Evaluating harvest-based control of invasive fish with telemetry: Performance of sea lamprey traps in the Great Lakes
Christopher Holbrook, Roger A. Bergstedt, Jessica M. Barber, Gale A Bravener, Michael L. Jones, Charles C. Krueger
2016, Ecological Applications (26) 1595-1609
Physical removal (e.g., harvest via traps or nets) of mature individuals may be a cost-effective or socially acceptable alternative to chemical control strategies for invasive species, but requires knowledge of the spatial distribution of a population over time. We used acoustic telemetry to determine the current and possible future role...
Ionic molal conductivities, activity coefficients, and dissociation constants of HAsO42− and H2AsO4− from 5 to 90°C and ionic strengths from 0.001 up to 3 mol kg−1 and applications in natural systems
Xiangyu Zhu, D. Kirk Nordstrom, R. Blaine McCleskey, Rucheng Wang
2016, Chemical Geology (441) 177-190
Arsenic is known to be one of the most toxic inorganic elements, causing worldwide environmental contamination. However, many fundamental properties related to aqueous arsenic species are not well known which will inhibit our ability to understand the geochemical behavior of arsenic (e.g. speciation, transport, and solubility). Here, the electrical conductivity...
Entrainment, retention, and transport of freely swimming fish in junction gaps between commercial barges operating on the Illinois Waterway
Jeremiah J. Davis, P. Ryan Jackson, Frank L. Engel, Jessica Z. LeRoy, Rebecca N. Neeley, Samuel T. Finney, Elizabeth A. Murphy
2016, Journal of Great Lakes Research (42) 837-848
Large Electric Dispersal Barriers were constructed in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC) to prevent the transfer of invasive fish species between the Mississippi River Basin and the Great Lakes Basin while simultaneously allowing the passage of commercial barge traffic. We investigated the potential for entrainment, retention, and transport...
U.S. Geological Survey—Energy and Wildlife Research Annual Report for 2016
Mona Khalil, editor(s)
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1147
Recent growth and development of renewable energy and unconventional oil and gas extraction are rapidly diversifying the energy supply of the United States. Yet, as our Nation works to advance energy security and conserve wildlife, some conflicts have surfaced. To address these challenges, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is conducting...
Genetic analysis shows that morphology alone cannot distinguish asian carp eggs from those of other cyprinid species
James H. Larson, S. Grace McCalla, Duane Chapman, Christopher B. Rees, Brent C. Knights, Jonathan M. Vallazza, Amy E. George, William B. Richardson, Jon Amberg
2016, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (36) 1053-1058
Fish eggs and embryos (hereafter collectively referred to as “eggs”) were collected in the upper Mississippi River main stem (~300 km upstream of previously reported spawning by invasive Asian carp) during summer 2013. Based on previously published morphological characteristics, the eggs were identified as belonging to Asian carp. A subsample...
Renewable energy and wildlife conservation
Mona Khalil
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3067
The renewable energy sector is rapidly expanding and diversifying the power supply of the country. Yet, as our Nation works to advance renewable energy and to conserve wildlife, some conflicts arise. To address these challenges, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is conducting innovative research and developing workable solutions to reduce...
Predation by Northern Pikeminnow and tiger muskellunge on juvenile salmonids in a high–head reservoir: Implications for anadromous fish reintroductions
Mark H. Sorel, Adam G. Hansen, Kristin A. Connelly, Andrew C. Wilson, Erin D. Lowery, David A. Beauchamp
2016, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (145) 521-536
The feasibility of reintroducing anadromous salmonids into reservoirs above high-head dams is affected by the suitability of the reservoir habitat for rearing and the interactions of the resident fish with introduced fish. We evaluated the predation risk to anadromous salmonids considered for reintroduction in Merwin Reservoir on the North Fork...
Projected wetland densities under climate change: Habitat loss but little geographic shift in conservation strategy
Helen Sofaer, Susan K. Skagen, Joseph J. Barsugli, Benjamin S. Rashford, Gordon C. Reese, Jennifer A. Hoeting, Andrew W. Wood, Barry R. Noon
2016, Ecological Applications (26) 1677-1692
Climate change poses major challenges for conservation and management because it alters the area, quality, and spatial distribution of habitat for natural populations. To assess species’ vulnerability to climate change and target ongoing conservation investments, researchers and managers often consider the effects of projected changes in climate and land use...
Detecting the movement and spawning activity of bigheaded carps with environmental DNA
Richard A. Erickson, Christopher B. Rees, Alison A. Coulter, Christopher M. Merkes, S. Grace McCalla, Katherine F Touzinsky, Liza R. Walleser, Reuben R. Goforth, Jon Amberg
2016, Molecular Ecology Resources (16) 957-965
Bigheaded carps are invasive fishes threatening to invade the Great Lakes basin and establish spawning populations, and have been monitored using environmental DNA (eDNA). Not only does eDNA hold potential for detecting the presence of species, but may also allow for quantitative comparisons like relative abundance of species across time...
Growth of juvenile steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss under size-selective pressure limited by seasonal bioenergetic and environmental constraints
Jamie N. Thompson, David A. Beauchamp
2016, Journal of Fish Biology (89) 1720-1739
Increased freshwater growth of juvenile steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss improved survival to smolt and adult stages, thus prompting an examination of factors affecting growth during critical periods that influenced survival through subsequent life stages. For three tributaries with contrasting thermal regimes, a bioenergetics model was used to evaluate how feeding rate...
Modeling water quality, temperature, and flow in Link River, south-central Oregon
Annett B. Sullivan, Stewart A. Rounds
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1146
The 2.1-km (1.3-mi) Link River connects Upper Klamath Lake to the Klamath River in south-central Oregon. A CE-QUAL-W2 flow and water-quality model of Link River was developed to provide a connection between an existing model of the upper Klamath River and any existing or future models of Upper Klamath...
Determination of heat purgeable and ambient purgeable volatile organic compounds in water by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry
Donna L. Rose, Mark W. Sandstrom, Lucinda K. Murtagh
2016, Techniques and Methods 5-B12
Two new analytical methods have been developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL) that allow the determination of 37 heat purgeable volatile organic compounds (VOCs) (USGS Method O-4437-16 [NWQL Laboratory Schedule (LS) 4437]) and 49 ambient purgeable VOCs (USGS Method O-4436-16 [NWQL LS 4436]) in...
Quaternary geologic map of the Wolf Point 1° × 2° quadrangle, Montana and North Dakota
David S. Fullerton, Roger B. Colton, Charles A. Bush
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1142
The Wolf Point quadrangle encompasses approximately 16,084 km2 (6,210 mi2). The northern boundary is the Montana/Saskatchewan (U.S.-Canada) boundary. The quadrangle is in the Northern Plains physiographic province and it includes the Peerless Plateau and Flaxville Plain. The primary river is the Missouri River.The map units are surficial deposits and materials,...
Assessment of managed aquifer recharge at Sand Hollow Reservoir, Washington County, Utah, updated to conditions through 2014
Thomas M. Marston, Victor M. Heilweil
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1078
Sand Hollow Reservoir in Washington County, Utah, was completed in March 2002 and is operated primarily for managed aquifer recharge by the Washington County Water Conservancy District. From 2002 through 2014, diversions of about 216,000 acre-feet from the Virgin River to Sand Hollow Reservoir have allowed the reservoir to...
Piscivorous fish exhibit temperature-influenced binge feeding during an annual prey pulse
Nathan B. Furey, Scott G. Hinch, Matthew G. Mesa, David A. Beauchamp
2016, Journal of Animal Ecology (85) 1307-1317
Understanding the limits of consumption is important for determining trophic influences on ecosystems and predator adaptations to inconsistent prey availability. Fishes have been observed to consume beyond what is sustainable (i.e. digested on a daily basis), but this phenomenon of hyperphagia (or binge-feeding) is largely overlooked. We...
Consistent response of bird populations to climate change on two continents
Philip A. Stephens, Lucy R. Mason, Rhys E. Green, Richard D. Gregory, John R. Sauer, Jamie Alison, Ainars Aunins, Lluis Brotons, Stuart H.M. Butchart, Tommaso Campedelli, Tomasz Chodkiewicz, Przemyslaw Chylarecki, Olivia Crowe, Jaanus Elts, Virginia Escandell, Ruud P.B. Foppen, Henning Heldbjerg, Sergi Herrando, Magne Husby, Frederic Jiguet, Aleksi Lehikoinen, Ake Lindstrom, David G. Noble, Jean-Yves Paquet, Jiri Reif, Thomas Sattler, Tibor Szep, Norbert Teufelbauer, Sven Trautmann, Arco Van Strien, Chris van Turnhout, Petr Vorisek, Stephen G. Willis
2016, Science (352) 84-87
Global climate change is a major threat to biodiversity. Large-scale analyses have generally focused on the impacts of climate change on the geographic ranges of species and on phenology, the timing of ecological phenomena. We used long-term monitoring of the abundance of breeding birds across Europe and the United States...
Uncertainty in tsunami sediment transport modeling
Bruce E. Jaffe, Kazuhisa Goto, Daisuke Sugawara, Guy R. Gelfenbaum, SeanPaul M. La Selle
2016, Journal of Disaster Research (11) 647-661
Erosion and deposition from tsunamis record information about tsunami hydrodynamics and size that can be interpreted to improve tsunami hazard assessment. We explore sources and methods for quantifying uncertainty in tsunami sediment transport modeling. Uncertainty varies with tsunami, study site, available input data, sediment grain size, and model. Although uncertainty...
Contemporary deposition and long-term accumulation of sediment and nutrients by tidal freshwater forested wetlands impacted by sea level rise
Gregory E. Noe, Cliff R. Hupp, Christopher E. Bernhardt, Ken W. Krauss
2016, Estuaries and Coasts (39) 1006-1019
Contemporary deposition (artificial marker horizon, 3.5 years) and long-term accumulation rates (210Pb profiles, ~150 years) of sediment and associated carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) were measured in wetlands along the tidal Savannah and Waccamaw rivers in the southeastern USA. Four sites along each river spanned an upstream-to-downstream salinification gradient, from...
Land-use change reduces habitat suitability for supporting managed honey bee colonies in the Northern Great Plains
Clint Otto, Cali L. Roth, Benjamin Carlson, Matthew Smart
2016, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (113) 10430-10435
Human reliance on insect pollination services continues to increase even as pollinator populations exhibit global declines. Increased commodity crop prices and federal subsidies for biofuel crops, such as corn and soybeans, have contributed to rapid land-use change in the US Northern Great Plains (NGP), changes that may jeopardize habitat for...
Testing the apparent resistance of three dominant plants to chronic drought on the Colorado Plateau
David L. Hoover, Michael C. Duniway, Jayne Belnap
2016, Journal of Ecology (105) 152-162
Many drylands, including the south-western United States, are projected to become more water-limited as these regions become warmer and drier with climate change. Such chronic drought may push individual species or plant functional types beyond key thresholds leading to reduced growth or even mortality. Indeed, recent observational...
Organic-matter retention and macroinvertebrate utilization of seasonally inundated bryophytes in a mid-order Piedmont River
James Wood, Meryom Pattillo, Mary Freeman
2016, Southeastern Naturalist (15) 403-414
There is increased understanding of the role of bryophytes in supporting invertebrate biomass and for their influence on nutrient cycling and carbon balance in aquatic systems, but the structural and functional role of bryophytes growing in seasonally inundated habitats is substantially less studied. We conducted a study on the Middle...
Detecting failure of climate predictions
Michael C. Runge, Julienne C. Stroeve, Andrew P. Barrett, Eve McDonald-Madden
2016, Nature Climate Change (6) 861-864
The practical consequences of climate change challenge society to formulate responses that are more suited to achieving long-term objectives, even if those responses have to be made in the face of uncertainty<a id="ref-link-2" title="McDonald-Madden, E., Runge, M. C., Martin, T. G. & Possingham, H. Optimal timing for managed relocation of...
Experience drives innovation of new migration patterns of whooping cranes in response to global change
Claire S. Teitelbaum, Sarah J. Converse, William F. Fagan, Katrin Böhning-Gaese, Robert B. O’Hara, Anne E Lacy, Thomas Mueller
2016, Nature Communications (7) 1-7
Anthropogenic changes in climate and land use are driving changes in migration patterns of birds worldwide. Spatial changes in migration have been related to long-term temperature trends, but the intrinsic mechanisms by which migratory species adapt to environmental change remain largely unexplored. We show that, for a long-lived social species,...
Estimating indices of range shifts in birds using dynamic models when detection is imperfect
Matthew J. Clement, James E. Hines, James D. Nichols, Keith L. Pardieck, David J. Ziolkowski Jr.
2016, Global Change Biology (22) 3273-3285
There is intense interest in basic and applied ecology about the effect of global change on current and future species distributions. Projections based on widely used static modeling methods implicitly assume that species are in equilibrium with the environment and that detection during surveys is perfect. We used multiseason correlated...
Effects of coded-wire-tagging on stream-dwelling Sea Lamprey larvae
Nicholas S. Johnson, William D. Swink, Heather A. Dawson, Michael L. Jones
2016, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (36) 1059-1067
The effects of coded wire tagging Sea Lamprey Petromyzon marinus larvae from a known-aged stream-dwelling population were assessed. Tagged larvae were significantly shorter on average than untagged larvae from 3 to 18 months after tagging. However, 30 months after tagging, the length distribution of tagged and untagged larvae did not...
