Estimating wolf abundance from cameras
David Edward Ausband, Paul M. Lukacs, Mark A. Hurley, Shane Roberts, Kaitlyn M. Strickfaden, Anna K. Moeller
2022, Ecosphere (13)
Monitoring the abundance of rare carnivores is a daunting task for wildlife biologists. Many carnivore populations persist at relatively low densities, public interest is high, and the need for population estimates is great. Recent advances in trail camera technology provide an unprecedented opportunity for biologists to monitor rare species economically....
Assessment of cereal grain waste densities to aid waterfowl conservation planning in the Klamath Basin
Daniel A. Skalos, Joseph P. Fleskes, Jeffery D. Kohl, Mark P. Herzog, Michael L. Casazza
2022, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (13) 3-16
Postharvest waste seed from cereal grains is a major dietary component of waterfowl in the Klamath Basin in northeastern California and southeastern Oregon, a region that plays host to over a million waterfowl annually. Understanding food abundance is critical to local waterfowl management; therefore, we conducted a study in 2008...
The Pacific as the world’s greatest theater of bird migration: Extreme flights spark questions about physiological capabilities, behavior, and the evolution of migratory pathways
Theunis Piersma, Robert E. Gill Jr., Daniel R. Ruthrauff, Christopher G. Guglielmo, Jesse R. Conklin, Colleen M. Handel
2022, Ornithology (139)
The Pacific Basin, by virtue of its vastness and its complex aeroscape, provides unique opportunities to address questions about the behavioral and physiological capabilities and mechanisms through which birds can complete spectacular flights. No longer is the Pacific seen just as a formidable barrier between terrestrial habitats in the north...
Bathymetric map, surface area, and stage-capacity for the U.S. part of Lake Koocanusa, Lincoln County, Montana, 2016–18
Ryan L. Fosness, Taylor J. Dudunake
2022, Scientific Investigations Map 3485
The U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers collected high-resolution multibeam sonar data during 2016–18 to compute stage-area and stage-capacity tables for the U.S. part of Koocanusa Reservoir in Lincoln County, northwestern Montana. Koocanusa Reservoir is a transboundary reservoir extending about 48 miles from Libby Dam upstream to...
Post-release survival of translocated fishers: Implications for translocation success
Jeffrey C. Lewis, Kurt Jenkins, Patricia J. Happe, David J. Manson, Paul C. Griffin
2022, Journal of Wildlife Management (86)
As a vital tool for the conservation of species at risk, translocations are also opportunities to identify factors that influence translocation success. We evaluated factors associated with post-release survival of 90 radio-tracked fishers (Pekania pennanti) translocated from central British Columbia, Canada, to the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, USA, from 2008...
Landsat data ecosystem case study: Actor perceptions of the use and value of landsat
Edmund B. Molder, Sarah Ferer Schenkein, Abby Elizabeth McConnell, Karl K Benedict, Crista L. Straub
2022, Frontiers in Environmental Science (9)
It is well-known that Earth observation (EO) data plays a critical role in scientific understanding about the global environment. There is also growing support for the use of EO data to provide context-specific insights, with significant implications for their use in decision support systems. Technological development over recent...
System characterization report on Planet’s SuperDove
Minsu Kim, Seonkyung Park, Cody Anderson, Gregory L. Stensaas
2022, Open-File Report 2021-1030-F
Executive SummaryThis report addresses system characterization of Planet’s SuperDove and is part of a series of system characterization reports produced and delivered by the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Cal/Val Center of Excellence. These reports present and detail the methodology and procedures for characterization; present technical and...
The role of hydraulic and geomorphic complexity in predicting invasive carp spawning potential: St. Croix River, Minnesota and Wisconsin, United States
Alan Kasprak, P. Ryan Jackson, Evan M. Lindroth, J. William Lund, Jeffrey R. Ziegeweid
2022, PLoS ONE (17)
Since they were first introduced to the United States more than 50 years ago, invasive carp have rapidly colonized rivers of the Mississippi River Basin, with detrimental effects on native aquatic species. Their continued range expansion, and potential for subsequent invasion of the Great Lakes, has led to increased concern...
The occurrence of large floods in the United States in the modern hydroclimate regime: Seasonality, trends, and large-scale climate associations
Mathias Collins, Glenn A. Hodgkins, Stacey A. Archfield, Robert M. Hirsch
2022, Water Resources Research (58)
Many studies investigate river floods by analyzing annual maximum series that record the largest flow of each year, including many within-bank events inconsequential for human communities. Fewer focus on larger floods, especially at the continental scale. Using 473 streamgages across the conterminous United States with near-natural flow from 1966 to...
Use of riparian spiders as sentinels of persistent and bioavailable chemical contaminants in aquatic ecosystems: A review
Matthew M. Chumchal, Gale B. Beaubien, Ray W. Drenner, Madeline P. Hannappel, Marc A. Mills, Connor I. Olson, Ryan R. Otter, Andrew C. Todd, David Walters
2022, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (41) 499-514
Aquatic ecosystems around the world are contaminated with a wide range of anthropogenic chemicals, including metals and organic pollutants, that originate from point and nonpoint sources. Many of these chemical contaminants have complex environmental cycles, are persistent and bioavailable, can be incorporated into aquatic food webs, and pose a threat...
Silicate volcanism on Europa’s seafloor and implications for habitability
Michael T. Bland, Catherine Elder
2022, Geophysical Research Letters (49)
Habitable ocean environments on Europa require an influx of reactants to maintain chemical disequilibrium. One possible source of reactants is seafloor volcanism. Modeling has shown that dissipation of tidal energy in Europa's asthenosphere can generate melt, but melt formation cannot be equated with volcanism. Melt must also...
Deconstructing the microbial necromass continuum to inform soil carbon sequestration
Kate M Buckeridge, Courtney Creamer, Jeanette Whitaker
2022, Functional Ecology (36) 1396-1410
Microbial necromass is a large, dynamic and persistent component of soil organic carbon, the dominant terrestrial carbon pool. Quantification of necromass carbon stocks and its susceptibility to global change is becoming standard practice in soil carbon research. However, the typical proxies used for necromass carbon do not reveal the...
Evaluation of electrical and electromagnetic geophysical techniques to inspect earthen dam and levee structures in Arkansas
Ryan F. Adams, Benjamin Miller, Wade Kress, Scott Ikard, Jason D. Payne, Walter Killion
2022, Journal of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics (26) 287-303
Within the state of Arkansas there is an increasing number of aging dams and levees that have little to no documentation concerning their construction or composition. Surface geophysical surveys offer a non-intrusive method for investigating these structures: To describe their lithologic makeup, to evaluate the materials that they were constructed...
Human-in-the-Loop segmentation of earth surface imagery
Daniel D. Buscombe, Evan B. Goldstein, Christopher R. Sherwood, Cameron S Bodine, Jenna A. Brown, Jaycee Favela, Sharon Fitzpatrick, Christine J. Kranenburg, Jin-Si R. Over, Andrew C. Ritchie, Jonathan A. Warrick, Phillipe Alan Wernette
2022, Earth and Space Science (9)
Segmentation, or the classification of pixels (grid cells) in imagery, is ubiquitously applied in the natural sciences. Manual methods are often prohibitively time-consuming, especially those images consisting of small objects and/or significant spatial heterogeneity of colors or textures. Labeling complicated regions of transition that in Earth surface imagery are represented...
Conservation under uncertainty: Innovations in participatory climate change scenario planning from U.S. national parks
Brian W. Miller, Gregor W. Schuurman, Amy Symstad, Amber C Runyon, Brecken C. Robb
2022, Conservation Science and Practice (4)
The impacts of climate change (CC) on natural and cultural resources are far-reaching and complex. A major challenge facing resource managers is not knowing the exact timing and nature of those impacts. To confront this problem, scientists, adaptation specialists, and resource managers have begun to use scenario planning (SP). This...
Tidally-driven gas exchange in beaches: Implications for sea turtle nest success
K.M. Goforth, Raymond Carthy
2022, Journal of Coastal Research (38) 523-537
The success of individual sea turtle nests is influenced by nest location on the beach and the resulting incubation environment. Several abiotic factors affect nest incubation, and thus nest success, but tides and gas exchange are two of the most important. The effects of tides on nest success have been...
Poor relationships between NEON Airborne Observation Platform data and field-based vegetation traits at a mesic grassland
Stephanie Pau, Jesse Nippert, Ryan Slapikas, Daniel Mark Griffith, Seton Bachle, Brent Helliker, Rory O’Connor, William J. Riley, Christopher J. Still, Marissa Zaricor
Elizabeth T. Borer, editor(s)
2022, Ecology (103)
Understanding spatial and temporal variation in plant traits is needed to accurately predict how communities and ecosystems will respond to global change. The National Observatory Ecological Network (NEON) Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) provides hyperspectral images and associated data products at numerous field sites at 1 m spatial resolution, potentially allowing...
Rainfall an unlikely trigger of Kilauea’s 2018 rift eruption
Michael Poland, Shaul Hurwitz, James P. Kauahikaua, Emily K. Montgomery-Brown, Kyle R. Anderson, Ingrid A. Johanson, Matthew R. Patrick, Christina A. Neal
2022, Nature (602) E7-E10
If volcanic eruptions could be forecast from the occurrence of some external process, it might be possible to better mitigate risk and protect lives and livelihoods. Farquharson and Amelung<a id="ref-link-section-d13005269e462" title="Farquharson, J. I. & Amelung, F. Extreme rainfall triggered the 2018 rift eruption at Kīlauea Volcano. Nature 580, 491–495 (2020)."...
Operational assessment tool for forest carbon dynamics for the United States: A new spatially explicit approach linking the LUCAS and CBM-CFS3 models
Benjamin M. Sleeter, Leonardo Frid, Bronwyn Rayfield, Colin Daniel, Zhiliang Zhu, Dave Marvin
2022, Carbon Balance and Management (17)
BackgroundQuantifying the carbon balance of forested ecosystems has been the subject of intense study involving the development of numerous methodological approaches. Forest inventories, processes-based biogeochemical models, and inversion methods have all been used to estimate the contribution of U.S. forests to the global terrestrial carbon sink. However, estimates...
Toward improved prediction of streamflow effects on freshwater fishes
Mary Freeman, Kevin R. Bestgen, Daren Carlisle, Emmanuel A. Frimpong, Nathan R. Franssen, Ketih B. Gido, Elise R. Irwin, Yoichiro Kanno, Charles H. Luce, S. Kyle McKay, Meryl C. Mims, Julian D. Olden, N. LeRoy Poff, David L. Propst, Laura Rack, Allison H. Roy, Edward S. Stowe, Annika W. Walters, Seth J. Wenger
2022, Fisheries Magazine (47) 290-298
Understanding the effects of hydrology on fish populations is essential to managing for native fish conservation. However, despite decades of research illustrating streamflow influences on fish habitat, reproduction and survival, biologists remain challenged when tasked with predicting how fish populations will respond to changes in flow regimes. This uncertainty stems...
The role of monitoring and research in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in framing our understanding of the effects of disease on amphibians
Erin L. Muths, Blake R. Hossack
2022, Ecological Indicators (136)
Emerging infectious disease threatens amphibian biodiversity worldwide, including in landscapes that are protected from many anthropogenic stressors. We summarized data from studies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), one of the largest and most complete temperate-zone ecosystems on Earth, to...
Activity patterns of Hawaiian forest birds in a fragmented and continuous landscape
Jennifer R Smetzer, Kristina L. Paxton, Patrick J. Hart, Eben H. Paxton
2022, Journal of Avian Biology (2022)
Activity patterns are a key component of avian life history and behavior, and decisions about how activity periods are structured can have important fitness implications. Despite the importance of activity patterns, individual variability in activity is poorly studied in small birds. We used automated radio telemetry...
Context-dependent variation in persistence of host populations in the face of disease
Bennett Hardy, Erin L. Muths, David N. Koons
2022, Journal of Animal Ecology (91) 282-286
Research Highlight: Valenzuela-Sánchez, A., Azat, C., Cunningham, A. A., Delgado, S., Bacigalupe, L. D., Beltrand, J., Serrano, J. M., Sentenac, H., Haddow, N., Toledo, V., Schmidt, B. R., & Cayuela, H. (2022). Interpopulation differences in male reproductive effort drive the population dynamics of a...
Quantifying streamflow depletion from groundwater pumping: A practical review of past and emerging approaches for water management
Samuel Zipper, William H. Farmer, Andrea E. Brookfield, Hoori Ajami, Howard W. Reeves, Chloe Wardropper, John C. Hammond, Tom Gleeson, Jillian M. Deines
2022, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (58) 289-312
Groundwater pumping can cause reductions in streamflow (“streamflow depletion”) that must be quantified for conjunctive management of groundwater and surface water resources. However, streamflow depletion cannot be measured directly and is challenging to estimate because pumping impacts are masked by streamflow variability due to other...
Mark-recapture models accurately predict growth trajectories of known-age Muskellunge in Green Bay, Lake Michigan
Robert J. Sheffer, Steven R. Hogler, Daniel A. Isermann
2022, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (42) 410-424
Length-at-age data are commonly used to describe growth of fish, and obtaining these data typically involves estimating ages from calcified structures (e.g., fin spines or rays, otoliths, or cleithra). Verifying the accuracy of age and growth estimates for long-lived fish is often difficult because known-age fish are not available for...
