Streamflow statistics for selected streams in North Dakota, Minnesota, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan
Tara Williams-Sether
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1147
Statistical summaries of streamflow data for the periods of record through water year 2009 for selected active and discontinued U.S. Geological Survey streamflow-gaging stations in North Dakota, Minnesota, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan were compiled. The summaries for each streamflow-gaging station include a brief station description, a graph of the annual peak...
Ohio River backwater flood-inundation maps for the Saline and Wabash Rivers in southern Illinois
Elizabeth A. Murphy, Jennifer B. Sharpe, David T. Soong
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5212
Digital flood-inundation maps for the Saline and Wabash Rivers referenced to elevations on the Ohio River in southern Illinois were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The inundation maps, accessible through the USGS Flood Inundation Mapping Science Web site at http://water.usgs.gov/osw/flood_inundation/, depict estimates of the areal extent of flooding...
Effects of hydroperiod duration on survival, developmental rate, and size at metamorphosis in boreal chorus frog tadpoles (Pseudacris maculata)
Staci Amburgey, W. Chris Funk, Melanie Murphy, Erin Muths
2012, Herpetologica (68) 456-467
Understanding the relationship between climate-driven habitat conditions and survival is key to preserving biodiversity in the face of rapid climate change. Hydroperiod—the length of time water is in a wetland—is a critical limiting habitat variable for amphibians as larvae must metamorphose before ponds dry. Changes in precipitation and temperature patterns...
Wetland fire remote sensing research--The Greater Everglades example
John W. Jones
2012, Fact Sheet 2012-3133
Fire is a major factor in the Everglades ecosystem. For thousands of years, lightning-strike fires from summer thunderstorms have helped create and maintain a dynamic landscape suited both to withstand fire and recover quickly in the wake of frequent fires. Today, managers in the Everglades National Park are implementing controlled...
The state of amphibians in the United States
E. Muths, M.J. Adams, E.H.C. Grant, Dick Miller, P.S. Corn, L.C. Ball
2012, Fact Sheet 2012-3092
More than 25 years ago, scientists began to identify unexplained declines in amphibian populations around the world. Much has been learned since then, but amphibian declines have not abated and the interactions among the various threats to amphibians are not clear. Amphibian decline is a problem of local, national, and...
Synchronous cycling of Ichthyophoniasis with Chinook salmon density revealed during the annual Yukon River spawning migration
Stanley Zuray, Richard Kocan, Paul Hershberger
2012, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (141) 615-623
Populations of Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha in the Yukon River declined by more than 57% between 2003 and 2010, probably the result of a combination of anthropogenic and environmental factors. One possible contributor to this decline is Ichthyophonus, a mesomycetozoan parasite that has previously been implicated in significant losses of...
Phase II modification of the Water Availability Tool for Environmental Resources (WATER) for Kentucky: The sinkhole-drainage process, point-and-click basin delineation, and results of karst test-basin simulations
Charles J. Taylor, Tanja N. Williamson, Jeremy K. Newson, Randy L. Ulery, Hugh L. Nelson, Peter J. Cinotto
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5071
This report describes Phase II modifications made to the Water Availability Tool for Environmental Resources (WATER), which applies the process-based TOPMODEL approach to simulate or predict stream discharge in surface basins in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The previous (Phase I) version of WATER did not provide a means of identifying...
Revolutionary land use change in the 21st century: Is (rangeland) science relevant?
J. E. Herrick, J.R. Brown, B.T. Bestelmeyer, S.S. Andrews, G. Baldi, J. Davies, M. Duniway, K. M. Havstad, J.W. Karl, D.L. Karlen, Debra P. C. Peters, J.N. Quinton, C. Riginos, P.L. Shaver, D. Steinaker, S. Twomlow
2012, Rangeland Ecology and Management (65) 590-598
Rapidly increasing demand for food, fiber, and fuel together with new technologies and the mobility of global capital are driving revolutionary changes in land use throughout the world. Efforts to increase land productivity include conversion of millions of hectares of rangelands to crop production, including many marginal lands with low...
Net Ecosystem Production (NEP) of the Great Plains, United States
Daniel Howard, Tagir Gilmanov, Yingxin Gu, Bruce Wylie, Li Zhang
2012, Fact Sheet 2012-3134
Gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Re) are the fundamental environmental characteristics that promote carbon exchanges with the atmosphere (Chapin and others, 2009), although other exchanges of carbon, such as direct oxidation (Lovett and others, 2006), can modify net ecosystem production (NEP). The accumulation of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems...
Snake River fall Chinook salmon life history investigations: Annual report 2010
Kenneth F. Tiffan, William P. Connor, Rebecca A. Buchanan, Scott J. St John, John M. Erhardt, Craig A. Haskell
2012, Report
This report summarizes three research activities conducted in 2010-2011. The first was a radiotelemetry study conducted in the lower Clearwater River. The second was a hydroacoustic study conducted in Lower Granite and Little Goose reservoirs. The third was an analysis of covariates affecting juvenile fall Chinook salmon survival and behavior....
Burial increases seed longevity of two Artemisia tridentata (Asteraceae) subspecies
Upekala C. Wijayratne, David A. Pyke
2012, American Journal of Botany (99) 438-447
Premise of the study: Seed longevity and persistence in soil seed banks may be especially important for population persistence in ecosystems where opportunities for seedling establishment and disturbance are unpredictable. The fire regime, an important driver of population dynamics in sagebrush steppe ecosystems, has been altered by exotic annual grass...
Effectiveness of common fish screen materials to protect lamprey ammocoetes
Brien P. Rose, Matthew G. Mesa
2012, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (32) 597-603
Understanding the effects of irrigation diversions on populations of Pacific lampreyLampetra tridentata in the Columbia River basin is needed for their recovery. We tested the effectiveness of five common fish screen materials for excluding lamprey ammocoetes: interlock (IL), vertical bar (VB), perforated plate (PP), and 12-gauge and 14-gauge wire cloth (WC12)...
Baseline and projected future carbon storage and greenhouse-gas fluxes in ecosystems of the Western United States
Zhi-Liang Zhu, Bradley C. Reed
2012, Professional Paper 1797
This assessment was conducted to fulfill the requirements of section 712 of the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 and to improve understanding of carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes in ecosystems of the Western United States. The assessment examined carbon storage, carbon fluxes, and other GHG fluxes...
Selenium in aquatic biota inhabiting agricultural drains in the Salton Sea Basin, California
Michael K. Saiki, Barbara A. Martin, Thomas W. May
2012, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (184) 5623-5640
Resource managers are concerned that water conservation practices in irrigated farmlands along the southern border of the Salton Sea, Imperial County, California, could increase selenium concentrations in agricultural drainwater and harm the desert pupfish (Cyprinodon macularius), a federally protected endangered species. As part of a broader attempt to...
Ecosystem services valuation to support decisionmaking on public lands—A case study of the San Pedro River watershed, Arizona
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Darius J. Semmens, Rob Winthrop, Delilah Jaworksi, Joel Larson
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5251
This report details the findings of the Bureau of Land Management–U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Services Valuation Pilot Study. This project evaluated alternative methods and tools that quantify and value ecosystem services, and it assessed the tools’ readiness for use in the Bureau of Land Management decisionmaking process. We tested these...
Costs of living for juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in an increasingly warming and invaded world
Lauren M. Kuehne, Julian D. Olden, Jeffrey J. Duda
2012, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (69) 1621-1630
Rapid environmental change in freshwater ecosystems has created a need to understand the interactive effects of multiple stressors, with temperature and invasive predators identified as key threats to imperiled fish species. We tested the separate and interactive effects of water temperature and predation by non-native smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) on...
Survival and growth of juvenile Pacific lampreys tagged with passive integrated transponders (PIT) in freshwater and seawater
Matthew G. Mesa, Elizabeth S. Copeland, Helena E. Christiansen, Jacob L. Gregg, Sean R. Roon, Paul K. Hershberger
2012, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (141) 1260-1268
Tagging methods are needed for both adult and juvenile life stages of Pacific lampreys Lampetra tridentata to better understand their biology and factors contributing to their decline. We developed a safe and efficient technique for tagging juvenile Pacific lampreys with passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags. We tested the short-term survival...
Casual instrument corrections for short-period and broadband seismometers
Matthew M. Haney, John Power, Michael West, Paul Michaels
2012, Seismological Research Letters (83) 834-845
Of all the filters applied to recordings of seismic waves, which include source, path, and site effects, the one we know most precisely is the instrument filter. Therefore, it behooves seismologists to accurately remove the effect of the instrument from raw seismograms. Applying instrument corrections allows analysis of the seismogram...
Roles of inflammatory caspases during processing of zebrafish interleukin-1β in Francisella noatunensis infection
Lucia N. Vojtech, Nichole Scharping, James C. Woodson, John D. Hansen
2012, Infection and Immunity (80) 2878-2885
The interleukin-1 family of cytokines are essential for the control of pathogenic microbes but are also responsible for devastating autoimmune pathologies. Consequently, tight regulation of inflammatory processes is essential for maintaining homeostasis. In mammals, interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β) is primarily regulated at two levels, transcription and processing. The main pathway for...
The Midwest Stream Quality Assessment
Peter C. Van Metre, Jeffrey W. Frey, Ellen Tarquinio
2012, Fact Sheet 2012-3124
In 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA) and USGS Columbia Environmental Research Center (CERC) will be collaborating with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Rivers and Streams Assessment (NRSA) to assess stream quality across the Midwestern United States. The sites selected for this study...
Status and trends of land change in the Western United States--1973 to 2000
Benjamin M. Sleeter, Tamara S. Wilson, William Acevedo, editor(s)
2012, Professional Paper 1794-A
Preface U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Professional Paper 1794–A is the first in a four-volume series on the status and trends of the Nation’s land use and land cover, providing an assessment of the rates and causes of land-use and land-cover change in the Western United States between 1973 and 2000. Volumes...
Spatial genetic structure and asymmetrical gene flow within the Pacific walrus
Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Chadwick V. Jay, Anthony S. Fischbach, George K. Sage, Sandra L. Talbot
2012, Journal of Mammalogy (93) 1512-1524
Pacific walruses (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) occupying shelf waters of Pacific Arctic seas migrate during spring and summer from 3 breeding areas in the Bering Sea to form sexually segregated nonbreeding aggregations. We assessed genetic relationships among 2 putative breeding populations and 6 nonbreeding aggregations. Analyses of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control...
Use of ASTER and MODIS thermal infrared data to quantify heat flow and hydrothermal change at Yellowstone National Park
R. Greg Vaughan, Laszlo P. Keszthelyi, Jacob B. Lowenstern, Cheryl Jaworowski, Henry Heasler
2012, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (233-234) 72-89
The overarching aim of this study was to use satellite thermal infrared (TIR) remote sensing to monitor geothermal activity within the Yellowstone geothermal area to meet the missions of both the U.S. Geological Survey and the Yellowstone National Park Geology Program. Specific goals were to: 1) address the challenges...
Detecting hidden volcanic explosions from Mt. Cleveland Volcano, Alaska with infrasound and ground-couples airwaves
Slivio De Angelis, David Fee, Matthew Haney, David Schneider
2012, Geophysical Research Letters (39)
In Alaska, where many active volcanoes exist without ground-based instrumentation, the use of techniques suitable for distant monitoring is pivotal. In this study we report regional-scale seismic and infrasound observations of volcanic activity at Mt. Cleveland between December 2011 and August 2012. During this period, twenty explosions were detected by...
Time-lapse camera observations of gas piston activity at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō, Kīlauea volcano, Hawai‘i
Tim R. Orr, James Rea
2012, Bulletin of Volcanology (74) 2353-2362
Gas pistoning is a type of eruptive behavior described first at Kīlauea volcano and characterized by the (commonly) cyclic rise and fall of the lava surface within a volcanic vent or lava lake. Though recognized for decades, its cause continues to be debated, and determining why and when it occurs...
