serreze
J. M. Melillo, Terese Richmond, G.W. Yohe, editor(s)
2014, Report, Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment
Key Messages Arctic summer sea ice is receding faster than previously projected and is expected to virtually disappear before mid-century. This is altering marine ecosystems and leading to greater ship access, offshore development opportunity, and increased community vulnerability to coastal erosion. Most glaciers in Alaska and British Columbia are shrinking substantially. This...
Woody vegetation communities of tidal freshwater swamps in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida (US) with comparisons to similar systems in the US and South America
Jamie A. Duberstein, William H. Conner, Ken W. Krauss
2014, Journal of Vegetation Science (25) 848-862
Questions What are the general tree communities found in tidal freshwater swamps along four large coastal rivers in the southeastern United States (US)? How do these communities compare to other tidal freshwater swamps in the US and South America? Locations Tidal floodplains of major rivers along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the...
Cycles of explosive and effusive eruptions at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i
Don Swanson, Timothy R. Rose, Adonara E Mucek, Michael O. Garcia, Richard S. Fiske, Larry G. Mastin
2014, Geology (42) 631-634
The subaerial eruptive activity at Kīlauea Volcano (Hawai‘i) for the past 2500 yr can be divided into 3 dominantly effusive and 2 dominantly explosive periods, each lasting several centuries. The prevailing style of eruption for 60% of this time was explosive, manifested by repeated phreatic and phreatomagmatic activity in a...
Preliminary analysis of the role of lake basin morphology on the modern diatom flora in the Ruby Mountains and East Humboldt Range, Nevada, USA
Scott W. Starratt
2014, Mountain Views (8) 8-13
As paleolimnologists, we often look at the world through a 5-cm-diameter hole in the bottom of a lake, and although a number of studies have shown that a single core in the deepest part of a lake does not necessarily reflect the entire diatom flora, time and money often limit...
Estimating migratory connectivity of birds when re-encounter probabilities are heterogeneous
Emily B. Cohen, Jeffrey A. Hostelter, J. Andrew Royle, Peter P. Marra
2014, Ecology and Evolution (4) 1659-1670
Understanding the biology and conducting effective conservation of migratory species requires an understanding of migratory connectivity – the geographic linkages of populations between stages of the annual cycle. Unfortunately, for most species, we are lacking such information. The North American Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) houses an extensive database of marking,...
Brittle deformation and slope failure at the North Menan Butte tuff cone, Eastern Snake River Plain, Idaho
Chris H. Okubo
2014, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (278–279) 86-95
The manifestation of brittle deformation within inactive slumps along the North Menan Butte, a basaltic tuff cone in the Eastern Snake River Plain, is investigated through field and laboratory studies. Microstructural observations indicate that brittle strain is localized along deformation bands, a class of structural discontinuity that is predominant within...
Historic impact of watershed change and sedimentation to reefs along west-central Guam
Nancy G. Prouty, Curt D. Storlazzi, Amanda L. McCutcheon, John W. Jenson
2014, Coral Reefs (33) 733-749
Using coral growth parameters (extension, density, calcification rates, and luminescence) and geochemical measurements (barium to calcium rations; Ba/Ca) from coral cores collected in west-central Guam, we provide a historic perspective on sediment input to coral reefs adjacent to the Piti-Asan watershed. The months of August through December are dominated by...
Arthropod community structure on bark of koa (Acacia koa) and ʻōhiʻā (Metrosideros polymorpha) at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, Hawaiʻi Island, Hawaiʻi
Robert W. Peck, Paul C. Banko, Matt Stelmach
2014, Report, Hawai�i Cooperative Studies Unit Technical Report
The arthropod community associated with tree bark contains a wide variety of taxa but is poorly described, particularly in Hawaiʽi. Our overall goals were to evaluate the abundance of arthropods available to foraging birds and how variation in bark substrates may contribute to arthropod distributions in native forests. Our study...
Platinum-group elements in southern Africa: mineral inventory and an assessment of undiscovered mineral resources
Michael L. Zientek, J. Douglas Causey, Heather L. Parks, Robert J. Miller
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5090-Q
The platinum-group elements, platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, and osmium, possess unique physical and chemical characteristics that make them indispensable to modern technology and industry. However, mineral deposits that are the main sources of these elements occur only in three countries in the world, raising concerns about potential disruption in...
Impact of stressors on transmission potential of Renibacterium salmoninarum in Chinook salmon
Maureen K. Purcell, James R. Winton
2014, Report
Renibacterium salmoninarum is the causative agent of bacterial kidney disease (BKD) affecting several species of Pacific salmon. The severity of BKD can range from a chronic infection to overt disease with high mortality as in the case of large losses of adult Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the Great Lakes...
The behavioural response of adult Petromyzon marinus to damage-released alarm and predator cues
István Imre, Richard Di Rocco, Cowan Belanger, Grant Brown, Nicholas S. Johnson
2014, Journal of Fish Biology (84) 1490-1502
Using semi‐natural enclosures, this study investigated (1) whether adult sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus show avoidance of damage‐released conspecific cues, damage‐released heterospecific cues and predator cues and (2) whether this is a general response to injured heterospecific fishes or a specific response to injured P. marinus. Ten replicate groups of 10 adult P. marinus, separated...
Reflections on a vision for integrated research and monitoring after 15 years
Peter S. Murdoch, Michael McHale, Jill Baron
2014, Aquatic Geochemistry (20) 363-380
In May of 1998, Owen Bricker and his co-author Michael Ruggiero introduced a conceptual design for integrating the Nation’s environmental research and monitoring programs. The Framework for Integrated Monitoring and Related Research was an organizing strategy for relating data collected by various programs, at multiple spatial and temporal scales, and...
An intercomparison of three methods for the large-scale isolation of oceanic dissolved organic matter
Nelson W. Green, E. Michael Perdue, George R. Aiken, Kenna D. Butler, Hongmei Chen, Thorsten Dittmar, Jutta Niggemann, Aron Stubbins
2014, Marine Chemistry (161) 14-19
Dissolved organic matter (DOM) was isolated from large volumes of deep (674 m) and surface (21 m) ocean water via reverse osmosis/electrodialysis (RO/ED) and two solid-phase extraction (SPE) methods (XAD-8/4 and PPL) at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA). By applying the three methods to common water samples, the efficiencies...
Cross-ecosystem impacts of stream pollution reduce resource and contaminant flux to riparian food webs
Johanna M. Kraus, Travis S. Schmidt, David Walters, Richard B. Wanty, Robert E. Zuellig, Ruth E. Wolf
2014, Ecological Applications (24) 235-243
The effects of aquatic contaminants are propagated across ecosystem boundaries by aquatic insects that export resources and contaminants to terrestrial food webs; however, the mechanisms driving these effects are poorly understood. We examined how emergence, contaminant concentration, and total contaminant flux by adult aquatic insects changed over a gradient of...
Interacting effects of discharge and channel morphology on transport of semibuoyant fish eggs in large, altered river systems
Thomas A. Worthington, Shannon K. Brewer, Nicole Farless, Timothy B. Grabowski, Mark S. Gregory
2014, PLoS ONE (9)
Habitat fragmentation and flow regulation are significant factors related to the decline and extinction of freshwater biota. Pelagic-broadcast spawning cyprinids require moving water and some length of unfragmented stream to complete their life cycle. However, it is unknown how discharge and habitat features interact at multiple spatial scales to alter...
Nearshore energy subsidies support Lake Michigan fishes and invertebrates following major changes in food web structure
Benjamin A. Turschak, David B. Bunnell, Sergiusz J. Czesny, Tomas O. Hook, John Janssen, David M. Warner, Harvey A. Bootsma
2014, Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics (95) 1243-1252
Aquatic food webs that incorporate multiple energy channels (e.g. nearshore benthic or pelagic) with varying productivity and turnover rates convey stability to biological communities by providing multiple independent energy sources. Within the Lake Michigan food web, invasive dreissenid mussels have caused rapid changes to food web structure and potentially altered...
Home range and movements of American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) in an estuary habitat
Ikuko Fujisaki, Kristen M. Hart, Frank J. Mazzotti, Michael S. Cherkiss, Autumn R. Sartain-Iverson, Brian M. Jeffery, Jeffrey S. Beauchamp, Mathew J. Denton
2014, Animal Biotelemetry (2)
Background Understanding movement patterns of free-ranging top predators throughout heterogeneous habitat is important for gaining insight into trophic interactions. We tracked the movements of five adult American alligators to delineate their estuarine habitat use and determine drivers of their activity patterns in a seasonally-fluctuating environment. We also compared VHF- and satellite-tracks...
Applications of spatial statistical network models to stream data
Daniel J. Isaak, Erin E. Peterson, Jay M. Ver Hoef, Seth J. Wenger, Jeffrey A. Falke, Christian E. Torgersen, Colin Sowder, E. Ashley Steel, Marie-Josée Fortin, Chris E. Jordan, Aaron S. Ruesch, Nicholas Som, Pascal Monestiez
2014, WIREs Water (1) 277-294
Streams and rivers host a significant portion of Earth's biodiversity and provide important ecosystem services for human populations. Accurate information regarding the status and trends of stream resources is vital for their effective conservation and management. Most statistical techniques applied to data measured on stream networks were developed for terrestrial...
Desert wetlands in the geologic record
Jeff S. Pigati, Jason A. Rech, Jay Quade, Jordon Bright
L. Edwards, A. Springer, editor(s)
2014, Earth-Science Reviews (132) 67-81
Desert wetlands support flora and fauna in a variety of hydrologic settings, including seeps, springs, marshes, wet meadows, ponds, and spring pools. Over time, eolian, alluvial, and fluvial sediments become trapped in these settings by a combination of wet ground conditions and dense plant cover. The result is a unique...
Mineral resource of the month: Wollastonite
Robert L. Virta, Bradley S. Van Gosen
2014, Earth (59) 51-51
Wollastonite, a calcium metasilicate, has an ideal composition of 48.3 percent calcium oxide and 51.7 percent silicon dioxide, but it can also contain minor amounts of aluminum, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, sodium or strontium substituting for calcium. Wollastonite occurs as prismatic crystals that break into tabular-to-acicular fragments. It is usually...
Suitability of coastal marshes as Whooping Crane (Grus americana) foraging habitat in southwest Louisiana, USA
Sung-Ryong Kang, Sammy L. King
2014, Waterbirds (37) 254-263
Foraging habitat conditions (i.e., water depth, prey biomass, digestible energy density) can be a significant predictor of foraging habitat selection by wading birds. Potential foraging habitats of Whooping Cranes (Grus americana) using marshes include ponds and emergent marsh, but the potential prey and energy availability in these habitat types have...
Evaluation of high-frequency mean streamwater transit-time estimates using groundwater age and dissolved silica concentrations in a small forested watershed
Norman E. Peters, Douglas A. Burns, Brent T. Aulenbach
2014, Aquatic Geochemistry (20) 183-202
Many previous investigations of mean streamwater transit times (MTT) have been limited by an inability to quantify the MTT dynamics. Here, we draw on (1) a linear relation (r 2 = 0.97) between groundwater 3H/3He ages and dissolved silica (Si) concentrations, combined with (2) predicted streamwater Si concentrations from a...
Model behavior and sensitivity in an application of the cohesive bed component of the community sediment transport modeling system for the York River estuary, VA, USA
Kelsey A. Fall, Courtney K. Harris, Carl T. Friedrichs, J. Paul Rinehimer, Christopher R. Sherwood
2014, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (2) 413-436
The Community Sediment Transport Modeling System (CSTMS) cohesive bed sub-model that accounts for erosion, deposition, consolidation, and swelling was implemented in a three-dimensional domain to represent the York River estuary, Virginia. The objectives of this paper are to (1) describe the application of the three-dimensional hydrodynamic York Cohesive Bed Model,...
Re-evaluation of Yellowstone grizzly bear population dynamics not supported by empirical data: response to Doak & Cutler
Frank T. van Manen, Michael R. Ebinger, Mark A. Haroldson, Richard B. Harris, Megan D. Higgs, Steve Cherry, Gary C. White, Charles C. Schwartz
2014, Conservation Letters (7) 323-331
Doak and Cutler critiqued methods used by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) to estimate grizzly bear population size and trend in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Here, we focus on the premise, implementation, and interpretation of simulations they used to support their arguments. They argued that population increases documented...
