How do en route events around the Gulf of Mexico influence landbird populations
Emily B. Cohen, Wylie C. Barrow Jr., Jeffrey J. Buler, Jill L. Deppe, Andrew Farnsworth, Peter P. Marra, Scott R. McWilliams, David W Mehlman, R. Randy Wilson, Mark S Woodrey, Frank R. Moore
2017, The Condor (119) 327-343
Habitats around the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) provide critical resources for Nearctic–Neotropical migratory landbirds, the majority of which travel across or around the GOM every spring and fall as they migrate between temperate breeding grounds in North America and tropical wintering grounds in the Caribbean and Central and South America....
A rapid diagnostic test and mobile "lab in a suitcase" platform for detecting Ceratocystis spp. responsible for Rapid ‘Ōhi‘a Death
Carter T. Atkinson, William Watcher-Weatherwax, Kylle Roy, Wade P Heller, Lisa Keith
2017, Technical Report HCSU-TR082
We describe a field compatible molecular diagnostic test for two new species of Ceratocystis that infect `ōhi`a (Metrosideros polymorpha) and cause the disease commonly known as Rapid `Ōhi`a Death. The diagnostic is based on amplification of a DNA locus within the internal transcribed spacer region that separates fungal 5.8S ribosomal...
Land change monitoring, assessment, and projection (LCMAP) revolutionizes land cover and land change research
Steven Young
2017, General Information Product 172
When nature and humanity change Earth’s landscapes - through flood or fire, public policy, natural resources management, or economic development - the results are often dramatic and lasting.Wildfires can reshape ecosystems. Hurricanes with names like Sandy or Katrina will howl for days while altering the landscape for years. One growing...
Developing an effective Agassiz's Desert Tortoise monitoring program: Final report to the Coachella Valley Conservation Commission
Jeffrey E. Lovich, Shellie R. Puffer
2017, Report
Agassiz’s desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) is a conservation-reliant species with populations north and west of the Colorado River protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (Averill-Murray et al. 2012). Since it was listed under this category in 1990, a great deal has been learned about the natural history of...
Annual review 2016: Exploration review
Nick A Karl, David R. Wilburn
2017, Mining Engineering (69) 28-49
This summary of international mineral exploration activities for the year 2016 draws upon information from industry sources, published literature, SNL Metals & Mining (SNL), an offering of S&P Global Market Intelligence (New York, NY), and specialists in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Minerals Information Center. Three types of information...
Tell me a story! A plea for more compelling conference presentations
Kathryn Langin
2017, The Condor: Ornithological Applications (119) 321-326
Effective communication with other scientists is an essential component of the scientific process, underlying success in publishing papers, building collaborations, securing grants and jobs, and stimulating further research. Oral presentations at professional meetings provide an opportunity to share research findings with a relatively broad scientific audience. However, many scientists...
Divergence and gene flow in the globally distributed blue-winged ducks
Joel Nelson, Robert E. Wilson, Kevin G. McCracken, Graeme Cumming, Leo Joseph, Patrick-Jean Guay, Jeffrey Peters
2017, Journal of Avian Biology (48) 640-649
The ability to disperse over long distances can result in a high propensity for colonizing new geographic regions, including uninhabited continents, and lead to lineage diversification via allopatric speciation. However, high vagility can also result in gene flow between otherwise allopatric populations, and in some cases, parapatric or divergence-with-gene-flow models...
Climate legacy and lag effects on dryland plant communities in the southwestern U.S.
Erin Bunting, Seth M. Munson, Miguel L. Villarreal
2017, Ecological Indicators (74) 216-229
Climate change effects on vegetation will likely be strong in the southwestern U.S., which is projected to experience large increases in temperature and changes in precipitation. Plant communities in the southwestern U.S. may be particularly vulnerable to climate change as the productivity of many plant species is strongly water-limited. This...
Population trends and distribution of Common Murre Uria aalge colonies in Washington, 1996-2015
Susan M Thomas, James E. Lyons
2017, Marine Ornithology: Journal of Seabird Research and Conservation (45) 95-102
Periodic assessments of population trends and changes in spatial distribution are valuable for managing marine birds and their breeding habitats, particularly when evaluating long-term response to threats such as oil spills, predation pressure, and changing ocean conditions. We evaluated recent trends in abundance and distribution of the Common Murre Uria...
Spatiotemporal variability of snow depletion curves derived from SNODAS for the conterminous United States, 2004-2013
Jessica M. Driscoll, Lauren E. Hay, Andrew R. Bock
2017, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (53) 655-666
Assessment of water resources at a national scale is critical for understanding their vulnerability to future change in policy and climate. Representation of the spatiotemporal variability in snowmelt processes in continental-scale hydrologic models is critical for assessment of water resource response to continued climate change. Continental-extent hydrologic models such as...
Stable isotope analyses of oxygen (18O:17O:16O) and chlorine (37Cl:35Cl) in perchlorate: reference materials, calibrations, methods, and interferences
J.K. Bohlke, Stanley J. Mroczkowski, Neil C. Sturchio, Linnea J. Heraty, Kent W. Richman, Donald B. Sullivan, Kris N. Griffith, Baohua Gu, Paul B. Hatzinger
2017, Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry (31) 85-110
RationalePerchlorate (ClO4−) is a common trace constituent of water, soils, and plants; it has both natural and synthetic sources and is subject to biodegradation. The stable isotope ratios of Cl and O provide three independent quantities for ClO4− source attribution and natural attenuation studies: δ37Cl, δ18O, and δ17O (or Δ17O...
Datasheet: Pseudogymnoascus destructans (white-nose syndrome fungus)
David S. Blehert, Emily W. Lankau
2017, Book chapter, Invasive species compendium
Pseudogymnoascus destructans is a psychrophilic (cold-loving) fungus that causes white-nose syndrome (WNS), an emerging disease of North American bats that has caused unprecedented population declines. The fungus is believed to have been introduced to North America from Europe or Asia (where it is present but does not cause significant mortality),...
Guidelines for preparation of State water-use estimates for 2015
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1029
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has estimated the use of water in the United States at 5-year intervals since 1950. This report describes the water-use categories and data elements used for the national water-use compilation conducted as part of the USGS National Water-Use Science Project. The report identifies sources of...
Undiscovered porphyry copper resources in the Urals—A probabilistic mineral resource assessment
Jane M. Hammarstrom, Mark J. Mihalasky, Stephen Ludington, Jeffrey Phillips, Byron R. Berger, Paul Denning, Connie Dicken, John C. Mars, Michael L. Zientek, Richard J. Herrington, Reimar Seltmann
2017, Ore Geology Reviews (85) 181-203
A probabilistic mineral resource assessment of metal resources in undiscovered porphyry copper deposits of the Ural Mountains in Russia and Kazakhstan was done using a quantitative form of mineral resource assessment. Permissive tracts were delineated on the basis of mapped and inferred subsurface distributions of igneous rocks assigned to...
Continued feeding on Diporeia by deepwater sculpin in Lake Huron
Patricia A. Thompson, Edward F. Roseman, Kevin M. Keeler, Timothy P. O’Brien, Dustin Bowser
2017, Environmental Biology of Fishes (100) 407-419
Monitoring changes in diets of fish is essential to understanding how food web dynamics respond to changes in native prey abundances. In the Great Lakes, Diporeia, a benthic macroinvertebrate and primary food of native benthivores, declined following the introduction of invasive Dreissena mussels and these changes were reflected in fish...
Coal-tar-based pavement sealants—a potent source of PAHs
Barbara Mahler, Peter C. Van Metre
2017, Lakeline (37) 13-18
P avement sealants are applied to the asphalt pavement of many parking lots, driveways, and even playgrounds in North America (Figure 1), where, when first applied, they render the pavement glossy black and looking like new. Sealant products used commercially in the central, eastern, and northern United States typically are...
Low stress drops observed for aftershocks of the 2011 Mw 5.7 Prague, Oklahoma, earthquake
Danielle F. Sumy, Corrie J. Neighbors, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Katie M. Keranen
2017, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (122) 3813-3834
In November 2011, three Mw ≥ 4.8 earthquakes and thousands of aftershocks occurred along the structurally complex Wilzetta fault system near Prague, Oklahoma. Previous studies suggest that wastewater injection induced a Mw 4.8 foreshock, which subsequently triggered a Mw 5.7 mainshock. We examine source properties of aftershocks with a standard Brune-type spectral model and jointly solve for...
Drawing a line in the sand: Effectiveness of off-highway vehicle management in California's Sonoran desert
Nathan Custer, Lesley A. Defalco, Kenneth E. Nussear, Todd C. Esque
2017, Journal of Environmental Management (193) 448-457
Public land policies manage multiple uses while striving to protect vulnerable plant and wildlife habitats from degradation; yet the effectiveness of such policies are infrequently evaluated, particularly for remote landscapes that are difficult to monitor. We assessed the use and impacts of recreational vehicles on Mojave Desert washes (intermittent streams)...
Do we need demographic data to forecast plant population dynamics?
Andrew T. Tredennick, Mevin Hooten, Peter B. Adler
2017, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (8) 541-551
Rapid environmental change has generated growing interest in forecasts of future population trajectories. Traditional population models built with detailed demographic observations from one study site can address the impacts of environmental change at particular locations, but are difficult to scale up to the landscape and regional scales...
Contributions of wildland fire to terrestrial ecosystem carbon dynamics in North America from 1990 to 2012
Guangsheng Chen, Daniel J. Hayes, A. David McGuire
2017, Global Biogeochemical Cycles (31) 878-900
Burn area and the frequency of extreme fire events have been increasing during recent decades in North America, and this trend is expected to continue over the 21st century. While many aspects of the North American carbon budget have been intensively studied, the net contribution of fire disturbance to the...
The history of mercury pollution near the Spolana chlor-alkali plant (Neratovice, Czech Republic) as recorded by Scots pine tree rings and other bioindicators
Tomáš Navrátil, Martin Simecek, James B. Shanley, Jan Rohovec, Maria Hojdova, Jakub Houska
2017, Science of the Total Environment (586) 1192
We assessed > 100 years of mercury (Hg) pollution recorded in the tree rings of Scots Pine near a Czech chlor-alkali plant operating since 1941. Hg concentrations in tree rings increased with the launching of plant operations and decreased when Hg emissions decreased in 1975 due to an upgrade in production technology....
National Park Service Vegetation Mapping Inventory Program: Appalachian National Scenic Trail vegetation mapping project
Kevin D. Hop, Andrew C. Strassman, Mark Hall, Shannon Menard, Ery Largay, Stephanie Sattler, Erin E. Hoy, Janis Ruhser, Enrika Hlavacek, Jennifer Dieck
2017, Natural Resource Report NPS/NETN/NRR—2017/1437
The National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Mapping Inventory (VMI) Program classifies, describes, and maps existing vegetation of national park units for the NPS Natural Resource Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program. The NPS VMI Program is managed by the NPS I&M Division and provides baseline vegetation information to the NPS Natural...
A paleoseismic transect across the northwestern Basin and Range Province, northwestern Nevada and northeastern California, USA
Stephen Personius, Richard W. Briggs, J. Zebulon Maharrey, Stephen J. Angster, Shannon A. Mahan
2017, Geosphere (13) 782-810
We use new and existing data to compile a record of ∼18 latest Quaternary large-magnitude surface-rupturing earthquakes on 7 fault zones in the northwestern Basin and Range Province of northwestern Nevada and northeastern California. The most recent earthquake on all faults postdates the ca. 18–15 ka last glacial highstand of...
Tropical river suspended sediment and solute dynamics in storms during an extreme drought
Kathryn E. Clark, James B. Shanley, Martha A. Scholl, Nicolas Perdrial, Julia N. Perdrial, Alain F. Plante, William H. McDowell
2017, Water Resources Research (53) 3695-3712
Droughts, which can strongly affect both hydrologic and biogeochemical systems, are projected to become more prevalent in the tropics in the future. We assessed the effects of an extreme drought during 2015 on stream water composition in the Luquillo Mountains of Puerto Rico. We demonstrated that drought base flow in...
A dynamic spatio-temporal model for spatial data
Trevor J. Hefley, Mevin Hooten, Ephraim M. Hanks, Robin Russell, Daniel P. Walsh
2017, Spatial Statistics (20) 206-220
Analyzing spatial data often requires modeling dependencies created by a dynamic spatio-temporal data generating process. In many applications, a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) is used with a random effect to account for spatial dependence and to provide optimal spatial predictions. Location-specific covariates are often included as fixed effects in...
