Average kinship within bighorn sheep populations is associated with connectivity, augmentation, and bottlenecks
Elizabeth P Flesch, Tabitha A. Graves, Jennifer Thomson, Kelly M. Proffitt, Robert A. Garrott
2022, Ecosphere (13)
Understanding the influence of population attributes on genetic diversity is important to advancement of biological conservation. Because bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) populations vary in size and management history, the species provides a unique opportunity to observe the response of average pairwise kinship, inversely related to genetic diversity, to a spectrum...
Influence of offshore oil and gas structures on seascape ecological connectivity
Dianne L McLean, Luciana C. Ferreira, Jessica A Benthuysen, Karen J. Miller, Marie-Lise Schlappy, Matthew J. Ajemian, Oliver Berry, Silvana N. R. Birchenough, Todd Bond, Fabio Boschetti, Ann S Bull, Jeremy T Claisse, Scott A Condie, Pierpaolo Consoli, Joop W. P. Coolen, Michael R. Elliott, Irene S Fortune, Ashley M Fowler, Bronwyn M Gillanders, Hugo B Harrison, Kristen Hart, Lea-Anne Henry, Chad L Hewitt, Natalie Hicks, Karlo Hock, Kieran Hyder, Milton S. Love, Peter I Macreadie, Robert J. Miller, William A Montevecchi, Mary M Nishimoto, Henry M. Page, David M Paterson, Charitha B Pattiaratchi, Gretta T Pecl, Joanne S Porter, David B. Reeves, Cynthia Riginos, Sally Rouse, Debbie J. F. Russell, Craig D. H. Sherman, Jonas Teilmann, Victoria L. G. Todd, Eric A. Treml, David H. Williamson, Michele Thums
2022, Global Change Biology (28) 3515-3536
Offshore platforms, subsea pipelines, wells and related fixed structures supporting the oil and gas (O&G) industry are prevalent in oceans across the globe, with many approaching the end of their operational life and requiring decommissioning. Although structures can possess high ecological diversity and productivity, information on...
Coupling validation effort with in situ bioacoustic data improves estimating relative activity and occupancy for multiple species with cross-species misclassifications
Christian Stratton, Kathryn M. Irvine, Katharine M. Banner, Wilson J. Wright, Cori Lausen, Jason Rae
2022, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (13) 1288-1303
The increasing complexity and pace of ecological change requires natural resource managers to consider entire species assemblages. Acoustic recording units (ARUs) require minimal cost and effort to deploy and inform relative activity, or encounter rates, for multiple species simultaneously. ARU-based surveys require post-processing of the recordings via software algorithms...
Atmospheric river storm flooding influences tidal marsh elevation building processes
Karen M. Thorne, Scott Jones, Chase M. Freeman, Kevin Buffington, Christopher N. Janousek, Glenn R. Guntenspergen
2022, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (127)
Disturbances are a key component of ecological processes in coastal ecosystems. Investigating factors that affect tidal marsh accretion and elevation change is important, largely due to accelerating sea-level rise and the ecological and economic value of wetlands. Sediment accumulation rates, elevation change, and flooding were examined at...
Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium from wild birds in the United States represent distinct lineages defined by bird type
Yezhi Fu, Nkuchia M. M’ikanatha, Jeffrey M. Lorch, David S. Blehert, Brenda M. Berlowski-Zier, Chris A. Whitehouse, Shaoting Li, Xiangyu Deng, Jared C. Smith, Nikki W. Shariat, Erin M. Nawrocki, Edward G. Dudley
2022, Applied and Environmental Microbiology (88)
Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is typically considered a host generalist; however, certain isolates are associated with specific hosts and show genetic features of host adaptation. Here, we sequenced 131 S. Typhimurium isolates from wild birds collected in 30 U.S. states during 1978-2019. We found that isolates from broad taxonomic host groups including passerine...
Precision of headwater stream permanence estimates from a monthly water balance model in the Pacific Northwest, USA
Konrad Hafen, Kyle W. Blasch, Paul E. Gessler, Roy Sando, Alan H. Rea
2022, Water (14)
Stream permanence classifications (i.e., perennial, intermittent, ephemeral) are a primary consideration to determine stream regulatory status in the United States (U.S.) and are an important indicator of environmental conditions and biodiversity. However, at present, no models or products adequately describe surface water presence for regulatory determinations. We modified the Thornthwaite...
Forest cover lessens the impact of drought on streamflow in Puerto Rico
Jazlynn S. Hall, Martha A. Scholl, Yuri Gorokhovich, Maria Uriarte
2022, Hydrological Processes (36)
Tropical regions are experiencing high rates of forest cover loss coupled with changes in the volume and timing of rainfall. These shifts can compromise streamflow and water provision, highlighting the need to identify how forest cover influences streamflow generation under variable rainfall conditions. Although rainfall is the key driver of...
Complex life-cycles in trophically transmitted helminths: Do the benefits of increased growth and transmission outweigh generalism and complexity costs?
Daniel P. Benesh, James C Chubb, Kevin D. Lafferty, Geoff A Parker
2022, Current Research in Parasitology & Vector-borne Diseases (2)
Why do so many parasitic worms have complex life-cycles? A complex life-cycle has at least two hypothesized costs: (i) worms with longer life-cycles, i.e. more successive hosts, must be generalists at the species level, which might reduce lifetime survival or growth, and (ii) each...
Risk assessment of chanchita Cichlasoma dimerus (Heckel, 1840), a newly identified non-native cichlid fish in Florida
Mary Brown, Robert H. Robins, Pam Schofield
2022, Management of Biological Invasions (13) 435-448
The risk of a newly discovered non-native fish species in Florida (USA): Cichlasoma dimerus ([Heckel, 1840]; Family: Cichlidae) is assessed. Its tolerance to cold temperatures was experimentally evaluated and information on its biology and ecology was synthesized. In the cold-temperature tolerance experiment, temperature was lowered from 24 °C by increments...
Carnivores in color: Pelt color patterns among carnivores in Idaho
David Edward Ausband, Jessica M. Krohner
2022, Journal of Mammalogy (103) 598-607
Pelt color serves many functions from signaling to crypsis to thermoregulation and its purpose has been a lively source of debate in biology for over a century. Determining the effects of both habitat and human influences on pelt color patterns can be difficult. We made novel use of a...
Evaluation of salinity and nutrient conditions in the Heart River Basin, North Dakota, 1970–2020
Wyatt S. Tatge, Rochelle A. Nustad, Joel M. Galloway
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5013
The Heart River Basin is predominantly an agricultural basin in western North Dakota and is approximately 3,350 square miles. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Grant County Soil Conservation District, completed a study to assess spatial and temporal...
Keeping an eye on water quality from the sky
Francine H. Mejia, Christian E. Torgersen, Cedric G Fichot
2022, Frontiers for Young Minds
You can learn a lot about rivers, lakes, estuaries, and oceans by looking down at them from the sky. Scientists use a technique called remote sensing to measure the amount of light or heat energy reflected and emitted from the Earth. Sensors can be on satellites or mounted on airplanes,...
Are little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) impacted by dietary exposure to microcystin?
Devon N. Jones, Gregory L. Boyer, Julia S. Lankton, Megan Woller-Skar, Amy L. Russell
2022, Harmful Algae (114)
The cyanobacterium, Microcystis aeruginosa, can produce the hepatotoxin microcystin. When toxic M. aeruginosa overwinters in the sediments of lakes, it may be ingested by aquatic insects and bioaccumulate in nymphs of Hexagenia mayflies. When volant Hexagenia emerge from lakes to reproduce, they provide an abundant, albeit temporary, food source for many terrestrial organisms including bats. Little brown bats, Myotis...
Land management explains major trends in forest structure and composition over the last millennium in California’s Klamath Mountains
Clarke Alexandra Knight, Lysanna Anderson, M. Jane Bunting, Marie Rhondelle Champagne, Rosie M. Clayburn, Jeffrey N. Crawford, Anna Klimaszewski-Patterson, Eric E. Knapp, Frank K. Lake, Scott A. Mensing, David Wahl, James Wanket, Alex Watts-Tobin, Matthew D. Potts, John J. Battles
2022, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (119)
For millennia, forest ecosystems in California have been shaped by fire from both natural processes and Indigenous land management, but the notion of climatic variation as a primary controller of the pre-colonial landscape remains pervasive. Understanding the relative influence of climate and Indigenous burning on the fire regime is key...
Stochastic agent-based model for predicting turbine-scale raptor movements during updraft-subsidized directional flights
Rimple Sandhu, Charles Tripp, Eliot Quon, Regis Thedin, Michael Lawson, David Brandes, Chris Farmer, Tricia A. Miller, Caroline Draxl, Paula Doubrawa, Lindy Williams, Adam E. Duerr, Melissa A. Braham, Todd E. Katzner
2022, Ecological Modelling (466) 1-12
Rapid expansion of wind energy development across the world has highlighted the need to better understand turbine-caused avian mortality. The risk to golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) is of particular concern due to their small population size and conservation status. Golden eagles subsidize their flight in part by soaring in orographic...
Quantifying large-scale continental shelf margin growth and dynamics across mid-Cretaceous Arctic Alaska with detrital zircon U-Pb dating
Richard O. Lease, David W. Houseknecht, Andrew R. C. Kylander-Clark
2022, Geology (50) 620-625
Sequence stratigraphy provides a unifying framework for integrating diverse observations to interpret sedimentary basin evolution; however, key time assumptions about stratigraphic elements spanning hundreds of kilometers are rarely quantified. We integrate new detrital zircon U-Pb (DZ) dates from 28 samples with seismic mapping to establish a chronostratigraphic framework across 800...
A physical interpretation of asymmetric growth and decay of the geomagnetic dipole moment
Bruce Buffett, Margaret Susan Avery, William E. Davis Jr.
2022, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (23)
Observations of relative paleointensity reveal several forms of asymmetry in the time dependence of the virtual axial dipole moment (VADM). Slow decline of the VADM into a reversal is often followed by a more rapid rise back to a quasi-steady state. Asymmetry is also observed in trends...
Past terrestrial hydroclimate sensitivity controlled by Earth system feedbacks
R. Feng, T. Bhattacharya, B. Otto-Bliesner, E. Brady, A. M. Haywood, J. Tindall, S. J. Hunter, A. Abe- Ouchi, W.-L. Chan, M. Kageyama, C. Contoux, C. Guo, X. Li, G. Lohmann, C. Stepanek, N. Tan, Q. Zhang, Z. Zhang, Z. Han, J.R. Williams, D. J. Lunt, Harry J. Dowsett, Deepak Chandan, W. Richard Peltier
2022, Nature Communications (13)
Despite tectonic conditions and atmospheric CO2 levels (pCO2) similar to those of present-day, geological reconstructions from the mid-Pliocene (3.3-3.0 Ma) document high lake levels in the Sahel and mesic conditions in subtropical Eurasia, suggesting drastic reorganizations of subtropical terrestrial hydroclimate during this interval. Here, using a compilation of proxy...
Effect of adult male sterilization on the behavior and social associations of a feral polygynous ungulate: The horse
Sarah R. B. King, Kathryn A. Schoenecker, Mary J. Cole
2022, Appled Animal Behaviour Science (249)
Castration is commonly used to control the behavior of companion animals and livestock, yet there have been few longitudinal studies of its effects. Despite the ubiquity of this surgery in ridden horses, the effects of castration (termed gelding in horses) have rarely been examined in a...
Characteristics and sources of intense geoelectric fields in the United States: Comparative analysis of multiple geomagnetic storms
Xueling Shi, Michael D Hartinger, Joseph B. H. Baker, Benjamin Scott Murphy, Paul A. Bedrosian, Anna Kelbert, Erin (Josh) Rigler
2022, Space Weather (20)
Intense geoelectric fields during geomagnetic storms drive geomagnetically induced currents in power grids and other infrastructure, yet there are limited direct measurements of these storm-time geoelectric fields. Moreover, most previous studies examining storm-time geoelectric fields focused on single events or small geographic regions, making it difficult to determine the typical...
Mechanisms for retention of low molecular weight organic carbon varies with soil depth at a coastal prairie ecosystem
Jack McFarland, Corey Lawrence, Courtney Creamer, Marjorie S. Schulz, Christopher H. Conaway, Sara Peek, Mark Waldrop, Sabrina N. Sevilgen, Monica Haw
2022, Soil Biology and Biochemistry (168)
Though primary sources of carbon (C) to soil are plant inputs (e.g., rhizodeposits), the role of microorganisms as mediators of soil organic carbon (SOC) retention is increasingly recognized. Yet, insufficient knowledge of sub-soil processes complicates attempts to describe microbial-driven C cycling at depth as most studies of microbial-mineral-C interactions focus...
Detecting algal toxins and organic contaminants of concern in the environment
Julie E. Dietze, Rachael F. Lane, Keith A. Loftin, Daniel L. Tush, Michaelah C. Wilson
2022, Fact Sheet 2022-3009
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Kansas Water Science Center Organic Geochemistry Research Laboratory (OGRL) was established in 1987. The OGRL is a multidisciplinary program that contributes knowledge about the distribution, fate, transport, and effects of new and understudied organic compounds that may affect human health and (or) ecosystems. The OGRL...
Volatile organic compounds in groundwater used for public supply across the United States: Occurrence, explanatory factors, and human-health context
Laura M. Bexfield, Kenneth Belitz, Miranda S. Fram, Bruce D. Lindsey
2022, Science of the Total Environment (827)
This systematic assessment of occurrence for 85 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in raw (untreated) groundwater used for public supply across the United States (U.S.), which includes 43 compounds not previously monitored by national studies, relates VOC occurrence to explanatory factors and assesses VOC detections in a human-health context. Samples were...
The use of continuous sediment-transport measurements to improve sand-load estimates in a large sand-bedded river: The Lower Chippewa River, WI
David J. Dean, David J. Topping, D. D. Buscombe, Joel T. Groten, Jeffrey R. Ziegeweid, Faith A. Fitzpatrick, J. William Lund, Erin Nicole Coenen
2022, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (47) 2006-2023
Accurately determining sediment loads is necessary for managing river environments but is difficult because multiple processes can lead to large discharge-independent changes in sediment transport. Thus, estimations of sediment load using discharge–sediment rating curves fit to sparse or historical sediment-transport measurements can be inaccurate, necessitating alternative approaches to reduce uncertainty....
Preliminary geologic map of the Cherry Hill quadrangle, Dinwiddie, Sussex, and Greensville Counties, Virginia
Mark W. Carter, Adam T. Karst, C. Rick Berquist Jr., J. Stephen Schindler, Robert E. Weems, Benjamin R. Weinmann, E. Allen Crider Jr.
2022, Open-File Report 2021-1106
The Cherry Hill 7.5-minute quadrangle straddles the Coastal Plain and Piedmont Provinces along the Tidewater Fall Line. Rocks of the eastern Piedmont Roanoke Rapids terrane crop out in the western part of the quadrangle and consist of greenschist- to amphibolite-facies Neoproterozoic felsic to intermediate metavolcanic rocks, some of which contain...
