Persistence and extirpation in invaded landscapes: patch characteristics and connectivity determine effects of non-native predatory fish on native salamanders
David S. Pilliod, Robert S. Arkle, Bryce A. Maxell
2012, Biological Invasions (15) 671-685
Studies have demonstrated negative effects of non-native, predatory fishes on native amphibians, yet it is still unclear why some amphibian populations persist, while others are extirpated, following fish invasion. We examined this question by developing habitat-based occupancy models for the long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum) and nonnative fish using survey data...
Natural growth and diet of known-age pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) early life stages in the upper Missouri River basin, Montana and North Dakota
P.J. Braaten, D.B. Fuller, R.D. Lott, T.M. Haddix, L.D. Holte, R.H. Wilson, M.L. Bartron, J.A. Kalie, P.W. DeHaan, W.R. Ardren, R.J. Holm, M.E. Jaeger
2012, Journal of Applied Ichthyology (28) 496-504
Prior to anthropogenic modifications, the historic Missouri River provided ecological conditions suitable for reproduction, growth, and survival of pallid sturgeon Scaphirhynchus albus. However, little information is available to discern whether altered conditions in the contemporary Missouri River are suitable for feeding, growth and survival of endangered pallid sturgeon during the...
Evaluation of the relation between evapotranspiration and normalized difference vegetation index for downscaling the simplified surface energy balance model
Jonathan V. Haynes, Gabriel B. Senay
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5197
The Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEB) model uses satellite imagery to estimate actual evapotranspiration (ETa) at 1-kilometer resolution. SSEB ETa is useful for estimating irrigation water use; however, resolution limitations restrict its use to regional scale applications. The U.S. Geological Survey investigated the downscaling potential of SSEB ETa from 1...
Simulation of groundwater and surface-water interaction and effects of pumping in a complex glacial-sediment aquifer, east central Massachusetts
Jack R. Eggleston, Carl S. Carlson, Gillian M. Fairchild, Phillip J. Zarriello
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5172
The effects of groundwater pumping on surface-water features were evaluated by use of a numerical groundwater model developed for a complex glacial-sediment aquifer in northeastern Framingham, Massachusetts, and parts of surrounding towns. The aquifer is composed of sand, gravel, silt, and clay glacial-fill sediments up to 270 feet thick over...
More than a meal: integrating non-feeding interactions into food webs
Sonia Kéfi, Eric L. Berlow, Evie A. Wieters, Sergio A. Navarrete, Owen L. Petchey, Spencer A. Wood, Alice Boit, Lucas N. Joppa, Kevin D. Lafferty, Richard J. Williams, Neo D. Martinez, Bruce A. Menge, Carol A. Blanchette, Alison C. Iles, Ulrich Brose
2012, Ecology Letters (15) 291-300
Organisms eating each other are only one of many types of well documented and important interactions among species. Other such types include habitat modification, predator interference and facilitation. However, ecological network research has been typically limited to either pure food webs or to networks of only a few (<3) interaction...
New parasites and predators follow the introduction of two fish species to a subarctic lake: implications for food-web structure and functioning
Per-Arne Amundsen, Kevin D. Lafferty, Rune Knudsen, Raul Primicerio, Roar Kristoffersen, Anders Klemetsen, Armand M. Kuris
2012, Oecologia (171) 993-1002
Introduced species can alter the topology of food webs. For instance, an introduction can aid the arrival of free-living consumers using the new species as a resource, while new parasites may also arrive with the introduced species. Food-web responses to species additions can thus be far more complex than anticipated....
Shading decreases the abundance of the herbivorous California horn snail, Cerithidea californica
Julio Lorda, Kevin D. Lafferty
2012, Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology (432-433) 148-155
Most of the intertidal zone in estuaries of California, USA and Baja California, Mexico is covered with vascular vegetation. Shading by these vascular plants influences abiotic and biotic processes that shape benthic community assemblages. We present data on the effects of shading on the California horn snail, Cerithidea californica. This...
Effects of spatial subsidies and habitat structure on the foraging ecology and size of geckos
Amy A. Briggs, Hillary S. Young, Douglas J. McCauley, Stacie A. Hathaway, Rodolfo Dirzo, Robert N. Fisher
2012, PLoS ONE (7)
While it is well established that ecosystem subsidies—the addition of energy, nutrients, or materials across ecosystem boundaries—can affect consumer abundance, there is less information available on how subsidy levels may affect consumer diet, body condition, trophic position, and resource partitioning among consumer species. There is also little information on whether...
Cryptic extinction of a common Pacific lizard Emoia impar (Squamata, Scincidae) from the Hawaiian Islands.
Robert Fisher, Ivan Ineich
2012, Oryx (46) 187-195
Most documented declines of tropical reptiles are of dramatic or enigmatic species. Declines of widespread species tend to be cryptic. The early (1900s) decline and extinction of the common Pacific skink Emoia impar from the Hawaiian Islands is documented here through an assessment of literature, museum vouchers and recent fieldwork....
Streamflow gain and loss and water quality in the upper Nueces River Basin, south-central Texas, 2008-10
J. Ryan Banta, Rebecca B. Lambert, Richard N. Slattery, Darwin J. Ockerman
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5181
The U.S. Geological Survey-in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, The Nature Conservancy, the Real Edwards Conservation and Reclamation District, and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department-investigated streamflow gain and loss and water quality in the upper Nueces River Basin, south-central Texas, specifically in the watersheds of the...
Temporal changes in aquatic-invertebrate and fish assemblages in streams of the north-central and northeastern U.S.
Jonathan G. Kennen, Daniel J. Sullivan, Jason T. May, Amanda H. Bell, Karen M. Beaulieu, Donald E. Rice
2012, Ecological Indicators (18) 312-329
Many management agencies seek to evaluate temporal changes in aquatic assemblages at monitoring sites, but few have sites with ecological time series that are long enough for this purpose. Trends in aquatic-invertebrate and fish assemblage composition were assessed at 27 long-term monitoring sites in the north-central and northeastern United States....
Specific conductance measurements in central and western New York streams - A retrospective characterization
William M. Kappel, Gaylen J. Sinclair, James E. Reddy, David A. Eckhardt, M. Peter deVries, Margaret E. Phillips
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1174
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Data Rescue Program funds were used to recover data from paper records for 139 streamgages across central and western New York State; 6,133 different streamflow measurement forms, collected between 1970-80, contained field water-quality measurements. The water-quality data were entered, reviewed, and uploaded into the USGS National...
Dissolved organic carbon and chromophoric dissolved organic matter properties of rivers in the USA
Robert G.M. Spencer, Kenna D. Butler, George R. Aiken
2012, Journal of Geophysical Research G: Biogeosciences (117)
Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration and chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) parameters were measured over a range of discharge in 30 U.S. rivers, covering a diverse assortment of fluvial ecosystems in terms of watershed size and landscape drained. Relationships between CDOM absorption at a range of wavelengths (a254, a350, a440)...
Assessment of groundwater, soil-gas, and soil contamination at the Vietnam Armor Training Facility, Fort Gordon, Georgia, 2009-2011
Wladmir B. Guimaraes, W. Fred Falls, Andral W. Caldwell, W. Hagan Ratliff, John B. Wellborn, James Landmeyer
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1160
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of the Army Environmental and Natural Resources Management Office of the U.S. Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon, Georgia, assessed the groundwater, soil gas, and soil for contaminants at the Vietnam Armor Training Facility (VATF) at Fort Gordon, from October...
Stable isotope deltas: Tiny, yet robust signatures in nature
Willi A. Brand, Tyler B. Coplen
2012, Isotopes in Environmental and Health Studies (48) 393-409
Although most of them are relatively small, stable isotope deltas of naturally occurring substances are robust and enable workers in anthropology, atmospheric sciences, biology, chemistry, environmental sciences, food and drug authentication, forensic science, geochemistry, geology, oceanography, and paleoclimatology to study a variety of topics. Two fundamental processes explain the stable...
Groundwater data for selected wells within the Eastern San Joaquin Groundwater Subbasin, California, 2003-8
Dennis A. Clark, John A. Izbicki, Loren F. Metzger, Rhett R. Everett, Gregory A. Smith, David R. O’Leary, Nicholas F. Teague, Matthew K. Burgess
2012, Data Series 696
Data were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey from 2003 through 2008 in the Eastern San Joaquin Groundwater Subbasin, 80 miles east of San Francisco, California, as part of a study of the increasing chloride concentrations in groundwater processes. Data collected include geologic, geophysical, chemical, and hydrologic data collected during...
Mapping wintering waterfowl distributions using weather surveillance radar
Jeffrey J. Buler, Lori A. Randall, Joseph P. Fleskes, Wylie C. Barrow, Tianna Bogart, Daria Kluver
2012, PLoS ONE (7)
The current network of weather surveillance radars within the United States readily detects flying birds and has proven to be a useful remote-sensing tool for ornithological study. Radar reflectivity measures serve as an index to bird density and have been used to quantitatively map landbird distributions during migratory stopover by...
Unsupervised classification of lidar-based vegetation structure metrics at Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve
Christine J. Kranenburg, Monica Palaseanu-Lovejoy, Amar Nayegandhi, John Brock, Robert Woodman
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1096
Traditional vegetation maps capture the horizontal distribution of various vegetation properties, for example, type, species and age/senescence, across a landscape. Ecologists have long known, however, that many important forest properties, for example, interior microclimate, carbon capacity, biomass and habitat suitability, are also dependent on the vertical arrangement of branches and...
Water-level data for the Albuquerque Basin and adjacent areas, central New Mexico, period of record through September 30, 2011
Joseph E. Beman
2012, Data Series 714
The Albuquerque Basin, located in central New Mexico, is about 100 miles long and 25–40 miles wide. The basin is defined as the extent of consolidated and unconsolidated deposits of Tertiary and Quaternary age that encompasses the structural Rio Grande Rift within the basin. Drinking-water supplies throughout the basin were...
Guidelines for a graph-theoretic implementation of structural equation modeling
James B. Grace, Donald R. Schoolmaster Jr., Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Amanda M. Little, Brian R. Mitchell, Kathryn M. Miller, E. William Schweiger
2012, Ecosphere (3)
Structural equation modeling (SEM) is increasingly being chosen by researchers as a framework for gaining scientific insights from the quantitative analyses of data. New ideas and methods emerging from the study of causality, influences from the field of graphical modeling, and advances in statistics are expanding the rigor, capability, and...
Frequency of nest use by golden eagles in southwestern Idaho
Michael N. Kochert, Karen Steenhof
2012, Journal of Raptor Research (46) 239-247
We studied nest use by Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) from 1966 to 2011 to assess nest reuse within territories, ascertain the length of time that elapses between uses of nests, and test the hypotheses that reproductive success and adult turnover influence nest switching. Golden Eagles used 454 nests in 66...
Ecosystem development after mangrove wetland creation: plant-soil change across a 20-year chronosequence
Michael J. Osland, Amanda C. Spivak, Janet A. Nestlerode, Jeannine M. Lessmann, Alejandro E. Almario, Paul T. Heitmuller, Marc J. Russell, Ken W. Krauss, Federico Alvarez, Darrin D. Dantin, James E. Harvey, Andrew S. From, Nicole Cormier, Camille L. Stagg
2012, Ecosystems (15) 848-866
Mangrove wetland restoration and creation efforts are increasingly proposed as mechanisms to compensate for mangrove wetland losses. However, ecosystem development and functional equivalence in restored and created mangrove wetlands are poorly understood. We compared a 20-year chronosequence of created tidal wetland sites in Tampa Bay, Florida (USA) to natural reference...
Trimming the UCERF2 hazard logic tree
Keith A. Porter, Edward H. Field, Kevin Milner
2012, Seismological Research Letters (83) 815-828
The Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast 2 (UCERF2) is a fully time‐dependent earthquake rupture forecast developed with sponsorship of the California Earthquake Authority (Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities [WGCEP], 2007; Field et al., 2009). UCERF2 contains 480 logic‐tree branches reflecting choices among nine modeling uncertainties in the earthquake rate...
Effects of wildfire on source-water quality and aquatic ecosystems, Colorado Front Range
Jeffrey H. Writer, R. Blaine McCleskey, Sheila F. Murphy
Mike Stone, Adrian Collins, Martin C. Thoms, editor(s)
2012, IAHS Red Book 354
Watershed erosion can dramatically increase after wildfire, but limited research has evaluated the corresponding influence on source-water quality. This study evaluated the effects of the Fourmile Canyon wildfire (Colorado Front Range, USA) on source-water quality and aquatic ecosystems using high- frequency sampling. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and nutrient loads in...
Candidatus Renichlamydia lutjani, a Gram-negative bacterium in internal organs of blue striped snapper Lutjanus kasmira from Hawaii
Daniele Corsaro, Thierry M. Work
2012, Diseases of Aquatic Organisms (98) 249-254
The blue-striped snapper Lutjanus kasmira (Perciformes, Lutjanidae) are cosmopolitan in the Indo-Pacific but were introduced into Oahu, Hawaii, USA, in the 1950s and have since colonized most of the archipelago. Studies of microparasites in blue-striped snappers from Hawaii revealed chlamydia-like organisms (CLO) infecting the spleen and kidney, characterized by intracellular basophilic...
