Conservation of northwestern and southwestern pond turtles: Threats, population size estimates, and population viability analysis
Stephanie Manzo, E. Griffin Nicholson, Devereux. Zachary, Robert N. Fisher, Christopher W. Brown, Peter A Scott, H. Bradley Shaffer
2021, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (12) 485-501
Accurate status assessments of long-lived, widely distributed taxa depend on the availability of long-term monitoring data from multiple populations. However, monitoring populations across large temporal and spatial scales is often beyond the scope of any one researcher or research group. Consequently, wildlife managers may be...
Global biotic events evident in the Paleogene marine strata of the eastern San Francisco Bay area, California
Kristin McDougall-Reid
2021, Geological Society of America Memoir 229-268
Paleogene marine strata in the eastern San Francisco Bay area are exposed in discontinuous outcrops in the various tectonic blocks. Although there are many missing intervals, the strata were previously thought to...
The evolution of geospatial reasoning, analytics, and modeling
Samantha Arundel, Wenwen Li
2021, Book chapter, The Geographic Information Science & Technology Body of Knowledge
The field of geospatial analytics and modeling has a long history coinciding with the physical and cultural evolution of humans. This history is analyzed relative to the four scientific paradigms: (1) empirical analysis through description, (2) theoretical explorations using models and generalizations, (3)...
Reinterpreting the Bruun Rule in the context of equilibrium shoreline models
Maurizio D’Anna, Deborah Idier, Bruno Castelle, Sean Vitousek, Goneri Le Cozannet
2021, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (9)
Long-term (>decades) coastal recession due to sea-level rise (SLR) has been estimated using the Bruun Rule for nearly six decades. Equilibrium-based shoreline models have been shown to skillfully predict short-term wave-driven shoreline change on time scales of hours to decades. Both the Bruun Rule and equilibrium shoreline...
Virginia and Landsat
U.S. Geological Survey
2021, Fact Sheet 2021-3050
From the shores of Jamestown and spreading north, south, and west, the lands that became the State of Virginia were some of the first in North America top experience rapid landscape change from European settlement. Imagery and data from the USGS Landsat series of satellites offer an unparalleled resource for...
How to increase the supply of native seed to improve restoration success: The US native seed development process
Molly Lutisha Mccormick, Amanda N. Carr, Robert Massatti, Daniel E. Winkler, Patricia De Angelis, Peggy Olwell
2021, Restoration Ecology (29)
With the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, restoration of damaged ecosystems is turning into a global movement. Restoration actions that are not based on science and an understanding of ecosystem function can thwart desired restoration outcomes at best and cause further damage to ecosystems at worst. Restoration often includes...
Contemporary and historic dynamics of lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) eggs, larvae, and juveniles suggest recruitment bottleneck during first growing season
Z. Amidon, Robin DeBruyne, Edward F. Roseman, Christine Mayer
2021, Annales Zoologici Finnici (58) 161-175
To determine if a survival bottleneck occurs in Lake Erie's lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) population and explore possible mechanisms responsible, we examined contemporary and historical dynamics of lake whitefish eggs, larvae and juveniles. Widespread spawning and low overwinter egg retention were observed in 2016–2018, however subsequent larval...
Post audit of simulated groundwater flow to a short-lived (2019-2020) crater lake at Kīlauea Volcano
Ashton F. Flinders, James P. Kauahikaua, Paul A. Hsieh, Steven E. Ingebritsen
2021, Groundwater (60) 64-70
About 14.5 months after the 2018 eruption and summit collapse of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi, liquid water started accumulating in the deepened summit crater, forming a lake that attained 51 m depth before rapidly boiling off on December 20, 2020, when an eruption from the crater wall poured lava...
Ecological disturbance through patch-burn grazing influences lesser prairie-chicken space use
Jonathan D. Lautenbach, David A. Haukos, Joseph M. Lautenbach, Christian A. Hagen
2021, Journal of Wildlife Management (85) 1699-1710
Across portions of the western Great Plains in North America, natural fire has been removed from grassland ecosystems, decreasing vegetation heterogeneity and allowing woody encroachment. The loss of fire has implications for grassland species requiring diverse vegetation patches and structure or patches that have limited occurrence...
Extreme precipitation and flooding contribute to sudden vegetation dieback in a coastal salt marsh
Camille Stagg, Michael Osland, Jena A. Moon, Laura Feher, Claudia Laurenzano, Tiffany C. Lane, William Jones, Stephen Hartley
2021, Plants Today (10)
Climate extremes are becoming more frequent with global climate change and have the potential to cause major ecological regime shifts. Along the northern Gulf of Mexico, a coastal wetland in Texas suffered sudden vegetation dieback following an extreme precipitation and flooding event associated with Hurricane Harvey in...
Towards building a sustainable future: Positioning ecological modelling for impact in ecosystems management
Don DeAngelis, Daniel Franco, Alan Hastings, Frank M. Hilker, Suzanne Lenhart, Frithjof Lutscher, Natalia Petrovskaya, Sergei Petrovskii, Rebecca C. Tyson
2021, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology (83)
As many ecosystems worldwide are in peril, efforts to manage them sustainably require scientific advice. While numerous researchers around the world use a great variety of models to understand ecological dynamics and their responses to disturbances, only a small fraction of these models are ever used to inform ecosystem management....
Demographic modeling informs functional connectivity and management interventions in Graham’s beardtongue
Matthew Richard Jones, Daniel E. Winkler, Robert Massatti
2021, Conservation Genetics (22) 993-1003
Functional connectivity (i.e., the movement of individuals across a landscape) is essential for the maintenance of genetic variation and persistence of rare species. However, illuminating the processes influencing functional connectivity and ultimately translating this knowledge into management practice remains a fundamental challenge. Here, we combine various...
Machine learning predictions of mean ages of shallow well samples in the Great Lakes Basin, USA
Christopher Green, Katherine Marie Ransom, Bernard T. Nolan, Lixia Liao, Thomas Harter
2021, Journal of Hydrology (603)
The travel time or “age” of groundwater affects catchment responses to hydrologic changes, geochemical reactions, and time lags between management actions and responses at down-gradient streams and wells. Use of atmospheric tracers has facilitated the characterization of groundwater ages, but most wells lack such...
Evaluating stereo digital terrain model quality at Mars Rover Landing Sites with HRSC, CTX, and HiRISE Images
Randolph L. Kirk, David Mayer, Robin L. Fergason, Bonnie L. Redding, Donna M. Galuszka, Trent M. Hare, Klaus Gwinner
2021, Remote Sensing (13)
We have used high-resolution digital terrain models (DTMs) of two rover landing sites based on mosaicked images from the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera as a reference to evaluate DTMs based on High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) and Context Camera (CTX) images. The Next-Generation Automatic Terrain Extraction...
Simulated effects of sea-level rise on the shallow, fresh groundwater system of Assateague Island, Maryland and Virginia
Brandon J. Fleming, Jeff P. Raffensperger, Phillip J. Goodling, John P. Masterson
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5104
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the National Park Service, developed a three-dimensional groundwater-flow model for Assateague Island in eastern Maryland and Virginia to assess the effects of sea-level rise on the groundwater system. Sea-level rise is expected to increase the altitude of the water table in barrier island...
Landscape features fail to explain spatial genetic structure in white-tailed deer across Ohio, USA
Javan M. Bauder, Christine S. Anderson, H. Lisle Gibbs, Michael J. Tonkovich, W. David Walter
2021, Journal of Wildlife Management (85) 1669-1684
Landscape features influence wildlife movements across spatial scales and have the potential to influence the spread of disease. Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal prion disease affecting members of the family Cervidae, particularly white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), and the first positive CWD case in a wild deer in Ohio,...
Growth of greater white-fronted goose goslings relates to population dynamics at multiple scales
Thomas F Fondell, Brandt W. Meixell, Paul L. Flint
2021, Journal of Wildlife Management (85) 1591-1600
The abundance of greater white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons frontalis) on the Arctic Coastal Plain (ACP) of northern Alaska, USA, has more than tripled since the late 1990s; however, recent rate of annual population growth has declined as population size increased, which may indicate white-fronted geese on the ACP are approaching...
Gut microbiota associated with different sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) life stages
P Mathai, Muruleedhara Byappanahalli, Nicholas S. Johnson, Michael J. Sadowsky
2021, Frontiers in Microbiology (12)
Sea lamprey (SL; Petromyzon marinus), one of the oldest living vertebrates, have a complex metamorphic life cycle. Following hatching, SL transition into a microphagous, sediment burrowing larval stage, and after 2–10+ years, the larvae undergo a dramatic metamorphosis, transforming into parasitic juveniles that feed on blood and bodily fluids of fishes;...
Watershed sediment yield following the 2018 Carr Fire, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, northern California
Amy E. East, Joshua B. Logan, Peter Dartnell, Oren Lieber-Kotz, David B. Cavagnaro, Scott W. McCoy, Donald N. Lindsay
2021, Earth and Space Science (8)
Wildfire risk has increased in recent decades over many regions, due to warming climate and other factors. Increased sediment export from recently burned landscapes can jeopardize downstream infrastructure and water resources, but physical landscape response to fire has not been quantified for some at-risk areas, including much...
Labeling poststorm coastal imagery for machine learning: Measurement of interrater agreement
Evan B. Goldstein, Daniel D. Buscombe, Eli D. Lazarus, Somya Mohanty, Shah N. Rafique, K A Anarde, Andrew D Ashton, Tomas Beuzen, Katherine A. Castagno, Nicholas Cohn, Matthew P. Conlin, Ashley Ellenson, Megan Gillen, Paige A. Hovenga, Jin-Si R. Over, Rose V. Palermo, Katherine Ratlif, Ian R Reeves, Lily H. Sanborn, Jessamin A. Straub, Luke A. Taylor, Elizabeth J. Wallace, Jonathan A. Warrick, Phillipe Alan Wernette, Hannah E Williams
2021, Earth and Space Science (8)
Classifying images using supervised machine learning (ML) relies on labeled training data—classes or text descriptions, for example, associated with each image. Data-driven models are only as good as the data used for training, and this points to the importance of high-quality labeled data for developing a ML...
Non-native poeciliids in hot water: The role of thermal springs in facilitating invasion of tropical species
Quenton M. Tuckett, Katelyn M. Lawson, Taylor N. Lipscomb, Jeffrey E. Hill, Wesley M. Daniel, Zachary A. Siders
2021, Hydrobiologia (848) 4731-4745
Livebearers in the family Poeciliidae are some of the most widely introduced fishes. Native poeciliid translocations within the U.S. are mostly due to deliberate stocking for mosquito control. Introductions of exotic poeciliids, those not native to the U.S., are more likely to be due to release...
Diel patterns of pheromone release by male sea lamprey
Skye D. Fissette, Ugo Bussy, Belinda Huerta, Cory O. Brant, Ke Li, Nicholas S. Johnson, Weiming Li
2021, Integrative and Comparative Biology (61) 1795-1810
Costs to producing sexual signals can create selective pressures on males to invest signaling effort in particular contexts. When the benefits of signaling vary consistently across time, males can optimize signal investment to specific temporal contexts using biological rhythms. Sea lamprey, Petromyzon marinus, have a semelparous life history, are primarily...
Individual variation in temporal dynamics of post-release habitat selection
Simona Picardi, Nathan Ranc, Brian J. Smith, Peter S. Coates, Steven R. Mathews, David K. Dahlgren
2021, Frontiers in Conservation Science (2)
Translocated animals undergo a phase of behavioral adjustment after being released in a novel environment, initially prioritizing exploration and gradually shifting toward resource exploitation. This transition has been termed post-release behavioral modification. Post-release behavioral modification may also manifest as changes in habitat selection through time, and these temporal dynamics...
Small mammal shooting as a conduit for lead exposure in avian scavengers
Garth Herring, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, John Goodell, Jeremy A. Buck, James Willacker
2021, Environmental Science and Technology (55) 12272-12280
Lead (Pb) exposure is a widespread wildlife conservation threat. Although commonly associated with Pb-based ammunition from big-game hunting, small mammals (e.g., ground squirrels) shot for recreational or pest-management purposes represent a potentially important Pb vector in agricultural regions. We measured the responses of avian scavengers to pest-shooting events and examined...
Unexpected diversity of Endozoicomonas in deep-sea corals
Christina A. Kellogg, Zoe A. Pratte
2021, Marine Ecology Progress Series (673) 1-15
ABSTRACT: The deep ocean hosts a large diversity of azooxanthellate cold-water corals whose associated microbiomes remain to be described. While the bacterial genus Endozoicomonas has been widely identified as a dominant associate of tropical and temperate corals, it has rarely been detected in deep-sea corals. Determining microbial baselines for these cold-water...
