Arizona and Landsat
Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey
2021, Fact Sheet 2021-3039
Arizona is a land of massive grandeur, deep gorges, lofty mountains, immense plains, and elevated mesas—and, without question, its crown jewel is the Grand Canyon. The spectacular canyon, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, was created when the Colorado River carved a channel through northern Arizona, revealing...
Seismic and geodetic analysis of rupture characteristics of the 2020 Mw 6.5 Monte Cristo Range, Nevada, earthquake
Chengli Liu, Thorne Lay, Frederick Pollitz, Jiao Xu, Xiong Xiong
2021, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (111) 3226-3236
The largest earthquake since 1954 to strike the state of Nevada, United States, ruptured on 15 May 2020 along the Monte Cristo range of west‐central Nevada. The Mw 6.5 event involved predominantly left‐lateral strike‐slip faulting with minor normal components on three aligned east–west‐trending faults that vary in strike by 23°....
Evaluation of camera trap-based abundance estimators for unmarked populations
S M Amburgey, Amy A. Yackel Adams, B. Gardner, N.J. Hostetter, S.R. Siers, B.T. McClintock, Sarah J. Converse
2021, Ecological Applications (31)
Estimates of species abundance are critical to understand population processes and to assess and select management actions. However, capturing and marking individuals for abundance estimation, while providing robust information, can be economically and logistically prohibitive, particularly for species with cryptic behavior. Camera traps can be used to collect data at...
An efficient method to calculate depth-integrated, phase-averaged momentum balances in non-hydrostatic models
Renan F. da Silva, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, Jeff E. Hansen, Ryan J. Lowe, Mark L. Buckley, Marcel Zijlema
2021, Ocean Modelling (165)
Analysis of the mean (wave-averaged) momentum balance is a common approach used to explain the physical forcing driving wave set-up and mean currents in the nearshore zone. Traditionally this approach has been applied to phase-averaged models but has more recently been applied...
Maintaining momentum for collaborative working groups in a post-pandemic world
Diane Srivastava, Marten Winter, Louis Gross, Jena Paul Metzger, Jill S. Baron, Nicolas Mouquet, Thomas Meagher, Ben Halpern, Valerio Pillar
2021, Nature Ecology and Evolution (5) 1188-1189
Scientific progress depends in part on our ability to synthesize heterogeneous data and ideas into new models and paradigms. In environmental sciences, such synthesis has been particularly effective when conducted by collaborative working groups: diverse groups of researchers and practitioners brought together for a concentrated period of collaboration on...
NGA-East Ground-Motion Characterization model part I: Summary of products and model development
Christine A. Goulet, Yousef Bozorgnia, Nicolas Kuehn, Linda Al Atik, Robert Youngs, Robert Graves, Gail M. Atkinson
2021, Earthquake Spectra (37) 1231-1282
In this article, we present an overview of the research project NGA-East, Next Generation Attenuation for Central and Eastern North America (CENA), and summarize the key methodology and products. The project was tasked with developing a new ground motion characterization (GMC) model for CENA. The final NGA-East...
Southwestern bats and their external bacteria
Ernest W. Valdez, Emily M. Johnson, Edward W. Strach, Patrick A. Lewis, William C Briggs, Nicole A. Caimi, Ara S. Winter, Diana E. Northup, Jennifer J.M. Hathaway
2021, Western North American Naturalist (81) 207-224
Bat species diversity within the United States is greatest in the Southwest, with approximately 30 species present. At least 16 of these bat species hibernate and are susceptible to white-nose syndrome (WNS), which is caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans. Since 2006, millions of bats from 35 U.S....
Selection of random vibration theory procedures for the NGA-East project and ground-motion modeling
Albert R. Kottke, Norman A. Abrahamson, David Boore, Yousef Bozorgina, Christine A. Goulet, Justin Hollenback, Tadahiro Kishida, Olga-Joan Ktenidou, Ellen Rathje, Walt Silva, Eric M. Thompson, Xiaoyue Wang
2021, Earthquake Spectra (37) 1420-1439
Traditional ground-motion models (GMMs) are used to compute pseudo-spectral acceleration (PSA) from future earthquakes and are generally developed by regression of PSA using a physics-based functional form. PSA is a relatively simple metric that correlates well with the response of several engineering systems and is a metric...
Ecological correlates of fecal corticosterone metabolites in female Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrococercus urophasianus)
Jordan C. Rabon, Cassandra Nunez, Peter S. Coates, Mark A. Ricca, Tracey N. Johnson
2021, Canadian Journal of Zoology (99) 812-822
Measurement of physiological responses can reveal effects of ecological conditions on an animal and correlate with demographic parameters. Ecological conditions for many animal species have deteriorated as a function of invasive plants and habitat fragmentation. Expansion of juniper (Juniperus spp.) trees and invasion of annual grasses into sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems have contributed to...
A case for multiscale habitat selection studies of small mammals
Brittany R. Schweiger, Jennifer K. Frey, James W. Cain III
2021, Journal of Mammalogy (102) 1249-1265
Habitat information for small mammals typically consists of anecdotal descriptions or infrequent analyses of habitat use, which often are reported erroneously as signifying habitat preference, requirements, or quality. Habitat preferences can be determined only by analysis of habitat selection, a behavioral process that results in the disproportionate use of...
Toward climate change refugia conservation at an ecoregion scale
Cathleen Balantic, Andrea Adams, Shana Gross, Rachel Mazur, Sarah Sawyer, Jody Tucker, Marian Vernon, Claudia Mengelt, Jennifer Morales, James Thorne, Timothy Brown, Nicole Athearn, Toni Lyn Morelli
2021, Conservation Science and Practice (3)
Climate change uncertainty poses serious challenges to conservation efforts. One emerging conservation strategy is to identify and conserve climate change refugia: areas relatively buffered from contemporary climate change that enable persistence of valued resources. This management paradigm may be pursued at broad scales by leveraging existing resources and placing them...
Twenty-five essential research questions to inform the protection and restoration of freshwater biodiversity
Meagan Harper, Hebah S. Mejbel, Dylan Longert, Robin Abell, Beard Jr., Joseph R. Bennett, Stephanie M. Carlson, William Darwall, Anthony Dell, Sami Domisch, David Dudgeon, Jörg Freyhof, Ian Harrison, Kathy A. Hughes, Sonja C. Jahnig, Jonathan M. Jeschke, Richard Lansdown, Mark Lintermans, Abigail J. Lynch, Helen M. R. Meredith, Sanjay Molur, Julian D. Olden, Steve J. Ormerod, Harmony Patricio, Andrea J. Reid, Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber, Michele Thieme, David Tickner, Eren Turak, Olaf L. F. Weyl, Steve J. Cooke
2021, Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems (9) 2632-2653
Freshwater biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate. Freshwater conservationists and environmental managers have enough evidence to demonstrate that action must not be delayed but have insufficient evidence to identify those actions that will be most effective in reversing the current trend.Here, the focus is on identifying essential research...
Responses of soil extracellular enzyme activities and bacterial community composition to seasonal stages of drought in a semiarid grassland
Wenlan Gao, Sasha C. Reed, Seth M. Munson, Yichao Rui, Wenyuan Fan, Zhenzhen Zheng, Linfeng Li, Rongxiao Che, Kai Xue, Jianqing Du, Xiaoyong Cui, Yanfen Wang, Yanbin Hao
2021, Geoderma (401)
Extreme drought can strongly impact belowground communities and biogeochemical processes, including soil microbial community composition and extracellular enzyme activities (EEAs), which are considered key agents in ecosystem carbon (C) and nutrient cycling. However, our understanding of how seasonal timing of drought...
Optimizing preservation for multiple types of historic structures under climate change
Xiao Xiao, Erin Seekamp, Junyu Lu, Mitchell J. Eaton, Max Post van der Burg
2021, Landscape and Urban Planning (214)
Cultural resources in coastal parks and recreation areas are vulnerable to climate change. The US National Park Service (NPS) is facing the challenge of insufficient budget allocations for both maintenance and climate adaptation of historic structures. Research on adaptation planning for cultural resources has predominately focused on vulnerability assessments of...
Leveraging existing technology: Developing a trusted digital repository for the U.S. Geological Survey
Vivian B. Hutchison, Tamar Norkin, Madison Langseth, Drew Ignizio, Lisa Zolly, Ricardo McClees-Funinan, Amanda N. Liford
2021, International Journal of Digital Curation (16)
As Federal Government agencies in the United States pivot to increase access to scientific data (Sheehan, 2016), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has made substantial progress (Kriesberg et al., 2017). USGS authors are required to make federally funded data publicly available in an approved data repository (USGS, 2016b). This type...
Gap-filling eddy covariance methane fluxes: Comparison of machine learning model predictions and uncertainties at FLUXNET-CH4 wetlands
Jeremy Irvin, Sharon Zhou, Gavin McNicol, Fred Lu, Vincent Liu, Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, Zutao Ouyang, Sara Helen Knox, Antje Lucas-Moffat, Carlo Trotta, Dario Papale, Domenico Vitale, Ivan Mammarella, Pavel Alekseychik, Mika Aurela, Anand Avati, Dennis Baldocchi, Sheel Bansal, Gil Bohrer, David I. Campbell, Jiquan Chen, Housen Chu, Higo J. Dalmagro, Kyle B. Delwiche, Ankur R. Desai, Eugenie S. Euskirchen, Sarah Feron, Mathias Goeckede, Martin Heimann, Manuel Helbig, Carole Helfter, Kyle S. Hemes, Takashi Hirano, Hiroki Iwata, Gerald Jurasinski, Aram Kalhori, Andrew Kondrich, Derrick Y. F. Lai, Annalea Lohila, Avni Malholtra, Lutz Merbold, Bhaskar Mitra, Andrew Ng, Mats B. Nilsson, Asko Noormets, Matthias Peichl, A. Camilo Rey-Sanchez, Andrew D. Richardson, Benjamin R. K. Runkle, Karina V. R. Schafer, Oliver Sonnentag, Ellen Stuart-Haëntjens, Cove Sturtevant, Masahito Ueyama, Alex C. Valach, Rodrigo Vargas, George L. Vourlitis, Eric Ward, Guan Xhuan Wong, Donatella Zona, Ma. Carmelita R. Alberto, David P. Billesbach, Gerardo Celis, Han Dolman, Thomas Friborg, Kathrin Fuchs, Sebastien Gogo, Mangaliso J. Gondwe, Jordan P. Goodrich, Pia Gottschalk, Lukas Hortnagl, Adrien Jacotot, Franziska Koebsch, Kuno Kasak, Regine Maier, Timothy H. Morin, Eiko Nemitz, Walter C. Oechel, Patricia Y. Oikawa, Keisuke Ono, Torsten Sachs, Ayaka Sakabe, Edward A. Schuur, Robert Shortt, Ryan C. Sullivan, Daphne J. Szutu, Eeva-Stiina Tuittila, Andrej Varlagin, Joseph G. Verfaillie, Christian Wille, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Benjamin Poulter, Robert B. Jackson
2021, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology (308–309)
Time series of wetland methane fluxes measured by eddy covariance require gap-filling to estimate daily, seasonal, and annual emissions. Gap-filling methane fluxes is challenging because of high variability and complex responses to multiple drivers. To date, there is no widely established gap-filling standard for wetland methane fluxes, with regards both...
The Miocene stratigraphy of the Laberinto area (Río Ica Valley) and its bearing on the geological history of the East Pisco Basin (south-central Peru)
Thomas J. Devries, John A. Barron, Mario Urbina-Schmitt, Diana Ochoa, Raul Esperante, Lawrence W. Snee
2021, South American Journal of Earth Sciences (111)
Global sea-level changes and substantial vertical displacement along the Monte Grande Fault (MGF) in the lower Río Ica Valley of south-central Peru influenced the accumulation of bioclast-bearing and diatom-bearing Miocene siliciclastic sediments in an area of the East Pisco forearc basin (EPB) colloquially known as Laberinto. Two depositional hiatuses in...
Genetic structure and diversity of the mustard hill coral Porites astreoides along the Florida Keys reef tract
Dominique N. Gallery, Michelle L. Green, Ilsa B. Kuffner, Elizabeth A. Lenz, Lauren T. Toth
2021, Marine Biodiversity Records (51)
Increases in local and global stressors have led to major declines in coral populations throughout the western Atlantic. While abundances of other species have declined, however, the relative abundance of the mustard hill coral, Porites astreoides, has increased. Porites astreoides is relatively resilient to some stressors, and because of its mixed reproductive strategies,...
Instruments, methods, rationale, and derived data used to quantify and compare the trapping efficiencies of four types of pressure-difference bedload samplers
John R. Gray, Gregory E. Schwarz, David J. Dean, Jonathan A. Czuba, Joel T. Groten
2021, Open-File Report 2021-1064
Bedload and ancillary data were collected to calculate and compare the bedload trapping efficiencies of four types of pressure-difference bedload samplers as part of episodic, sediment-recirculating flume experiments at the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in January–March 2006. The bedload-sampler experiments, which were conceived, organized, and led...
BERM: A Belowground Ecosystem Resiliency Model for estimating Spartina alterniflora belowground biomass
Jessica L. O'Connell, Deepak Mishra, Merryl Alber, Kristin B. Byrd
2021, New Phytologist (232) 425-439
SummarySpatiotemporal patterns of Spartina alterniflora belowground biomass (BGB) are important for evaluating salt marsh resiliency. To solve this, we created the BERM (Belowground Ecosystem Resiliency Model), which estimates monthly BGB (30-m spatial resolution) from freely available data such as Landsat-8 and Daymet climate summaries.Our...
Occurrence and distribution of mercury in streams and reservoirs in the Triangle Area of North Carolina, July 2007–June 2009
Anna M. McKee, Sharon Fitzgerald, Mary J. Giorgino
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5027
During the time period 2001–2006, the U.S. Geological Survey reported mercury-concentration measurements that exceeded the North Carolina water-quality criterion (NCWQC) of 0.012 microgram per liter for total recoverable mercury in streams and reservoirs across the Triangle Area of North Carolina. Mercury data were sparse, however, generally consisting of only one...
Forecasting the distribution of a range-expanding bat reveals future response to climate change and habitat
Michael C. True, Roger W. Perry, W. Mark Ford
2021, Acta Chiropterologica (23) 139-152
Many terrestrial vertebrate species are exhibiting geographic distribution changes including poleward range limit shifts in response to increases in regional temperature. Bats are a highly mobile taxa capable of rapid responses to changes in abiotic or biotic conditions. In North America, recent extralimital records of the non-hibernating Lasiurus seminolus (Seminole...
A comparative baseline of coral disease in three regions along the Saudi Arabian coast of the central Red Sea
Greta S. Aeby, Amanda Shore, Thor Jensen, Maren Ziegler, Thierry M. Work, Christian Voolstra
2021, PLoS ONE (16)
Coral disease is a growing problem for coral reefs globally and diseases have been linked to thermal stress, excess nutrients, overfishing and other human impacts. The Red Sea is a unique environment for corals with a strong environmental gradient characterized by temperature extremes and high salinities,...
Earlier winter/spring runoff and snowmelt during warmer winters lead to lower summer chlorophyll-a in north temperate lakes
Allison R. Hrycik, Peter D. F. Isles, Rita Adrian, Matthew Albright, Linda C. Bacon, Stella A. Berger, Ruchi Bhattacharya, Hans-Peter Grossart, Josef Hejzlar, Amy L. Hetherington, Lesley B. Knoll, Alo Laas, Cory P. McDonald, Kellie Merrell, Jens C. Nejstgaard, Kirsten Nelson, Peeter Noges, Andrew M. Paterson, Rachel M. Pilla, Dale M. Robertson, Lars G. Rudstam, James A. Rusak, Steven Sadro, Eugene A. Silow, Jason D. Stockwell, Huaxia Yao, Kiyoko Yokota, Donald C. Pierson
2021, Global Change Biology (27) 4615-4629
Winter conditions, such as ice cover and snow accumulation, are changing rapidly at northern latitudes and can have important implications for lake processes. For example, snowmelt in the watershed—a defining feature of lake hydrology because it delivers a large portion of annual nutrient inputs—is becoming earlier. Consequently, earlier and a...
Hydraulic modeling at selected dam-removal and culvert-retrofit sites in the northeastern United States
Scott A. Olson, Caelan E. Simeone
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5056
Aquatic connectivity projects, such as removing dams and modifying culverts, have substantial benefits. The restoration of natural flow conditions improves water quality, sediment transport, aquatic and riparian habitat, and fish passage. These projects can also decrease hazards faced by communities by lowering water-surface elevations of flood waters and by removing...
