Reconstructing the deadly eruptive events of 1790 CE at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i
Don Swanson, Samantha J Weaver, Bruce F. Houghton
2014, Geological Society of America Bulletin (127) 503-515
A large number of people died during an explosive eruption of Kīlauea Volcano in 1790 CE. Detailed study of the upper part of the Keanakāko‘i Tephra has identified the deposits that may have been responsible for the deaths. Three successive units record shifts in eruption style that agree well with...
A visualization tool to support decision making in environmental and biological planning
Stephanie S. Romañach, Mark McKelvy, Craig Conzelmann, Kevin J. Suir
2014, Environmental Modelling and Software (62) 221-229
Large-scale ecosystem management involves consideration of many factors for informed decision making. The EverVIEW Data Viewer is a cross-platform desktop decision support tool to help decision makers compare simulation model outputs from competing plans for restoring Florida's Greater Everglades. The integration of NetCDF metadata conventions into EverVIEW allows end-users from...
Site selection and nest survival of the Bar-Headed Goose (Anser indicus) on the Mongolian Plateau
Nyambayar Batbayar, John Y. Takekawa, Tseveenmyadag Natsagdorj, Kyle A. Spragens, Xiamgming Xiao
2014, Waterbirds (37) 381-393
Waterbirds breeding on the Mongolian Plateau in Central Asia must find suitable wetland areas for nesting in a semiarid region characterized by highly variable water conditions. The first systematic nesting study of a waterbird dependent on this region for breeding was conducted on the Bar-headed Goose (Anser indicus). The purpose...
Layered hydrothermal barite-sulfide mound field, East Diamante Caldera, Mariana volcanic arc
James R. Hein, Cornel E. J. de Ronde, Randolph A. Koski, Robert G. Ditchburn, Kira Mizell, Yoshihiko Tamura, Robert J. Stern, Tracey Conrad, Osamu Ishizuka, Matthew I. Leybourne
2014, Economic Geology (109) 2179-2206
East Diamante is a submarine volcano in the southern Mariana arc that is host to a complex caldera ~5 × 10 km (elongated ENE-WSW) that is breached along its northern and southwestern sectors. A large field of barite-sulfide mounds was discovered in June 2009 and revisited in July 2010 with...
The future of nearshore processes research
Nicole A. Elko, Falk Feddersen, Diane Foster, Cheryl J. Hapke, Jesse E. McNinch, Ryan P. Mulligan, H. Tuba Ozkan-Haller, Nathaniel G. Plant, Britt Raubenheimer, editor(s)
2014, Report
The nearshore is the transition region between land and the continental shelf including (from onshore to offshore) coastal plains, wetlands, estuaries, coastal cliffs, dunes, beaches, surf zones (regions of wave breaking), and the inner shelf (Figure ES-1). Nearshore regions are vital to the national economy, security, commerce, and recreation. The...
Coastal fog, climate change, and the environment
Alicia A. Torregrosa, Travis A. O’Brien, Ian C. Faloona
2014, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union (95) 473-474
Coastal marine fog, a characteristic feature of climates generated at the eastern boundaries of ocean basins worldwide, evokes different feelings in those who experience it (see Figure 1). Authors and poets use fog to represent mystery, bleakness, and confusion. Film directors seek out fog to shroud scenes in eerie gloominess. Tourists...
Genetic structure of Florida green turtle rookeries as indicated by mitochondrial DNA control region sequences
Brian M. Shamblin, Dean A. Bagley, Llewellyn M. Ehrhart, Nicole A. Desjardin, R. Erik Martin, Kristen M. Hart, Eugenia Naro-Maciel, Kirt Rusenko, John C. Stiner, Debra Sobel, Chris Johnson, Thomas Wilmers, Laura J. Wright, Campbell J. Nairn
2014, Conservation Genetics (16) 673-685
Green turtle (Chelonia mydas) nesting has increased dramatically in Florida over the past two decades, ranking the Florida nesting aggregation among the largest in the Greater Caribbean region. Individual beaches that comprise several hundred kilometers of Florida’s east coast and Keys support tens to thousands of nests annually. These beaches...
Verifying success of artificial spawning reefs in the St. Clair-Detroit River System for lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens Rafinesque, 1817)
Emliy K. Bouckaert, Nancy A. Auer, Edward F. Roseman, James Boase
2014, Journal of Applied Ichthyology (30) 1393-1401
Lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) were historically abundant in the St. Clair – Detroit River System (SCDRS), a 160 km river/channel network. In the SCDRS, lake sturgeon populations have been negatively affected by the loss/degradation of natural spawning habitat. To address habitat loss for lake sturgeon and other species, efforts are underway...
Arthropods of Rose Atoll with special reference to ants and Pulvinaria Urbicola Scales (Hempitera Coccidae) on Pisonia Grandis trees
Paul C. Banko, Robert W. Peck, Frank Pendleton, Mark Schmaedick, Kelsie Ernsberger
2014, Technical Report HCSU-057
Rose Atoll, at the eastern end of the Samoan Archipelago, is a small but important refuge for seabirds, shorebirds, and sea turtles. While the vertebrate community is relatively well-studied, the terrestrial arthropod fauna, and its role in ecosystem function, are poorly known. Arthropods may be influencing the decline of Pisonia...
Inhalable desert dust, urban emissions, and potentially biotoxic metals in urban Saharan-Sahelian air
Virginia H. Garrison, Michael S. Majewski, Lassana Konde, Ruth E. Wolf, Richard D. Otto, Yutaka Tsuneoka
2014, Science of the Total Environment 383-394
Saharan dust incursions and particulates emitted from human activities degrade air quality throughout West Africa, especially in the rapidly expanding urban centers in the region. Particulate matter (PM) that can be inhaled is strongly associated with increased incidence of and mortality from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and cancer. Air samples...
Temporal and spatial changes in golden eagle reproduction in relation to increased off highway vehicle activity
Karen Steenhof, Jessi L. Brown, Michael N. Kochert
2014, Wildlife Society Bulletin (38) 682-688
We used >40 years of data on golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) nesting in southwestern Idaho, USA, to assess whether the proportion of territories and pairs producing young has changed over time, and whether territories in areas where off highway vehicle (OHV) use has increased significantly were less likely to be...
Predicting occupancy for pygmy rabbits in Wyoming: an independent evaluation of two species distribution models
Steve Germaine, Drew Ignizio, Doug Keinath, Holly Copeland
2014, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (5) 298-314
Species distribution models are an important component of natural-resource conservation planning efforts. Independent, external evaluation of their accuracy is important before they are used in management contexts. We evaluated the classification accuracy of two species distribution models designed to predict the distribution of pygmy rabbit Brachylagus idahoensis habitat in southwestern Wyoming, USA....
Monitoring fish distributions along electrofishing segments
Leandro E. Miranda
2014, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (186) 8899-8905
Electrofishing is widely used to monitor fish species composition and relative abundance in streams and lakes. According to standard protocols, multiple segments are selected in a body of water to monitor population relative abundance as the ratio of total catch to total sampling effort. The standard protocol provides an assessment of...
Drivers of waterfowl population dynamics: from teal to swans
David N. Koons, Gunnar Gunnarsson, Joel A. Schmutz, Jay J. Rotella
2014, Wildfowl 169-191
Waterfowl are among the best studied and most extensively monitored species in the world. Given their global importance for sport and subsistence hunting, viewing and ecosystem functioning, great effort has been devoted since the middle part of the 20th century to understanding both the environmental and demographic mechanisms that influence waterfowl population and community dynamics. Here we use comparative approaches to summarise and contrast our...
Geomorphological Fieldwork
Mary J Thornbush, Casey D Allen, Faith A. Fitzpatrick
2014, Book
Geomorphological Fieldwork addresses a topic that always remains popular within the geosciences and environmental science. More specifically, the volume conveys a growing legacy of field-based learning for young geomorphologists that can be used as a student book for field-based university courses and postgraduate research requiring fieldwork or field schools. The...
Dynamics and ecological consequences of the 2013−2014 koa moth outbreak at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge.
Paul C. Banko, Robert W. Peck, Stephanie G. Yelenik, Eben H. Paxton, Frank J. Bonaccorso, Kristina Montoya-Aiona, David Foote
2014, Technical Report HCSU-058
A massive outbreak of the koa moth (Geometridea: Scotorythra paludicola) defoliated more than a third of the koa (Acacia koa) forest on Hawai‘i Island during 2013−2014. This was the largest koa moth outbreak ever recorded and the first on the island since 1953. The outbreak spread to sites distributed widely...
Pollutant sensitivity of the endangered Tar River Spinymussel as assessed by single chemical and effluent toxicity tests
Thomas P. Augspurger, Ning Wang, James L. Kunz, Christopher G. Ingersoll
2014, Report
The federally endangered Tar River spinymussel (Elliptio steinstansana) is endemic to the Tar River and Neuse River systems in North Carolina. The extent to which water quality limits Tar River spinymussels’ recovery is important to establish, and one aspect of that is understanding the species’ pollutant sensitivity. The primary objectives...
Effects of a dual-pump crude-oil recovery system, Bemidji, Minnesota, USA
Geoffrey N. Delin, William N. Herkelrath
2014, Groundwater Monitoring & Remediation (34) 57-67
A crude-oil spill occurred in 1979 when a pipeline burst near Bemidji, MN. In 1998, the pipeline company installed a dual-pump recovery system designed to remove crude oil remaining in the subsurface at the site. The remediation from 1999 to 2003 resulted in removal of about 115,000 L of crude...
Coastal tectonics on the eastern margin of the Pacific Rim: Late Quaternary sea-level history and uplift rates, Channel Islands National Park, California, USA
Daniel R. Muhs, Kathleen R. Simmons, R. Randall Schumann, Lindsey T. Groves, Stephen B. DeVogel, Scott A. Minor, Deanna Laurel
2014, Quaternary Science Reviews (105) 209-238
The Pacific Rim is a region where tectonic processes play a significant role in coastal landscape evolution. Coastal California, on the eastern margin of the Pacific Rm, is very active tectonically and geomorphic expressions of this include uplifted marine terraces. There have been, however, conflicting estimates of the rate of...
Understanding recent eastern Horn of Africa rainfall variability and change
Brant Liebmann, Martin P. Hoerling, Christopher C. Funk, Ileana Blade, Randall M. Dole, Dave Allured, Xiaowei Quan, Jon K. Eischeid
2014, Journal of Climate (27) 8660-8645
Observations and sea surface temperature (SST)-forced ECHAM5 simulations are examined to study the seasonal cycle of eastern Africa rainfall and its SST sensitivity during 1979–2012, focusing on interannual variability and trends. The eastern Horn is drier than the rest of equatorial Africa, with two distinct wet seasons, and whereas the...
On the effects of scale for ecosystem services mapping
Adrienne Gret-Regamey, Bettina Weibel, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Marika Ferrari, Davide Geneletti, Hermann Klug, Uta Schirpke, Ulrike Tappeiner
2014, PLoS ONE (9)
Ecosystems provide life-sustaining services upon which human civilization depends, but their degradation largely continues unabated. Spatially explicit information on ecosystem services (ES) provision is required to better guide decision making, particularly for mountain systems, which are characterized by vertical gradients and isolation with high topographic complexity, making them particularly sensitive...
Mark-resight abundance estimation under incomplete identification of marked individuals
Brett T. McClintock, Jason M. Hill, Lowell Fritz, Kathryn Chumbley, Katie Luxa, Duane R. Diefenbach
2014, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (5) 1294-1304
Often less expensive and less invasive than conventional mark–recapture, so-called 'mark-resight' methods are popular in the estimation of population abundance. These methods are most often applied when a subset of the population of interest is marked (naturally or artificially), and non-invasive sighting data can be simultaneously collected...
Late Holocene slip rate and ages of prehistoric earthquakes along the Maacama Fault near Willits, Mendocino County, northern California
Carol S. Prentice, Martin C. Larsen, Harvey M. Kelsey, Judith Zachariasen
2014, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (104) 2966-2984
The Maacama fault is the northward continuation of the Hayward–Rodgers Creek fault system and creeps at a rate of 5.7±0.1 mm/yr (averaged over the last 20 years) in Willits, California. Our paleoseismic studies at Haehl Creek suggest that the Maacama fault has produced infrequent large earthquakes in addition to creep. Fault...
What do we gain from simplicity versus complexity in species distribution models?
Cory Merow, Matthew J. Smith, Thomas C. Edwards Jr., Antoine Guisan, Sean M. McMahon, Signe Normand, Wilfried Thuiller, Rafael O. Wuest, Niklaus E. Zimmermann, Jane Elith
2014, Ecography (37) 1267-1281
Species distribution models (SDMs) are widely used to explain and predict species ranges and environmental niches. They are most commonly constructed by inferring species' occurrence–environment relationships using statistical and machine-learning methods. The variety of methods that can be used to construct SDMs (e.g. generalized linear/additive models, tree-based models, maximum entropy,...
Waterfowl habitat use and selection during the remigial moult period in the northern hemisphere
Anthony D. Fox, Paul L. Flint, William L. Hohman, Jean-Pierre L. Savard
2014, Wildfowl 131-168
This paper reviews factors affecting site selection amongst waterfowl (Anatidae) during the flightless remigial moult, emphasising the roles of predation and food supply (especially protein and energy). The current literature suggests survival during flightless moult is at least as high as at other times of the annual cycle, but documented cases of predation of...