Mosses in Ohio wetlands respond to indices of disturbance and vascular plant integrity
Martin A. Stapanian, William Schumacher, Brian Gara, Nick Viau
2016, Ecological Indicators (63) 110-120
We examined the relationships between an index of wetland habitat quality and disturbance (ORAM score) and an index of vascular plant integrity (VIBI-FQ score) with moss species richness and a moss quality assessment index (MQAI) in 45 wetlands in three vegetation types in Ohio, USA. Species richness of mosses and...
Toward more realistic projections of soil carbon dynamics by Earth system models
Y. Luo, Anders Ahlstrom, Steven D. Allison, Niels H. Batjes, V. Brovkin, Nuno Carvalhais, Adrian Chappell, Philippe Ciais, Eric A. Davidson, Adien Finzi, Katerina Georgiou, Bertrand Guenet, Oleksandra Hararuk, Jennifer Harden, Yujie He, Francesca Hopkins, L. Jiang, Charles Koven, Robert B. Jackson, Chris D. Jones, M. Lara, J. Liang, A. David McGuire, William Parton, Changhui Peng, J. Randerson, Alejandro Salazar, Carlos A. Sierra, Matthew J. Smith, Hanqin Tian, Katherine E. O Todd-Brown, Margaret S. Torn, Kees Jan van Groenigen, Ying Wang, Tristram O. West, Yaxing Wei, William R. Wieder, Jianyang Xia, Xia Xu, Xiaofeng Xu, T. Zhou
2016, Global Biogeochemical Cycles (30) 40-56
Soil carbon (C) is a critical component of Earth system models (ESMs), and its diverse representations are a major source of the large spread across models in the terrestrial C sink from the third to fifth assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Improving soil C projections...
Pre-Mississippian tectonic affinity across the Canada Basin–Arctic margins of Alaska and Canada
David W. Houseknecht, Christopher D. Connors
2016, Geology (44) 507-510
New and reprocessed seismic reflection data on the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic margins of the Canada Basin, together with geologic constraints from exploration wells and outcrops, reveal structural and stratigraphic relationships in pre-Mississippian rocks that constrain models of Canada Basin opening. Lithostratigraphic age and acoustic character indicate that the Devonian...
Slab-rollback ignimbrite flareups in the southern Great Basin and other Cenozoic American arcs: A distinct style of arc volcanism
Myron G. Best, Eric H. Christiansen, Shanaka de Silva, Peter W. Lipman
2016, Geosphere (12) 1097-1135
In continental-margin subduction zones, basalt magmas spawned in the mantle interact with the crust to produce a broad spectrum of volcanic arc associations. A distinct style of very voluminous arc volcanism develops far inland on thick crust over periods of 10–20 m.y. and involves relatively infrequent caldera-forming explosive eruptions of...
Invasive pythons, not anthropogenic stressors, explain the distribution of a keystone species
Adia R. Sovie, Robert A. McCleery, Robert J. Fletcher, Kristen M. Hart
2016, Biological Invasions (18) 3309-3318
Untangling the causes of native species loss in human-modified systems is difficult and often controversial. Evaluating the impact of non-native species in these systems is particularly challenging, as additional human perturbations often precede or accompany introductions. One example is the ongoing debate over whether mammal declines within Everglades National Park...
Along-strike variations in fault frictional properties along the San Andreas Fault near Cholame, California from joint earthquake and low-frequency earthquake relocations
Rebecca M. Harrington, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Emily M. Griffiths, Xiangfang Zeng, Clifford H. Thurber
2016, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (106) 319-326
Recent observations of low‐frequency earthquakes (LFEs) and tectonic tremor along the Parkfield–Cholame segment of the San Andreas fault suggest slow‐slip earthquakes occur in a transition zone between the shallow fault, which accommodates slip by a combination of aseismic creep and earthquakes (<15 km depth), and the deep fault, which accommodates slip...
Management-driven science synthesis: An evaluation of Everglades restoration trajectories
Stephen E Davis, James M. Beerens, Rena R. Borkhataria, Daniel L. Childers, Jay Choi, Steven M Davis, Carl Fitz, Evelyn Gaiser, Hiram Henriquez, Thomas E. Lodge, Judson Harvey, Frank Marshall, Bobby McCormick, Melodie Naja, Todd Osborne, Michael S. Ross, Jay Sah, Joel C. Trexler, Thomas Van Lent, Paul R. Wetzel
2016, Report
The Synthesis of Everglades Restoration andEcosystem Services (SERES) Project was funded in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) through the Critical Ecosystem Studies Initiative (CESI) and established to synthesize the ever-growing body of Everglades scientific information with the goal of addressing topics that have hampered restoration since the...
Streamflow
Michael McHale, Robert W. Dudley, Glenn A. Hodgkins
2016, Report, Climate change indicators in the United States
This indicator describes trends in the amount of water carried by streams across the United States, as well as the timing of runoff associated with snowmelt....
Yellowstone grizzly bear investigations — Annual report of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team 2015
Frank T. van Manen, Mark A. Haroldson, Bryn Karabensh, editor(s)
2016, Report
This Annual Report summarizes results of grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) monitoring and research conducted in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) during 2015. The report also contains a summary of grizzly bear management actions to address conflict situations. ...
Distributions of small nongame fishes in the lower Yellowstone River
Michael B. Duncan, Robert G. Bramblett, Alexander V. Zale
2016, American Midland Naturalist (175) 1-23
The Yellowstone River is the longest unimpounded river in the conterminous United States. It has a relatively natural flow regime, which helps maintain diverse habitats and fish assemblages uncommon in large rivers elsewhere. The lower Yellowstone River was thought to support a diverse nongame fish assemblage including several species of...
Tamarisk beetle (Diorhabda spp.) in the Colorado River basin: Synthesis of an expert panel forum
Benjamin R. Bloodworth, Patrick B. Shafroth, Anna A. Sher, Rebecca B. Manners, Daniel W. Bean, Matthew J. Johnson, Osvel Hinojosa-Huerta
2016, Report, Ruth Powell Hutchins Water Center scientific and technical report series
Executive Summary In 2001, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved the release of a biological control agent, the tamarisk beetle (Diorhabda spp.), to naturally control tamarisk populations and provide a less costly, and potentially more effective, means of removal compared with mechanical and chemical methods. The invasive plant tamarisk (Tamarix spp.;...
Status of pelagic prey fishes in Lake Michigan, 2015
David M. Warner, Randall M. Claramunt, Steve A. Farha, Dale Hanson, Timothy J. Desorcie, Timothy P. O’Brien
2016, Report, Compiled reports to the Great Lake Fishery Commission of the annual bottom trawl and acoustics surveys, 2015
Acoustic surveys were conducted in late summer/early fall during the years 1992-1996 and 2001-2015 to estimate pelagic prey fish biomass in Lake Michigan. Midwater trawling during the surveys as well as target strength provided a measure of species and size composition of the fish community for use in scaling acoustic...
Testing an attachment method for solar-powered tracking devices on a long-distance migrating shorebird
Ying-Chi Chan, Martin Brugge, T. Lee Tibbitts, Anne Dekinga, Ron Porter, Raymond H. G. Klaassen, Theunis Piersma
2016, Journal of Ornithology (157) 277-287
Small solar-powered satellite transmitters and GPS data loggers enable continuous, multi-year, and global tracking of birds. What is lacking, however, are reliable methods to attach these tracking devices to small migratory birds so that (1) flight performance is not impacted and (2) tags are retained during periods of substantial mass...
Hydropedology: Synergistic integration of soil science and hydrology in the Critical Zone
H.S. Lin, J.J. McDonnell, John R. Nimmo, Y. A. Pachepsky
2016, Hydrological Processes (29) 4559-4561
Soil and water are the two critical components of theEarth’s Critical Zone (Figure 1): Soil modulates the connection between bedrock and the atmospheric boundary layer and water is a major driving force and transport agent between these two zones....
Volcanogenic massive sulphide and orogenic gold deposits of northern southeast Alaska
Patrick J Sack, Susan M. Karl, Nathan Steeves, J Bruce Gemmell
2016, Book
This five-day field trip visits the most significant mineral deposits in northern southeast Alaska. The trip begins and ends with regional transects in the interior Intermontane terranes around Whitehorse, Yukon, and the Insular terranes along the northern Chatham Strait region of southeast Alaska (Fig. A-1 and Fig. A-2; Plate-1). To...
Modeling abundance using multinomial N-mixture models
Andy Royle
2016, Book chapter
Multinomial N-mixture models are a generalization of the binomial N-mixture models described in Chapter 6 to allow for more complex and informative sampling protocols beyond simple counts. Many commonly used protocols such as multiple observer sampling, removal sampling, and capture-recapture produce a multivariate count frequency that has a multinomial distribution...
Analysis and interpretation of stress indicators in deviated wells of the Coso Geothermal Field
Martin Schoenball, Jonathan M. G. Glen, Nicholas C. Davatzes
2016, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 41st workshop on geothermal reservoir engineering
Characterizing the tectonic stress field is an integral part of the development of hydrothermal systems and especially for enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). With a well characterized stress field the propensity of fault slip on faults with known location and orientation can be identified. Faults that are critically oriented for faulting...
Managed island ecosystems
Kathryn McEachern, Tanya Atwater, Paul W. Collins, Kate R. Faulkner, Daniel V. Richards
2016, Book chapter, Ecosystems of California
This long-anticipated reference and sourcebook for California’s remarkable ecological abundance provides an integrated assessment of each major ecosystem type—its distribution, structure, function, and management. A comprehensive synthesis of our knowledge about this biologically diverse state, Ecosystems of California covers the state from oceans to mountaintops using multiple lenses: past and...
Does the stress-gradient hypothesis hold water? Disentangling spatial and temporal variation in plant effects on soil moisture in dryland systems
Bradley J. Butterfield, John B. Bradford, Cristina Armas, Ivan Prieto, Francisco I. Pugnaire
2016, Functional Ecology (30) 10-19
The nature of the relationship between water limitation and facilitation has been one of the most contentious debates surrounding the stress-gradient hypothesis (SGH), which states that plant-plant interactions shift from competition to facilitation with increasing environmental stress. We take a closer look at the potential role of soil...
The value of earth observations: methods and findings on the value of Landsat imagery
Holly M. Miller, Larisa O. Serbina, Leslie A. Richardson, Sarah J. Ryker, Timothy R. Newman
2016, Book chapter, Communicating climate-change and natural hazard risk and cultivating resilience
Data from Earth observation systems are used extensively in managing and monitoring natural resources, natural hazards, and the impacts of climate change, but the value of such data can be difficult to estimate, particularly when it is available at no cost. Assessing the socioeconomic and scientific value of these data...
Stratigraphic architecture of a fluvial-lacustrine basin-fill succession at Desolation Canyon, Uinta Basin, Utah: Reference to Walthers’ Law and implications for the petroleum industry
Grace L. Ford, David R. Pyles, Marieke Dechesne
2016, Mountain Geologist (53) 5-28
A continuous window into the fluvial-lacustrine basin-fill succession of the Uinta Basin is exposed along a 48-mile (77-kilometer) transect up the modern Green River from Three Fords to Sand Wash in Desolation Canyon, Utah. In ascending order the stratigraphic units are: 1) Flagstaff Limestone, 2) lower Wasatch member of...
Water data to answer urgent water policy questions: Monitoring design, available data, and filling data gaps for determining whether shale gas development activities contaminate surface water or groundwater in the Susquehanna River Basin
Elin A. Betanzo, Erik R. Hagen, John T. Wilson, Kenneth H. Reckhow, Laura Hayes, Denise M. Argue, Allegra A. Cangelosi
2016, Report
Throughout its history, the United States has made major investments in assessing natural resources, such as soils, timber, oil and gas, and water. These investments allow policy makers, the private sector and the American public to make informed decisions about cultivating, harvesting or conserving these resources to maximize their value...
Functional integrity of freshwater forested wetlands, hydrologic alteration, and climate change
Beth A. Middleton, Nicholas J. Souter
2016, Ecosystem Health and Sustainability (2) 1-18
Climate change will challenge managers to balance the freshwater needs of humans and wetlands. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that most regions of the world will be exposed to higher temperatures, CO2, and more erratic precipitation, with some regions likely to have alternating episodes of intense flooding and...
Coupling centennial-scale shoreline change to sea-level rise and coastal morphology in the Gulf of Mexico using a Bayesian network
Nathaniel G. Plant
2016, Earth's Future (4)
Predictions of coastal evolution driven by episodic and persistent processes associated with storms and relative sea-level rise (SLR) are required to test our understanding, evaluate our predictive capability, and to provide guidance for coastal management decisions. Previous work demonstrated that the spatial variability of long-term shoreline change can be predicted...
Status of alewife and rainbow smelt in U.S. waters of Lake Ontario, 2015
Maureen Walsh, Brian Weidel, Michael J. Connerton, Jeremy P. Holden
2016, NYSDEC Lake Ontario Annual Report 2015-12a
In 2015 the joint USGS and NYSDEC surveys for Alewife and Rainbow Smelt were combined for the first time into a comprehensive spring pelagic prey fish survey. The adult Alewife abundance and weight indices in 2015 increased slightly from 2014 levels, and adult Alewife abundance has remained relatively stable for...
