Automated lidar-derived canopy height estimates for the Upper Mississippi River System
Enrika Hlavacek
2015, Thesis
Land cover/land use (LCU) classifications serve as important decision support products for researchers and land managers. The LCU classifications produced by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center (UMESC) include canopy height estimates that are assigned through manual aerial photography interpretation techniques. In an effort to improve upon...
Complex interactions between global change drivers influence mountain forest and slpine GHG sequestration and stream chemistry
Jill Baron, Melannie D. Hartman
2015, Conference Paper, Mountain Views
Many mountain ecosystems are experiencing coincident increases in temperature, levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition. All are important controls on rates of plant growth, soil microbial activity, nutrient cycling, and stream N export. It is difficult for experimental studies to explore ecosystem responses to more than one or two treatments at...
Validation of the SCEC broadband platform V14.3 simulation methods using pseudo spectral acceleration data
Douglas S. Dreger, Gregory C. Beroza, Steven M. Day, Christine A. Goulet, Thomas H Jordan, Paul A. Spudich, Jonathan P. Stewart
2015, Seismological Research Letters (86) 39-47
This paper summarizes the evaluation of ground motion simulation methods implemented on the SCEC Broadband Platform (BBP), version 14.3 (as of March 2014). A seven-member panel, the authorship of this article, was formed to evaluate those methods for the prediction of pseudo-‐spectral accelerations (PSAs) of ground motion. The panel’s mandate...
Examining the utility of satellite-based wind sheltering estimates for lake hydrodynamic modeling
Jamon Van Den Hoek, Jordan S. Read, Luke A. Winslow, Paul Montesano, Corey D. Markfort
2015, Remote Sensing of Environment (156) 551-560
Satellite-based measurements of vegetation canopy structure have been in common use for the last decade but have never been used to estimate canopy's impact on wind sheltering of individual lakes. Wind sheltering is caused by slower winds in the wake of topography and shoreline obstacles (e.g. forest canopy) and influences...
Estimating relative sea-level rise and submergence potential at a coastal wetland
Donald R. Cahoon
2015, Estuaries and Coasts (38) 1077-1084
A tide gauge records a combined signal of the vertical change (positive or negative) in the level of both the sea and the land to which the gauge is affixed; or relative sea-level change, which is typically referred to as relative sea-level rise (RSLR). Complicating this situation, coastal wetlands exhibit...
Atmospheric particulate matter in proximity to mountaintop coal mines: Sources and potential environmental and human health impacts
Laura Kurth, Allan Kolker, Mark A. Engle, Nicholas J. Geboy, Michael Hendryx, William H. Orem, Michael McCawley, Lynn M. Crosby, Calin A. Tatu, Matthew S. Varonka, Christina A. DeVera
2015, Environmental Geochemistry and Health (37) 529-544
Mountaintop removal mining (MTM) is a widely used approach to surface coal mining in the US Appalachian region whereby large volumes of coal overburden are excavated using explosives, removed, and transferred to nearby drainages below MTM operations. To investigate the air quality impact of MTM, the geochemical characteristics of atmospheric...
Tracing historical trends of Hg in the Mississippi River using Hg concentrations and Hg isotopic compositions in a lake sediment core, Lake Whittington, Mississippi, USA
John E. Gray, Peter C. Van Metre, Michael J. Pribil, Arthur J. Horowitz
2015, Chemical Geology (395) 80-87
Concentrations and isotopic compositions of mercury (Hg) in a sediment core collected from Lake Whittington, an oxbow lake on the Lower Mississippi River, were used to evaluate historical sources of Hg in the Mississippi River basin. Sediment Hg concentrations in the Lake Whittington core have a large 10-15 y peak...
Comparison of fluvial suspended-sediment concentrations and particle-size distributions measured with in-stream laser diffraction and in physical samples
Jonathan A. Czuba, Timothy D. Straub, Christopher A. Curran, Mark N. Landers, Marian M. Domanski
2015, Water Resources Research (51) 320-340
Laser-diffraction technology, recently adapted for in-stream measurement of fluvial suspended-sediment concentrations (SSCs) and particle-size distributions (PSDs), was tested with a streamlined (SL), isokinetic version of the Laser In-Situ Scattering and Transmissometry (LISST) for measuring volumetric SSCs and PSDs ranging from 1.8-415 µm in 32 log-spaced size classes. Measured SSCs and...
Sensitivity of tsunami evacuation modeling to direction and land cover assumptions
Mathew C. Schmidtlein, Nathan J. Wood
2015, Applied Geography (56) 154-163
Although anisotropic least-cost-distance (LCD) modeling is becoming a common tool for estimating pedestrian-evacuation travel times out of tsunami hazard zones, there has been insufficient attention paid to understanding model sensitivity behind the estimates. To support tsunami risk-reduction planning, we explore two aspects of LCD modeling as it applies to pedestrian...
Directly dated MIS 3 lake-level record from Lake Manix, Mojave Desert, California, USA
Marith C. Reheis, David M. Miller, John P. McGeehin, Joanna R. Redwine, Charles G. Oviatt, Jordon E. Bright
2015, Quaternary Research (83) 187-203
An outcrop-based lake-level curve, constrained by ~ 70 calibrated 14C ages on Anodonta shells, indicates at least 8 highstands between 45 and 25 cal ka BP within 10 m of the 543-m upper threshold of Lake Manix in the Mojave Desert of southern California. Correlations of Manix highstands with ice, marine, and speleothem records suggest that at...
Rising air and stream-water temperatures in Chesapeake Bay region, USA
Karen C. Rice, John D. Jastram
2015, Climatic Change (128) 127-138
Monthly mean air temperature (AT) at 85 sites and instantaneous stream-water temperature (WT) at 129 sites for 1960–2010 are examined for the mid-Atlantic region, USA. Temperature anomalies for two periods, 1961–1985 and 1985–2010, relative to the climate normal period of 1971–2000, indicate that the latter period was statistically significantly warmer...
Variably-saturated groundwater modeling for optimizing managed aquifer recharge using trench infiltration
Victor M. Heilweil, Jerome Benoit, Richard W. Healy
2015, Hydrological Processes (29) 310-319
Spreading-basin methods have resulted in more than 130 million cubic meters of recharge to the unconfined Navajo Sandstone of southern Utah in the past decade, but infiltration rates have slowed in recent years because of reduced hydraulic gradients and clogging. Trench infiltration is a promising alternative technique for increasing recharge...
Joint inversion of seismic and magnetotelluric data in the Parkfield Region of California using the normalized cross-gradient constraint
Ninfa L. Bennington, Haijiang Zhang, Cliff Thurber, Paul A. Bedrosian
2015, Pure and Applied Geophysics (172) 1033-1052
We present jointly inverted models of P-wave velocity (Vp) and electrical resistivity for a two-dimensional profile centered on the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD). Significant structural similarity between main features of the separately inverted Vp and resistivity models is exploited by carrying out a joint inversion of the...
Moving environmental DNA methods from concept to practice for monitoring aquatic macroorganisms
Caren S. Goldberg, Katherine M. Strickler, David S. Pilliod
2015, Biological Conservation (183) 1-3
The discovery that macroorganisms can be detected from their environmental DNA (eDNA) in aquatic systems has immense potential for the conservation of biological diversity. This special issue contains 11 papers that review and advance the field of eDNA detection of vertebrates and other macroorganisms, including studies of eDNA production, transport,...
Stafford fault system: 120 million year fault movement history of northern Virginia
David S. Powars, Rufus D. Catchings, J. Wright Horton Jr., J. Stephen Schindler, Milan J. Pavich
2015, GSA Special Papers (509) 407-431
The Stafford fault system, located in the mid-Atlantic coastal plain of the eastern United States, provides the most complete record of fault movement during the past ~120 m.y. across the Virginia, Washington, District of Columbia (D.C.), and Maryland region, including displacement of Pleistocene terrace gravels. The Stafford fault system is...
Zinc isotopic signatures in eight lake sediment cores from across the United States
Anita Thapalia, David Borrok, Peter C. Van Metre, Jennifer T. Wilson
2015, Environmental Science and Technology (49) 132-140
Zinc is an important trace element pollutant in urban environments; however, the extent of Zn contamination and the sources of urban Zn pollution are often unclear. We measured Zn concentrations and isotopes in sediment cores collected from eight lakes or reservoirs across the United States. We paired these data with...
Discussion and Review of “Seismology of the Oso-Steelhead landslide” by Hibert, Stark, and Ekstrom
Kate E. Allstadt
2015, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences C3274-C3283
In this study, Hibert et al. use the seismic waves generated by the disastrous 22 March 2014 landslide near Oso, Washington to investigate the dynamics of the event by combining long-period source inversions and short period analysis. Overall the paper is concise and well written and takes an innovative approach...
Dynamics of virus shedding and in situ confirmation of chelonid herpesvirus 5 in Hawaiian green turtles with Fibropapillomatosis
Thierry M. Work, Julie Dagenais, George H. Balazs, Nelli Schettle, Mathias Ackermann
2015, Veterinary Pathology (52) 1195-1201
Cancers in humans and animals can be caused by viruses, but virus-induced tumors are considered to be poor sites for replication of intact virions (lytic replication). Fibropapillomatosis (FP) is a neoplastic disease associated with a herpesvirus, chelonid herpesvirus 5 (ChHV5), that affects green turtles globally. ChHV5 probably replicates in epidermal...
Dispersal and selection mediate hybridization between a native and invasive species
Ryan P. Kovach, Clint C. Muhlfeld, Matthew C. Boyer, Winsor H. Lowe, Fred W. Allendorf, Gordon Luikart
2015, Proceedings of the Royal Society B (282)
Hybridization between native and non-native species has serious biological consequences, but our understanding of how dispersal and selection interact to influence invasive hybridization is limited. Here, we document the spread of genetic introgression between a native (Oncorhynchus clarkii) and invasive (Oncorhynchus mykiss) trout, and identify the mechanisms influencing genetic admixture....
Densovirus associated with sea-star wasting disease and mass mortality
Ian Hewson, Jason B. Button, Brent M. Gudenkauf, Benjamin Miner, Alisa L. Newton, Joseph K. Gaydos, Janna Wynne, Cathy L. Groves, Gordon Hendler, Michael Murray, Steven Fradkin, Mya Breitbart, Elizabeth Fahsbender, Kevin D. Lafferty, A. Marm Kilpatrick, C. Melissa Miner, Peter T. Raimondi, Lesanna L. Lahner, Carolyn S. Friedman, Stephen D. Danielson, Martin Haulena, Jeffrey Marliave, Colleen A. Burge, Morgan E. Eisenlord, C. Drew Harvell
2015, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (111) 17278-17283
Populations of at least 20 asteroid species on the Northeast Pacific Coast have recently experienced an extensive outbreak of sea-star (asteroid) wasting disease (SSWD). The disease leads to behavioral changes, lesions, loss of turgor, limb autotomy, and death characterized by rapid degradation (“melting”). Here, we present evidence from experimental challenge...
The effect of weather on morphometric traits of juvenile cliff swallows
Erin A. Roche, Mary Bomberger Brown, Charles R. Brown
2015, The Prairie Naturalist (46) 76-87
Episodes of food deprivation may change how nestling birds allocate energy to the growth of skeletal and feather morphological traits during development. Cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) are colonial, insectivorous birds that regularly experience brief periods of severe weather-induced food deprivation during the nesting season which may affect offspring development. We...
Predicting Brook Trout occurrence in stream reaches throughout their native range in the eastern United States
Jefferson Tyrell DeWeber, Tyler Wagner
2015, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (144) 11-24
The Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis is an important species of conservation concern in the eastern USA. We developed a model to predict Brook Trout population status within individual stream reaches throughout the species’ native range in the eastern USA. We utilized hierarchical logistic regression with Bayesian estimation to predict Brook...
Remote sensing of Sonoran Desert vegetation structure and phenology with ground-based LiDAR
Joel B. Sankey, Seth M. Munson, Robert H. Webb, Cynthia S.A. Wallace, Cesar M. Duran
2015, Remote Sensing (7) 342-359
Long-term vegetation monitoring efforts have become increasingly important for understanding ecosystem response to global change. Many traditional methods for monitoring can be infrequent and limited in scope. Ground-based LiDAR is one remote sensing method that offers a clear advancement to monitor vegetation dynamics at high spatial and temporal resolution. We...
The role of tidal marsh restoration in fish management in the San Francisco Estuary
Bruce Herbold, Donald Baltz, Larry R. Brown, Robin Grossinger, Wim J. Kimmerer, Peggy W. Lehman, Charles A. Simenstad, Carl Wilcox, Matthew L. Nobriga
2015, San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science (12)
Tidal marsh restoration is an important management issue in the San Francisco Estuary (estuary). Restoration of large areas of tidal marsh is ongoing or planned in the lower estuary (up to 6,000 ha, Callaway et al. 2011). Large areas are proposed for restoration in the upper estuary under the Endangered...
Mycoplasma agassizii in Morafka's desert tortoise (Gopherus morafkai) in Mexico
Kristin H. Berry, Mary B. Brown, Mercy Vaughn, Timothy A. Gowan, Mary Ann Hasskamp, Ma. Cristina Melendez Torres
2015, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (51) 89-100
We conducted health evaluations of 69 wild and 22 captive Morafka's desert tortoises (Gopherus morafkai) in Mexico between 2005 and 2008. The wild tortoises were from 11 sites in the states of Sonora and Sinaloa, and the captive tortoises were from the state-managed Centro Ecológico de Sonora Zoo in Hermosillo...
