Arsenic in petroleum-contaminated groundwater near Bemidji, Minnesota is predicted to persist for centuries
Brady A. Ziegler, G.-H. Crystal Ng, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli, Aubrey J. Dunshee, Madeline E. Schreiber
2021, Water (13)
We used a reactive transport model to investigate the cycling of geogenic arsenic (As) in a petroleum-contaminated aquifer. We simulated As mobilization and sequestration using surface complexation reactions with Fe(OH)3 during petroleum biodegradation coupled with Fe-reduction. Model results predict that dissolved As in the plume will exceed the...
Global commitments to conserving and monitoring genetic diversity are now necessary and feasible
Sean M. Hoban, Michael W. Bruford, W. Chris Funk, Peter Galbusera, M. Patrick Griffith, Catherine E. Grueber, Myriam Heuertz, Margaret Hunter, Christina Hvilsom, Belma Kalamujic Stroil, Francine Kershaw, Colin K. Khoury, Linda Laikre, Magarida Lopes-Fernandes, Anna J. MacDonald, Joachim Mergeay, Mariah Meek, Cinnamon Mittan, Tarek A. Mukassabi, David O'Brien, Rob Ogden, Clarisse Palma-Silva, Uma Ramakrishnan, Gernot Segelbacher, Robyn E. Shaw, Per Sjogren-Gulve, Nevena Velickovic, Cristiano Vernesi
2021, BioScience
Global conservation policy and action have largely neglected protecting and monitoring genetic diversity—one of the three main pillars of biodiversity. Genetic diversity (diversity within species) underlies species’ adaptation and survival, ecosystem resilience, and societal innovation. The low priority given to genetic diversity has largely been due to knowledge gaps...
Does type, quantity, and location of habitat matter for fish diversity in a Great Plains riverscape?
Sean M. Hitchman, Martha E. Mather, Joseph M. Smith
2021, Fisheries Magazine (46) 495-504
Fisheries professionals frequently measure habitat type and amount, but less often measure the importance of where those habitats are located and in what combinations. We address this challenge by testing whether the individual and combined type, quantity, and location of habitat affects fish diversity in the...
Status and understanding of groundwater quality in the northern Sierra Nevada foothills domestic-supply aquifer study units, 2015–17—California GAMA Priority Basin Project
Zeno F. Levy, Miranda S. Fram
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5019
Groundwater quality in the northern Sierra Nevada foothills region of California was investigated as part of California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) Groundwater Ambient Monitoring Assessment Priority Basin Project (GAMA-PBP). The region was divided into two study units: the Yuba-Bear watersheds (YBW) study unit and the American-Cosumnes-Mokelumne watersheds (ACMW)...
Geologic influences on the quality of groundwater used for domestic supply in the northern Sierra Nevada Foothills
Zeno F. Levy, Miranda S. Fram
2021, Fact Sheet 2021-3013
Approximately 2 million California residents depend on groundwater from domestic wells for their drinking-water supply. The State of California, in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey, created the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment Program Priority Basin Project (GAMA-PBP) to assess the quality of groundwater used for domestic supply throughout the...
Sampling for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) by the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment Priority Basin Project
Robert H. Kent
2021, Fact Sheet 2021-3028
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a family of human-made chemicals that can persist in the environment. In 2019, the California State Water Resources Control Board’s Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment Priority Basin Project (GAMA-PBP) added PFAS to the projects’ on-going assessments of the quality of groundwater used for drinking-water...
Hydrologic and hydraulic analyses of selected streams near the city of Rittman in Wayne and Medina Counties, Ohio
Chad J. Ostheimer
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5040
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District and the city of Rittman, Ohio, did a study to provide data to update and expand parts of two Federal Emergency Management Agency Flood Insurance Studies. The study consisted of hydrologic and hydraulic analyses for selected reaches of...
Discharge data collection and analysis and implications for surface-water/groundwater interactions in the lower Las Vegas Wash, Clark County, Nevada, 2016–18
Jon W. Wilson
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5034
The lower Las Vegas Wash represents the terminal surface drainage for the Las Vegas Valley in southern Nevada. In 1997, high concentrations of perchlorate were found in seeps contributing to discharge in this area and traced to an industrial byproduct from manufacturing operations in the mid-1900s at the nearby Basic...
Selection of habitat-enhancing plants depends on predator-prey interactions
G. Coppola, Leandro E. Miranda, M. E. Colvin, H. R. Hatcher, M. A. Lashley
2021, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (12) 294-307
Shallow areas of drawdown reservoirs are often devoid of adequate fish habitat due to degradation associated with unnatural and relatively invariable cycles of exposure and flooding. One method of enhancing fish habitat in these areas is to sow exposed shorelines with agricultural plants to provide structure once flooded. It remains...
Demographic rate variability of Bighead and Silver Carps along an invasion gradient
Richard A. Erickson, Jahn L. Kallis, Alison A. Coulter, David P. Coulter, Ruairi MacNamara, James T. Lamer, Wesley W. Bouska, Kevin S. Irons, Levi E. Solomon, Andrew J. Stump, Michael J. Weber, Marybeth K. Brey, Christopher J. Sullivan, Greg G. Sass, James E. Garvey, David C. Glover
2021, Fisheries Research (12) 338-353
Invasive Bighead Carp Hypophthalmichthys nobilis and Silver Carp H. molitrix have infested and caused largescale ecological and economic damage to the Illinois, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers. We compiled demographic data from 42,995 fish from 23 pools in the Illinois, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers, which universities and management agencies previously collected as part of management,...
Onset and evolution of Kilauea’s 2018 flank eruption and summit collapse from continuous gravity
Michael Poland, Daniele Carbone, Matthew R. Patrick
2021, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (567)
Prior to the 2018 lower East Rift Zone (ERZ) eruption and summit collapse of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i, continuous gravimeters operated on the vent rims of ongoing eruptions at both the summit and Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō. These instruments captured the onset of the 2018 lower ERZ eruption and the effects of lava...
Synthesizing and analyzing long-term monitoring data: A greater sage-grouse case study
Michael S. O’Donnell, David R. Edmunds, Cameron L. Aldridge, Julie A. Heinrichs, Adrian P. Monroe, Peter S. Coates, Brian G. Prochazka, Thomas J Christiansen, Steve E. Hanser, Lief A. Wiechman, Avery A Cook, Shawn P. Espinosa, Lee J. Foster, Kathleen A. Griffin, Jesse L. Kolar, Katherine Miller, Ann M. Moser, Thomas E. Remington, Travis J Runia, Leslie A Schreiber, Michael A Schroeder, San J Stiver, Nyssa I Whitford, Catherine S Wightman
2021, Ecological Informatics (63)
Long-term monitoring of natural resources is imperative for increasing the understanding of ecosystem processes, services, and how to manage those ecosystems to maintain or improve function. Challenges with using these data may occur because methods of monitoring changed over time, multiple...
Western pond turtles in the Mojave Desert? A review of their past, present, and possible future
Jeffrey E. Lovich, George T. Jefferson, Robert E. Reynolds, Peter A. Scott, H. Bradley Shaffer, Shellie R. Puffer, Sarah Greely, Kristy L. Cummings, Robert N. Fisher, Kathie Meyer-Wilkins, Doug Gomez, Morgan Ford, Christopher D Otahal
2021, Vertebrate Zoology (71) 317-334
=The western pond turtle (WPT) was formerly considered a single species (Actinemys or Emys marmorata) that ranged from southern British Columbia, Canada to Baja California, México. More recently it was divided into a northern and a southern species. <abbr id="ABBRID0ESAAC"...
Linking behavioral states to landscape features for improved conservation management
Maitreyi Sur, Brian Woodbridge, Todd Esque, Jim R Belthoff, Peter H. Bloom, Robert N. Fisher, Kathleen Longshore, Kenneth Nussear, Jeff A. Tracey, Melissa A. Braham, Todd E. Katzner
2021, Ecology and Evolution (11) 7905-7916
A central theme for conservation is understanding how animals differentially use, and are affected by change in, the landscapes they inhabit. However, it has been challenging to develop conservation schemes for habitat-specific behaviors.Here we use behavioral change point analysis to identify behavioral states of golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in the...
Catch rates for sturgeon chubs and sicklefin chubs in the Upper Missouri River 2004–2016 and correlations with biotic and abiotic variables
Patrick Braaten, David B. Fuller, Tyler M. Haddix, John R. Hunziker, Michael E. Colvin, Luke M. Holmquist, Ryan H. Wilson
2021, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (12) 322-337
A multiweek standardized sampling regime during 2004–2016 in a 60-km reach of the Upper Missouri River assessed reproduction and catch rates for Sturgeon Chub Macrhybopsis gelida and Sicklefin Chub Macrhybopsis meeki. We sampled age-0 Macrhybopsis (primarily Sturgeon Chubs, but potentially including Sicklefin Chubs) all years to indicate successful reproduction, but...
Do crayfish affect stream ecosystem response to riparian vegetation removal?
Maura P. Dudley, Kelsey Solomon, Seth J. Wenger, C. Rhett Jackson, Mary Freeman, Katherine J. Elliott, Chelcy F. Miniat, Catherine M. Pringle
2021, Freshwater Biology (66) 1423-1435
1. Riparian vegetation management alters stream basal resources, but stream ecosystem responses partly depend on top-down interactions with in-stream consumers. Large-bodied omnivores can exert particularly strong influences on stream benthic environments through consumption of food resources and physical disturbance of the benthos. Trophic dynamics studies conducted within the context of...
The Independent Volcanic Eruption Source Parameter Archive (IVESPA, version 1.0): A new observational database to support explosive eruptive column model validation and development
Thomas J Aubry, Samantha Engwell, Costanza Bonadonna, Guillaume Carazzo, Simona Scollo, Alexa R. Van Eaton, Isabelle A Taylor, David Jessop, Julia Eychenne, Mathieu Gouhier, Larry G. Mastin, Kristi L. Wallace, Sebastien Biass, Marcus Bursik, Roy G Grainger, Mark Jellinek, Anja Schmidt
2021, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (417)
Eruptive column models are powerful tools for investigating the transport of volcanic gas and ash, reconstructing past explosive eruptions, and simulating future hazards. However, the evaluation of these models is challenging as it requires independent estimates of the main model inputs...
Sin Nombre virus prevalence from 2014–2017 in wild deer mice, Peromyscus maniculatus, on five of the California Channel Islands
John L. Orrock, Brian Connolly, Peter Guiden, Jennifer L. Chandler, Gebbiena M. Bron, Charles A. Drost, David K. Garcelon
2021, Zoonoses and Public Health (68) 849-853
Sin Nombre virus (SNV) is a zoonotic virus that is highly pathogenic to humans. The deer mouse, Peromyscus maniculatus, is the primary host of SNV, and SNV prevalence in P. maniculatus is an important indicator of human disease risk. Because the California Channel Islands contain permanent human settlements, receive hundreds of thousands of visitors...
Species mixture effects and climate influence growth, recruitment and mortality in Interior West USA Populus tremuloides-conifer communities
Christopher E. Looney, Wilfred J Previant, John B. Bradford, Linda M Nagel
2021, Journal of Ecology (109) 2934-2949
Tree-species mixture effects (e.g. complementarity and facilitation) have been found to increase individual-tree productivity, lessen mortality and improve recruitment in forests worldwide. By promoting more efficient and complete resource use, mixture effects may also lessen individual-tree-level water stress, thus improving drought resistance. We investigated the influence of mixture effects...
Time marches on, but do the causal pathways driving instream habitat and biology remain consistent?
Richard H Walker, Matthew J. Ashton, Matthew J. Cashman, Rosemary M. Fanelli, Kevin P. Krause, Gregory E. Noe, Kelly O. Maloney
2021, Science of the Total Environment (789)
Stream ecosystems are complex networks of interacting terrestrial and aquatic drivers. To untangle these ecological networks, efforts evaluating the direct and indirect effects of landscape, climate, and instream predictors on biological condition through time are needed. We used structural equation modeling and leveraged a...
Improved methods for understanding the role of predation on dreissenid population dynamics
Kevin R. Keretz, Richard Kraus, Joseph Schmitt
2021, Environmental Biology of Fishes (104) 629-633
Impacts of dreissenid mussels (Dreissena spp.) on Great Lakes ecosystems are well documented, and a better understanding of mechanisms that cause variation in dreissenid abundance is needed. An outstanding question is how much dreissenid biomass is consumed by fish predation. A significant difficulty for investigating dreissenid consumption by fish is that...
Environmental conditions associated with occurrences of the threatened Yaqui Catfish in the Yaqui River Basin, Mexico
T. Hafen, A.T. Taylor, D.A. Hendrickson, D.R. Stewart, James M. Long
2021, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (41) S54-S63
The Yaqui Catfish Ictalurus pricei is an understudied species, with limited information available on its ecology, distribution, and local habitat use. Native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, Yaqui Catfish populations are declining, which has prompted listing of the species as threatened in the United States and as a species...
Comment on ‘New insights on Franciscan Complex geology, architecture, depositional age, and provenance for the western Mt. Tamalpais area, Marin County, California’ by Bero et al. (2020)
Russell Graymer, Trevor A. Dumitru, Robert J. McLaughlin, Carl M. Wentworth
2021, International Geology Review (64) 1191-1197
Serious errors and inconsistencies in the article undermine many of its interpretations to the point that principal conclusions are not valid. Much dependence is placed on the maximum depositional age (Dmax) of sandstone units based on zircon analysis of 10 samples, but calculation of those Dmax values is flawed, and...
Range-wide declines of northern spotted owl populations in the Pacific Northwest: A meta-analysis
Alan B. Franklin, Katie M. Dugger, Damon B. Lesmeister, Raymond J. Davis, J. David Wiens, Gary C. White, James D. Nichols, James E. Hines, Charles B. Yackulic, Carl J. Schwarz, Steven H. Ackers, Andrew L. Stevens, Larissa L. Bailey, Robin Bown, Jesse Burgher, Kenneth P. Burnham, Peter C. Carlson, Tara Chestnut, Mary M Conner, Krista E. Dilione, Eric D. Forsman, Elizabeth M. Glenn, Scott A. Gremel, Keith A. Hamm, Dale R. Herter, J. Mark Higley, Rob B. Horn, Julianna M. Jenkins, William L. Kendall, David W Lamphear, Christopher McCafferty, Trent L. McDonald, Janice A Reid, Jeremy T. Rockweit, David C. Simon, Stan G. Sovern, James Swingle, Heather Wise
2021, Biological Conservation, (259)
The northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) inhabits older coniferous forests in the Pacific Northwest and has been at the center of forest management issues in this region. The immediate threats to this federally listed species include habitat loss and competition with barred owls (Strix...
Effect of groundwater withdrawals, river stage, and precipitation on water-table elevations in the Iowa River alluvial aquifer near Tama, Iowa, 2017–20
Lance R. Gruhn, Adel E. Haj
2021, Open-File Report 2021-1019
The Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa is the only federally recognized Tribe in the State of Iowa and is commonly known as the Meskwaki Nation. The Tribe owns more than 8,100 acres, referred to as the “Meskwaki Settlement.” The Meskwaki Settlement uses a well field that...
