Hydrological and geophysical investigation of streamflow losses and restoration strategies in an abandoned mine lands setting
Charles A. Cravotta III, Laura Sherrod, Daniel G. Galeone, Wayne G. Lehman, Terry E. Ackman, Alexa Kramer
2017, Environmental & Engineering Geoscience (23) 243-273
Longitudinal discharge and water-quality campaigns (seepage runs) were combined with surface-geophysical surveys, hyporheic-temperature profiling, and watershed-scale hydrological monitoring to evaluate the locations, magnitude, and impact of streamwater losses from the West Creek subbasin of the West West Branch Schuylkill River into the underground Oak Hill Mine complex that extends beneath...
Rapid carbon loss and slow recovery following permafrost thaw in boreal peatlands
Miriam C. Jones, Jennifer W. Harden, Jonathan A. O’Donnell, Kristen L. Manies, Torre Jorgenson, Claire C. Treat, Stephanie Ewing
2017, Global Change Biology (23) 1109-1127
Permafrost peatlands store one-third of the total carbon (C) in the atmosphere and are increasingly vulnerable to thaw as high-latitude temperatures warm. Large uncertainties remain about C dynamics following permafrost thaw in boreal peatlands. We used a chronosequence approach to measure C stocks in forested permafrost plateaus (forest) and thawed...
Antarctic ice-core water (USGS49) – A new isotopic reference material for δ2H and δ18O measurements of water
Jennifer M. Lorenz, Haiping Qi, Tyler B. Coplen
2017, Geostandards and Geoanalytical Research (41) 63-68
As a result of the scarcity of isotopic reference waters for daily use, a new secondary isotopic reference material for international distribution has been prepared from ice-core water from the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. This isotopic reference material, designated as USGS49, was filtered, homogenised, loaded into glass ampoules, sealed with...
Trawl-based assessment of Lake Ontario pelagic prey fishes including Alewife and Rainbow Smelt
Brian Weidel, Maureen Walsh, Michael J. Connerton, Jeremy P. Holden
2017, Report, NYSDEC Lake Ontario Annual Report 2016
Managing Lake Ontario fisheries in an ecosystem-context, requires reliable data on the status and trends of prey fishes that support predator populations. We report on the community and population dynamics of Lake Ontario pelagic prey fishes, based on bottom trawl surveys. We emphasize information that supports the international Lake Ontario...
Who knew? First Myotis sodalis (Indiana Bat) maternity colony in the coastal plain of Virginia
Michael J. St. Germain, Andrew B. Kniowski, Alexander Silvis, W. Mark Ford
2017, Northeastern Naturalist (24) N5-N10
We report the first confirmed Myotis sodalis (Indiana Bat) maternity colony in Virginia, discovered at Fort A.P. Hill Military Reservation in Caroline County along the Piedmont-Coastal Plain Fall Line. Acoustic surveys conducted in 2014 indicated likely presence of Indiana Bats on the installation. Subsequent focal mist-netting during May–June 2015 resulted...
Intraspecific functional diversity of common species enhances community stability
Connor M. Wood, Shawn T. McKinney, Cynthia S. Loftin
2017, Ecology and Evolution (7) 1553-1560
Common species are fundamental to the structure and function of their communities and may enhance community stability through intraspecific functional diversity (iFD). We measured among-habitat and within-habitat iFD (i.e., among- and within-plant community types) of two common small mammal species using stable isotopes and functional trait dendrograms, determined whether iFD...
Reply to: Terry, J. and Goff, J. comment on “Late Cenozoic sea level and the rise of modern rimmed atolls” by Toomey et al. (2016), Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 4 51: 73–83.
Michael Toomey, Andrew Ashton, Maureen E. Raymo, J. Taylor Perron
2017, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (469) 159-160
We appreciate Terry and Goff's thoughtful comment in response to our proposed atoll development model. Flank collapse of reef-built slopes likely does affect plan-form atoll morphology in some locations and potentially poses a tsunami hazard to low-lying Pacific islands (Terry and Goff, 2013). However, given the often rapid rates...
Conservation status of the American horseshoe crab, (Limulus polyphemus): A regional assessment
David R. Smith, H. Jane Brockmann, Mark A. Beekey, Tim L. King, Mike Millard, Jaime Zaldivar-Rae
2017, Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries (27) 135-175
Horseshoe crabs have persisted for more than 200 million years, and fossil forms date to 450 million years ago. The American horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus), one of four extant horseshoe crab species, is found along the Atlantic coastline of North America ranging from Alabama to Maine, USA with...
Integrating multiple data sources in species distribution modeling: A framework for data fusion
Krishna Pacifici, Brian J. Reich, David A.W. Miller, Beth Gardner, Glenn E. Stauffer, Susheela Singh, Alexa McKerrow, Jaime A. Collazo
2017, Ecology (98) 840-850
The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the use of species distribution models (SDMs) to characterize patterns of species’ occurrence and abundance. Efforts to parameterize SDMs often create a tension between the quality and quantity of data available to fit models. Estimation methods that integrate both standardized and...
Recommended approaches to the scientific evaluation of ecotoxicological hazards and risks of endocrine-active substances
Peter Matthiessen, Gerald T. Ankley, Ronald C. Biever, Poul Bjerregaard, Christopher Borgert, Kristin Brugger, Amy Blankinship, Janice Chambers, Katherine K. Coady, Lisa Constantine, ZhiChao Dang, Nancy D. Denslow, David Dreier, Steve Dungey, L. Earl Gray, Melanie Gross, Patrick D. Guiney, Markus Hecker, Henrik Holbech, Taisen Iguchi, Sarah Kadlec, Natalie K. Karouna-Renier, Ioanna Katsiadaki, Yukio Kawashima, Werner Kloas, Henry Krueger, Anu Kumar, Laurent Lagadic, Annegaaike Leopold, Steven L. Levine, Gerd Maack, Sue Marty, James P. Meador, Ellen Mihaich, Jenny Odum, Lisa Ortego, Joanne L. Parrott, Daniel Pickford, Mike Roberts, Christoph Schaefers, Tamar Schwarz, Keith Solomon, Tim Verslycke, Lennart Weltje, James R. Wheeler, Mike Williams, Jeffery C. Wolf, Kunihiko Yamazaki
2017, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (13) 267-279
A SETAC Pellston Workshop® “Environmental Hazard and Risk Assessment Approaches for Endocrine-Active Substances (EHRA)” was held in February 2016 in Pensacola, Florida, USA. The primary objective of the workshop was to provide advice, based on current scientific understanding, to regulators and policy makers; the aim being to make considered, informed decisions...
Advancing the match-mismatch framework for large herbivores in the Arctic: Evaluating the evidence for a trophic mismatch in caribou
David D. Gustine, Perry Barboza, Layne G. Adams, Brad Griffith, Raymond D. Cameron, Kenneth R. Whitten
2017, PLoS ONE (12) 1-18
Climate-induced shifts in plant phenology may adversely affect animals that cannot or do not shift the timing of their reproductive cycle. The realized effect of potential trophic “mismatches” between a consumer and its food varies with the degree to which species rely on dietary income and stored capital. Large Arctic...
Role of raptors in contaminant research
Charles J. Henny
2017, Book chapter, The history of Patuxent: America’s wildlife research story (U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1422)
This chapter reviews the history of and approaches used in studies focused on the effects of contaminants on raptors and raptor populations at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (Patuxent) in Laurel, MD. Worldwide raptor declines following World War II were unprecedented and resulted in a sequence of major efforts at...
Subsurface volatile content of martian double-layer ejecta (DLE) craters
Donna Viola, Alfred S. McEwen, Colin M. Dundas, Shane Byrne
2017, Icarus (284) 325-343
Excess ice is widespread throughout the martian mid-latitudes, particularly in Arcadia Planitia, where double-layer ejecta (DLE) craters also tend to be abundant. In this region, we observe the presence of thermokarstically-expanded secondary craters that likely form from impacts that destabilize a subsurface layer of excess ice, which subsequently sublimates. The...
The relative contribution of waves, tides, and nontidal residuals to extreme total water levels on U.S. West Coast sandy beaches
Katherine A. Serafin, Peter Ruggiero, Hilary F. Stockdon
2017, Geophysical Research Letters (44) 1839-1847
To better understand how individual processes combine to cause flooding and erosion events, we investigate the relative contribution of tides, waves, and nontidal residuals to extreme total water levels (TWLs) at the shoreline of U.S. West Coast sandy beaches. Extreme TWLs, defined as the observed annual maximum event and the...
Surface geophysical methods for characterising frozen ground in transitional permafrost landscapes
Martin A. Briggs, Seth Campbell, Jay Nolan, Michelle Ann Walvoord, Dimitrios Ntarlagiannis, Frederick D. Day-Lewis, John W. Lane Jr.
2017, Permafrost and Periglacial Processes (28) 52-65
The distribution of shallow frozen ground is paramount to research in cold regions, and is subject to temporal and spatial changes influenced by climate, landscape disturbance and ecosystem succession. Remote sensing from airborne and satellite platforms is increasing our understanding of landscape-scale permafrost distribution, but typically lacks the resolution to...
Estimating regional-scale permeability–depth relations in a fractured-rock terrain using groundwater-flow model calibration
Ward E. Sanford
2017, Hydrogeology Journal (25) 405-419
The trend of decreasing permeability with depth was estimated in the fractured-rock terrain of the upper Potomac River basin in the eastern USA using model calibration on 200 water-level observations in wells and 12 base-flow observations in subwatersheds. Results indicate that permeability at the 1–10 km scale (for groundwater flowpaths) decreases...
Solving for source parameters using nested array data: A case study from the Canterbury, New Zealand earthquake sequence
Corrie Neighbors, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Kenneth Ryan, Anna E. Kaiser
2017, Pure and Applied Geophysics (174) 875-893
The seismic spectrum can be constructed by assuming a Brune spectral model and estimating the parameters of seismic moment (M0), corner frequency (fc), and high-frequency site attenuation (κ). Using seismic data collected during the 2010–2011 Canterbury, New Zealand, earthquake sequence, we apply the non-linear...
Low pathogenic avian influenza viruses in wild migratory waterfowl in a region of high poultry production, Delmarva, Maryland
Diann J. Prosser, Christine L. Densmore, Larry J. Hindman, Deborah D. Iwanowicz, Christopher A. Ottinger, Luke R. Iwanowicz, Cindy P. Driscoll, Jessica L. Nagel
2017, Avian Diseases (61) 128-134
Migratory waterfowl are natural reservoirs for low pathogenic avian influenza viruses (AIVs) and may contribute to the long-distance dispersal of these pathogens as well as spillover into domestic bird populations. Surveillance for AIVs is critical to assessing risks for potential spread of these viruses among wild and domestic bird populations....
Toppling analysis of the Echo Cliffs precariously balanced rock
Swetha Veeraraghavan, Kenneth W. Hudnut, Swaminathan Krishnan
2017, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (107) 72-84
Toppling analysis of a precariously balanced rock (PBR) can provide insight into the nature of ground motion that has not occurred at that location in the past and, by extension, can constrain peak ground motions for use in engineering design. Earlier approaches have targeted 2D models of the rock or...
Mitogenomes and relatedness do not predict frequency of tool-use by sea otters
Katherine Ralls, Nancy Rotzel McInerney, Roderick B. Gagne, Holly B. Ernest, M. Tim Tinker, Jessica Fujii, Jesus Maldonado
2017, Biology Letters (13)
Many ecological aspects of tool-use in sea otters are similar to those in Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins. Within an area, most tool-using dolphins share a single mitochondrial haplotype and are more related to each other than to the population as a whole. We asked whether sea otters in California showed similar...
Land-use change and managed aquifer recharge effects on the hydrogeochemistry of two contrasting atoll island aquifers, Roi-Namur Island, Republic of the Marshall Islands
Mehrdad Hejazian, Jason J. Gurdak, Peter W. Swarzenski, Kingsley Odigie, Curt D. Storlazzi
2017, Applied Geochemistry (80) 58-71
Freshwater resources on low-lying atoll islands are highly vulnerable to climate change and sea-level rise. In addition to rainwater catchment, groundwater in the freshwater lens is a critically important water resource on many atoll islands, especially during drought. Although many atolls have high annual rainfall rates, dense natural vegetation...
Large earthquakes and creeping faults
Ruth A. Harris
2017, Reviews of Geophysics (55) 169-198
Faults are ubiquitous throughout the Earth's crust. The majority are silent for decades to centuries, until they suddenly rupture and produce earthquakes. With a focus on shallow continental active-tectonic regions, this paper reviews a subset of faults that have a different behavior. These unusual faults slowly creep for long periods...
Managing native predators: Evidence from a partial removal of raccoons (Procyon lotor) on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, USA
Jessica J. Stocking, Theodore R. Simons, Arielle W. Parsons, Allan F. O’Connell
2017, Waterbirds (40) 10-18
Raccoons (Procyon lotor) are important predators of ground-nesting species in coastal systems. They have been identified as a primary cause of nest failure for the American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus) throughout its range. Concerns over the long-term effects of raccoon predation and increased nest success following a hurricane inspired a mark-resight...
Delta-Flux: An eddy covariance network for a climate-smart Lower Mississippi Basin
Benjamin R. K. Runkle, James R. Rigby, Michele L. Reba, Saseendran S. Anapalli, Joydeep Bhattacharjee, Ken W. Krauss, Lu Liang, Martin A. Locke, Kimberly A. Novick, Ruixiu Sui, Kosana Suvocarev, Paul M. White Jr.
2017, Agricultural & Environmental Letters (2)
Networks of remotely monitored research sites are increasingly the tool used to study regional agricultural impacts on carbon and water fluxes. However, key national networks such as the National Ecological Observatory Network and AmeriFlux lack contributions from the Lower Mississippi River Basin (LMRB), a highly productive agricultural area with opportunities...
Isotopic niches support the resource breadth hypothesis
Jonathan A. Rader, Seth D. Newsome, Pablo Sabat, R. Terry Chesser, Michael E. Dillon, Carlos Martinez del Rio
2017, Journal of Animal Ecology (86) 405-413
Because a broad spectrum of resource use allows species to persist in a wide range of habitat types, and thus permits them to occupy large geographical areas, and because broadly distributed species have access to more diverse resource bases, the resource breadth hypothesis posits that the diversity...
