Identifying ecologically relevant scales of habitat selection: diel habitat selection in elk
Caleb P. Roberts, James W. Cain III, Robert D. Cox
2017, Ecosphere (8) 1-16
Although organisms make resource selection decisions at multiple spatiotemporal scales, not all scales are ecologically relevant to any given organism. Ecological patterns and rhythms such as behavioral and climatic patterns may provide a consistent method for identifying ecologically relevant scales of habitat selection. Using elk (Cervus canadensis) as an example...
New constraints on coseismic slip during southern Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes over the past 4600 years implied by tsunami deposits and marine turbidites
George R. Priest, Robert C. Witter, Yinglong J. Zhang, Chris Goldfinger, Kelin Wang, Jonathan C. Allan
2017, Natural Hazards (88) 285-313
Forecasting earthquake and tsunami hazards along the southern Cascadia subduction zone is complicated by uncertainties in the amount of megathrust fault slip during past ruptures. Here, we estimate slip on hypothetical ruptures of the southern part of the megathrust through comparisons of late Holocene Cascadia earthquake histories derived from tsunami...
An assessment of food habits, prey availability, and nesting success of golden eagles within the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan Area
Kathleen M. Longshore, Todd Esque, Kenneth Nussear, Diego R. Johnson, Matthew Simes, Richard D. Inman
2017, Report
Within the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan area, which encompasses California’s Mojave Desert, development and operation of renewable energy facilities has the potential to impact golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) populations through loss of habitat and prey base. Developing an effective conservation strategy that aims to mitigate for such operations is necessary to...
Connecting crustal seismicity and earthquake-driven stress evolution in Southern California
Frederick Pollitz, Camilla Cattania
2017, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (122) 6473-6490
Tectonic stress in the crust evolves during a seismic cycle, with slow stress accumulation over interseismic periods, episodic stress steps at the time of earthquakes, and transient stress readjustment during a postseismic period that may last months to years. Static stress transfer to surrounding faults has been well documented to...
Spatial and temporal variability in benthic invertebrate assemblages in Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon
Natalie J. Stauffer-Olsen, James L. Carter, Steven V. Fend
2017, Northwest Science (91) 257-271
Upper Klamath Lake (UKL) in southern Oregon has experienced declines in water quality due to excessive nutrient loading. This has led to annual cyanobacterial blooms, primarily of Aphanizomenon flos-aquae (AFA). Benthic invertebrates are important food resources for benthic feeding fishes; however, they can increase autochthonous nutrient cycling in lakes and as a...
Debris flow initiation by runoff in a recently burned basin: Is grain-by-grain sediment bulking or en masse failure to blame?
Luke McGuire, Francis K. Rengers, Jason W. Kean, Dennis M. Staley
2017, Geophysical Research Letters (44) 7310-7319
Postwildfire debris flows are frequently triggered by runoff following high-intensity rainfall, but the physical mechanisms by which water-dominated flows transition to debris flows are poorly understood relative to debris flow initiation from shallow landslides. In this study, we combined a numerical model with high-resolution hydrologic and geomorphic data sets to...
Deposition of mercury in forests across a montane elevation gradient: Elevational and seasonal patterns in methylmercury inputs and production
Jacqueline R. Gerson, Charles T. Driscoll, Jason D. Demers, Amy K. Sauer, Bradley D. Blackwell, Mario R. Montesdeoca, James B. Shanley, Donald S. Ross
2017, Journal of Geophysical Research G: Biogeosciences (122) 1922-1939
Global mercury contamination largely results from direct primary atmospheric and secondary legacy emissions, which can be deposited to ecosystems, converted to methylmercury, and bioaccumulated along food chains. We examined organic horizon soil samples collected across an elevational gradient on Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondack region of New York State, USA...
Mercury correlates with altered corticosterone but not testosterone or estradiol concentrations in common loons
Melinda D. Franceshini, David C. Evers, Kevin P. Kenow, Michael W. Meyer, Mark Pokras, L. Michael Romero
2017, Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety (142) 348-354
We investigated the relation between environmental mercury exposure and corticosterone concentrations in free-living adult common loons (Gavia immer). We determined blood and feather mercury concentrations and compared them to testosterone, estradiol, and stress-induced plasma corticosterone concentrations. Although neither testosterone nor estradiol correlated with Hg levels, there was a robust positive...
Mapping tree density in forests of the southwestern USA using Landsat 8 data
Kamal Humagain, Carlos Portillo-Quintero, Robert D. Cox, James W. Cain III
2017, Forests (8) 1-15
The increase of tree density in forests of the American Southwest promotes extreme fire events, understory biodiversity losses, and degraded habitat conditions for many wildlife species. To ameliorate these changes, managers and scientists have begun planning treatments aimed at reducing fuels and increasing understory biodiversity. However, spatial variability in tree...
Incorporating Allee effects into the potential biological removal level
Humza Hadier, Sarah Oldfield, Tiffany Tu, Rosa Moreno, Jay E. Diffendorfer, Eric A. Eager, Richard A. Erickson
2017, Natural Resource Modeling (30) 1-16
Potential biological removal (PBR) is an approach used to calculate sustainable harvest and “take” limits for populations. PBR was originally derived assuming logistic growth while ignoring the effects of small population size (i.e., an Allee effect). We derived a version of PBR that includes an Allee effect (i.e., small population...
Climate change and tree-line ecosystems in the Sierra Nevada: Habitat suitability modelling to inform high-elevation forest dynamics monitoring
Peggy E. Moore, Otto Alvarez, Shawn T. McKinney, Wenkai Li, Matthew L. Brooks, Qinghua Guo
2017, Natural Resource Report NPS/SIEN/NRR—2017/1476
Whitebark pine and foxtail pine serve foundational roles in the subalpine zone of the Sierra Nevada. They provide the dominant structure in tree-line forests and regulate key ecosystem processes and community dynamics. Climate change models suggest that there will be changes in temperature regimes and in the timing and magnitude...
The skill we all need
Scott A. Bonar, Jesse Trushenski
2017, Fisheries (42) 398-398
No abstract available....
Empirical estimation of recreational exploitation of burbot, Lota lota, in the Wind River drainage of Wyoming using a multistate capture–recapture model
S. A. Lewandoski, Christopher S. Guy, Alexander V. Zale, Paul C. Gerrity, J. W. Deromedi, K. M. Johnson, D. L. Skates
2017, Fisheries Management and Ecology (24) 298-307
Burbot, Lota lota (Linnaeus), is a regionally popular sportfish in the Wind River drainage of Wyoming, USA, at the southern boundary of the range of the species. Recent declines in burbot abundances were hypothesised to be caused by overexploitation, entrainment in irrigation canals and habitat loss. This study addressed the overexploitation hypothesis...
The Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) immunoglobulin heavy chain suggests the importance of clan III variable segments in repertoire diversity
Breanna Breaux, Thaddeus C. Deiss, Patricia L. Chen, Maria Paula Cruz-Schneider, Leonardo Sena, Margaret E. Hunter, Robert K. Bonde, Michael F. Criscitiello
2017, Developmental and Comparative Immunology (72) 57-68
Manatees are a vulnerable, charismatic sentinel species from the evolutionarily divergent Afrotheria. Manatee health and resistance to infectious disease is of great concern to conservation groups, but little is known about their immune system. To develop manatee-specific tools for monitoring health, we first must have a general knowledge of how...
Celebrating ten years of collaboration
W. Matthew Cushing
2017, GEOSUR Newsletter (4) 4-5
Since the GEOSUR Program launched in 2007, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center has had the honor of collaborating with CAF, PAIGH, and others supporting the Latin America GEOSUR Program. The catalyst for starting the program was the convergence of regional geospatial activities USGS,...
A validation of 11 body-condition indices in a giant snake species that exhibits positive allometry
Bryan Falk, Ray W. Snow, Robert N. Reed
2017, PLoS ONE (12) 1-20
Body condition is a gauge of the energy stores of an animal, and though it has important implications for fitness, survival, competition, and disease, it is difficult to measure directly. Instead, body condition is frequently estimated as a body condition index (BCI) using length and mass measurements. A desirable BCI...
Study of responses of 64-story Rincon Building to Napa, Fremont, Piedmont, San Ramon earthquakes and ambient motions
Mehmet Çelebi, John Hooper, Ron Klemencic
2017, Earthquake Spectra (33) 1125-1148
We analyze the recorded responses of a 64-story, instrumented, concrete core shear wall building in San Francisco, California, equipped with tuned sloshing liquid dampers (TSDs) and buckling restraining braces (BRBs). Previously, only ambient data from the 72-channel array in the building were studied (Çelebi et al. 2013). Recently,...
Managed aquifer recharge through off-season irrigation in agricultural regions
Richard G. Niswonger, Eric D. Morway, Enrique Triana, Justin L. Huntington
2017, Water Resources Research (53) 6970-6992
Options for increasing reservoir storage in developed regions are limited and prohibitively expensive. Projected increases in demand call for new long-term water storage to help sustain agriculture, municipalities, industry, and ecological services. Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is becoming an integral component of water resources around the world. However, MAR faces...
Spatial heterogeneity of within-stream methane concentrations
John T. Crawford, Luke C. Loken, William E. West, Benjamin Crary, Seth A. Spawn, Nicholas Gubbins, Stuart E. Jones, Robert G. Striegl, Emily H. Stanley
2017, Journal of Geophysical Research G: Biogeosciences (122) 1036-1048
Streams, rivers, and other freshwater features may be significant sources of CH4 to the atmosphere. However, high spatial and temporal variabilities hinder our ability to understand the underlying processes of CH4 production and delivery to streams and also challenge the use of scaling approaches across large areas. We studied a stream having...
Piscivore diet response to a collapse in pelagic prey populations
Steven Zeug, Frederick V. Feyrer, Annie Brodsky, Jenny Melgo
2017, Environmental Biology of Fishes (100) 947-958
Pelagic fish populations in the upper San Francisco Estuary have experienced significant declines since the turn of the century; a pattern known as the pelagic organism decline (POD). This study investigated food habits of piscivorous fishes over two consecutive fall seasons following the decline of pelagic fish prey. Specifically, this...
Methodology for time-domain estimation of storm time geoelectric fields using the 3-D magnetotelluric response tensors
Anna Kelbert, Christopher Balch, Antti Pulkkinen, Gary D. Egbert, Jeffrey J. Love, E. Joshua Rigler, Ikuko Fujii
2017, Space Weather (15) 874-894
Geoelectric fields at the Earth's surface caused by magnetic storms constitute a hazard to the operation of electric power grids and related infrastructure. The ability to estimate these geoelectric fields in close to real time and provide local predictions would better equip the industry to mitigate negative impacts on their...
Porosity and pore size distribution in a sedimentary rock: Implications for the distribution of chlorinated solvents
Allen M. Shapiro, Chrsitopher E. Evans, Erin C. Hayes
2017, Journal of Contaminant Hydrology (203) 70-84
Characterizing properties of the rock matrix that control retention and release of chlorinated solvents is essential in evaluating the extent of contamination and the application of remediation technologies in fractured rock. Core samples from seven closely spaced boreholes in a mudstone subject to trichloroethene (TCE) contamination were analyzed using Mercury...
How well do route survey areas represent landscapes at larger spatial extents? An analysis of land cover composition along Breeding Bird Survey routes
Joseph A. Veech, Keith L. Pardieck, David Ziolkowski
2017, Condor (119) 607-615
The occurrence of birds in a survey unit is partly determined by the habitat present. Moreover, some bird species preferentially avoid some land cover types and are attracted to others. As such, land cover composition within the 400 m survey areas along a Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) route clearly influences...
Variation and plasticity and their interaction with urbanization in Guadalupe Bass populations on and off the Edwards Plateau
Jessica E. Pease, Timothy B. Grabowski, Allison A. Pease
2017, Report
The Colorado River Basin in Texas has experienced major alterations to its hydrologic regime due to changing land and water use patterns. These anthropogenic influences on hydrologic variability have had major implications for riparian and aquatic ecosystems and the species dependent upon them. However, impacts are often assessed at a...
A multi-species synthesis of physiological mechanisms in drought-induced tree mortality
Henry D. Adams, Melanie Zeppel, William R.L. Anderegg, Henrik Hartmann, Simon M. Landhausser, David T. Tissue, Travis E. Huxman, Patrick J. Hudson, Trenton E. Franz, Craig D. Allen, Leander D. L. Anderegg, Greg A. Barron-Gafford, David Beerling, David D. Breshears, Timothy J. Brodribb, Harald Bugmann, Richard C. Cobb, Adam D. Collins, L. Turin Dickman, Honglang Duan, Brent E. Ewers, Lucia Galiano, David A. Galvez, Nuria Garcia-Forner, Monica L. Gaylord, Matthew J. Germino, Arthur Gessler, Uwe G. Hacke, Rodrigo Hakamada, Andy Hector, Michael W. Jenkins, Jeffrey M. Kane, Thomas E. Kolb, Darin J. Law, James D. Lewis, Jean-Marc Limousin, David Love, Alison K. Macalady, Jordi Martínez-Vilalta, Maurizio Mencuccini, Patrick J. Mitchell, Jordan D. Muss, Michael J. O’Brien, Anthony P. O’Grady, Robert E. Pangle, Elizabeth A. Pinkard, Frida I. Piper, Jennifer Plaut, William T. Pockman, Joe Quirk, Keith Reinhardt, Francesco Ripullone, Michael G. Ryan, Anna Sala, Sanna Sevanto, John S. Sperry, Rodrigo Vargas, Michel Vennetier, Danielle A. Way, Chonggang Wu, Enrico A. Yepez, Nate G. McDowell
2017, Nature Ecology & Evolution (1) 1285-1291
Widespread tree mortality associated with drought has been observed on all forested continents and global change is expected to exacerbate vegetation vulnerability. Forest mortality has implications for future biosphere–atmosphere interactions of carbon, water and energy balance, and is poorly represented in dynamic vegetation models. Reducing uncertainty requires improved mortality projections...
