The effects of substrate and sediment burial on survival of developing pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) and shovelnose sturgeon (S. platorynchus) embryos
Kimberly Chojnacki, Amy E. George, Aaron J. Delonay
2023, Environmental Biology of Fishes (106) 527-539
The shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus) and endangered pallid sturgeon (S. albus) deposit demersal and adhesive eggs in swift currents, near or over coarse substrate. Hydrographic surveys have demonstrated the dynamic nature of spawning habitats and that coarse substrates may episodically be buried (partially or completely)...
Damage amplification during repetitive seismic waves in mechanically loaded rocks
Anthony Lamur, Jackie E. Kendrick, Lauren N. Schaefer, Yan Lavallee, Ben M. Kennedy
2023, Scientific Reports (13)
Cycles of stress build-up and release are inherent to tectonically active planets. Such stress oscillations impart strain and damage, prompting mechanically loaded rocks and materials to fail. Here, we investigate, under uniaxial conditions, damage accumulation and weakening caused by time-dependent creep (at 60, 65, and...
Water Science School [Bookmark]
Tara A. Gross
2023, General Information Product 219
Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey’s online Water Science School is a one-stop shop for water education resources. In addition to sharing images, data, and diagrams, the Water Science School provides lesson plans for teachers as well as multiple interactive activities for students, such as questionnaires, calculators, and quizzes. This bookmark introduces...
Using the gut microbiome to assess stocking efforts of the endangered Pallid Sturgeon, Scaphirhynchus albus
Sarah Gaughan, John A. Kyndt, Justin D. Haas, Kirk D. Steffensen, Patrick M. Kocovsky, Kevin L. Pope
2023, Life (13)
The endangered Pallid Sturgeon, Scaphirhynchus albus, has been actively managed to prevent population declines, including stocking of hatchery-raised fish. The gut microbiome plays an innate role in an organism’s absorption of nutrients by increasing nutrient availability and can provide new insights for Pallid Sturgeon management. In this study, the Pallid...
Bioenergetics model for the nonnative Redside Shiner
Rachelle Carina Johnson, David Beauchamp, Julian D. Olden
2023, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (152) 94-113
ObjectiveRedside Shiner Richardsonius balteatus has expanded from its native range in the Pacific Northwest region of North America to establish populations in six other western states. This expansion has fueled concerns regarding competition between Redside Shiner and native species, including salmonids. We developed a bioenergetic model for Redside Shiner,...
Habitat selection of a migratory freshwater fish in response to seasonal hypoxia as revealed by acoustic telemetry
Richard Kraus, H. Andrew Cook, Matthew D. Faust, Joseph Schmitt, Mark D. Rowe, Christopher S. Vandergoot
2023, Journal of Great Lakes Research (49) 1004-1014
Adaptive efforts to achieve water quality objectives by modifying nutrient loading can have attendant impacts on fish habitats and fisheries. Thus, coordinating fishery and water quality management depends on knowledge of fish behavioral responses to habitat change. This study combined acoustic telemetry of fish with water quality modeling to understand...
Product specification document for dynamic surface water extent from Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2
John Jones, G. Shiroma
2023, Report
The primary purpose of this document is to convey product specifications of the OPERA (Observational Products for End-users from Remote-sensing Analysis) Level-3 Dynamic Surface Water Extent (DSWx) product that uses Harmonized Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2A/B (HLS) as the primary image-based inputs. This product, referred to by the short name DSWx-HLS, will...
Using Global Fiducials Library high-resolution imagery, commercial satellite imagery, Landsat and Sentinel satellite imagery, and aerial photography to monitor change at East Timbalier Island, Louisiana, 1953–2021
Gary B. Fisher, E. Terrence Slonecker, Shawn J. Dilles, Bruce F. Molnia, Kim M. Angeli
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5107
This report documents morphological changes between 1953 and 2021 at East Timbalier Island, Louisiana, a Gulf of Mexico barrier island. East Timbalier Island, which was located west of the Mississippi River Delta at the front of Timbalier Bay, was one of the most rapidly changing barrier islands on Earth. Since...
A 1.2 billion pixel human-labeled dataset for data-driven classification of coastal environments
Daniel D. Buscombe, Phillipe Alan Wernette, Sharon Fitzpatrick, Jaycee Favela, Evan B. Goldstein, Nicholas Enwright
2023, Scientific Data (10)
The world’s coastlines are spatially highly variable, coupled-human-natural systems that comprise a nested hierarchy of component landforms, ecosystems, and human interventions, each interacting over a range of space and time scales. Understanding and predicting coastline dynamics necessitates frequent observation from imaging sensors on remote sensing...
Persistence and quality of vegetation cover in expired Conservation Reserve Program fields
Mark W. Vandever, Kenneth Elgersma, Sarah K. Carter, Ai Wen, Justin L. Welty, Robert Arkle, Timothy J. Assal, David S. Pilliod, David M. Mushet, Rich Iovanna
2023, Ecosphere (14)
For nearly 40 years, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) has implemented practices to reduce soil erosion, improve water quality, and provide habitat for wildlife and pollinators on highly erodible cropland in the United States. However, an approximately 40,470 ha (10 million acres) decline in enrolled CRP land over...
Adult spawners: A critical period for subarctic Chinook salmon in a changing climate
Kathrine G. Howard, Vanessa R. von Biela
2023, Global Change Biology (29) 1759-1773
Concurrent, distribution-wide abundance declines of some Pacific salmon species, including Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), highlights the need to understand how vulnerability at different life stages to climate stressors affects population dynamics and fisheries sustainability. Yukon River Chinook salmon stocks are among the largest subarctic populations, near...
Taxonomic reassessment of the Little pocket mouse, Perognathus longimembris (Rodentia, Heteromyidae) of southern California and northern Baja California
James L. Patton, Robert N. Fisher
2023, Therya (14) 131-160
The Little pocket mouse (Perognathus longimembris) encompasses 15 to 16 currently recognized subspecies, six of which are restricted to southern California and adjacent northern Baja California. Using cranial geomorphometric shape parameters and dorsal color variables we delineate six regional groups of populations from this area that we recognize as valid,...
Local weather and endogenous factors affect the initiation of migration in short- and medium-distance songbird migrants
Theodore J. Zenzal Jr., Darren Johnson, Frank R. Moore, Zoltán Németh
2023, Journal of Avian Biology (2023)
Migratory birds employ a variety of mechanisms to ensure appropriate timing of migration based on integration of endogenous and exogenous information. The cues to fatten and depart from the non-breeding area are often linked to exogenous cues such as temperature or precipitation and the endogenous program....
Redd superimposition mediates the accuracy, precision, and significance of redd counts for cutthroat trout
Jeffrey R. Baldock, Robert Al-Chokhachy, Timothy E. Walsworth, Annika W. Walters
2023, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (80) 825-839
Redd counts are commonly applied to estimate spawning population size for salmonids and allow for broad spatial and temporal coverage in monitoring efforts. However, the utility of redd counts may be compromised by observation error, particularly with respect to superimposition, where later arriving spawners construct redds overlapping...
Simulating debris flow and levee formation in the 2D shallow flow model D-Claw: Channelized and unconfined flow
Ryan P. Jones, Francis K. Rengers, Katherine R. Barnhart, David L. George, Dennis M. Staley, Jason W. Kean
2023, Earth and Space Science (10)
Debris flow runout poses a hazard to life and infrastructure. The expansion of human population into mountainous areas and onto alluvial fans increases the need to predict and mitigate debris flow runout hazards. Debris flows on unconfined alluvial fans can exhibit spontaneous self-channelization through levee formation that...
Microfaunal recording of recent environmental changes in the Herschel Basin, western Arctic Ocean
Jade Falardeau, Anne de Vernal, Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz, Thomas M. Cronin, Laura Gemery, Leo Chassiot, Michael Fritz, Vladislav Carnero-Bravo, Claude Hillaire-Marcel, Philippe Archambault
2023, Journal of Foraminiferal Research (53) 20-48
Microfaunal assemblages of benthic foraminifera, ostracods, and tintinnids from two marine sediment cores retrieved from the Herschel Basin of the Canadian Beaufort Sea shelf document relationships with environmental parameters such as salinity, sea-ice cover, and turbulence. Cores YC18-HB-GC01 and PG2303-1 were collected at...
Invaders at the doorstep: Using species distribution modeling to enhance invasive plant watch lists
Catherine S. Jarnevich, Peder Engelstad, Jillian LaRoe, Brandon Hays, Terri Hogan, Jeremy Jirak, Ian S. Pearse, Janet S. Prevey, Jennifer Sieraki, Annie Simpson, Jess Wenick, Nicholas Young, Helen Sofaer
2023, Ecological Informatics (75)
Watch lists of invasive species that threaten a particular land management unit are useful tools because they can draw attention to invasive species at the very early stages of invasion when early detection and rapid response efforts are often most successful. However, watch lists typically rely on the subjective selection...
Trends in tree cover change over three decades related to interannual climate variability and wildfire in California
Francis K Dwomoh, Roger F. Auch, Jesslyn F. Brown, Heather J. Tollerud
2023, Environmental Research Letters (18)
The U.S. State of California has experienced frequent drought events, hotter temperatures and other disruptions to the climate system whose effects on ecosystems have been widely reported in recent decades. Studies primarily confined to specific vegetation communities or species, individual drought incidents, or analysis over a relatively...
Climate change hotspots and implications for the global subsea telecommunications network
M.A. Clare, I.A. Yeo, L. Bricheno, Y Askenov, J. Browning, I.D. Haigh, T. Wahl, J. A. Hunter, C. Sams, Jason Chaytor, B.J. Bett, L. Carter
2023, Earth Science Reviews (237)
A global network of subsea telecommunications cables underpins our daily lives, enabling >95% of global digital data transfer, $trillions/day in financial trading, and providing critical communications links, particularly to remote, low-income countries. Despite their importance, subsea cables and their landing...
A model of transmissivity and hydraulic conductivity from electrical resistivity distribution derived from airborne electromagnetic surveys of the Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer, Midwest USA
Scott Ikard, Burke J. Minsley, James R. Rigby, Wade Kress
2023, Hydrogeology Journal (31) 313-334
Groundwater-flow models require the spatial distribution of the hydraulic conductivity parameter. One approach to defining this spatial distribution in groundwater-flow model grids is to map the electrical resistivity distribution by airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey and establish a petrophysical relation between mean resistivity calculated as a...
Plant community predictions support the potential for big sagebrush range expansion adjacent to the leading edge
T. Martyn, K. Palmquist, John B. Bradford, Daniel Rodolphe Schlaepfer, W.K. Lauenroth
2023, Regional Environmental Change (23)
Big sagebrush ecosystems are widespread across drylands of western North America and provide numerous services, but the abundance of these ecosystems has declined substantially and the future of these ecosystems is uncertain. As a result, characterizing potential areas for expansion of these ecosystems is important. Species...
Identifying building locations in the wildland–urban interface before and after fires with convolutional neural networks
Neda K. Kasraee, Todd Hawbaker, Volker C. Radeloff
2023, International Journal of Wildland Fire (32) 610-621
Background: Wildland–urban interface (WUI) maps identify areas with wildfire risk, but they are often outdated owing to the lack of building data. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can extract building locations from remote sensing data, but their accuracy in WUI areas is unknown. Additionally, CNNs are computationally intensive and technically complex, making...
A perched culvert and natural obstructions limit fish dispersal in an intermittent prairie stream
Keith B. Gido, Skyler C. Hedden, Lindsey Ann Bruckerhoff, Casey A. Pennock, Crosby K. Hedden, Garrett W. Hopper, Elizabeth A. Renner, Eric R. Johnson, Ben J. Postlethwait
2023, Freshwater Science (42) 33-43
Poorly constructed road crossings block upstream movement of fish into stream reaches that provide critical habitat or connect isolated populations. Although removing these barriers is often a conservation priority, quantifying fish passage following removal has not been well studied, particularly in intermittent streams. In this study, we sought to understand...
Addressing a potential weakness in indices of predation, herbivory, and parasitism
Jean V. Adams
2023, Population Ecology (65) 133-144
Quantification of predation, herbivory, and parasitism is critical to understanding the dynamics and trophic interactions of populations in an ecosystem. Such quantification can be challenging if the availability or consumption of the taxa are difficult to assess. Sometimes the consumption of a single prey, forage, or host is used as...
Drivers of survival of translocated tortoises
Jeremy S Mack, Kristin H. Berry
2023, Journal of Wildlife Management (87)
Translocation of animals, especially for threatened and endangered species, is a currently popular but very challenging activity. We translocated 158 adult Agassiz's desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii), a threatened species, from the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, in the central Mojave Desert in California, USA, to 4 plots as part of...
