Baseline assessments for coral reef community structure and demographics on West Maui
Bernardo Vargas-Angel, Darla White, Curt D. Storlazzi, Tova Callender, Paulo Maurin
2017, Report
The coastal and upslope terrains of West Maui have had a long history of impacts owing to more than a century of human activities. Resource extraction, agriculture, as well as residential and resort development have caused land-based pollution that impairs water quality and adversely impact the adjacent marine ecosystem. Today,...
Determination of earthquake magnitude for early warning from the time-dependence of P-wave amplitudes
Shunta Noda, William L. Ellsworth
2017, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (107) 1860-1867
We propose a method that utilizes the time dependence of P‐wave displacement amplitudes to estimate the final magnitude (M) for earthquake early warning (EEW) before the arrival of the peak amplitude. A relation between M and P‐wave displacement amplitude is employed for the method. Its value is set as a...
A spatiotemporal clustering model for the Third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF3‐ETAS): Toward an operational earthquake forecast
Edward H. Field, Kevin R. Milner, Jeanne L. Hardebeck, Morgan T. Page, Nicholas van der Elst, Thomas H. Jordan, Andrew J. Michael, Bruce E. Shaw, Maximillan J. Werner
2017, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (107) 1049-1081
We, the ongoing Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities, present a spatiotemporal clustering model for the Third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF3), with the goal being to represent aftershocks, induced seismicity, and otherwise triggered events as a potential basis for operational earthquake forecasting (OEF). Specifically, we add an epidemic‐type...
Adding a nitrogen footprint to Colorado State University’s sustainability plan
Jacob Kimiecik, Jill Baron, Timothy Weinmann, Emily Taylor
2017, Sustainability (10) 89-95
As a large land grant university with more than 32,000 students, Colorado State University has both on-campus non-agricultural and agricultural sources of nitrogen (N) released to the environment. We used the Nitrogen Footprint Tool to estimate the amount of N released from different sectors of the university for the CSU...
Life history constraints explain negative relationship between fish productivity and dissolved organic carbon in lakes
Nicola Craig, Stuart E. Jones, Brian Weidel, Christopher T. Solomon
2017, Ecology and Evolution (7) 6201-6209
Resource availability constrains the life history strategies available to organisms and may thereby limit population growth rates and productivity. We used this conceptual framework to explore the mechanisms driving recently reported negative relationships between fish productivity and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations in lakes. We studied populations of bluegill (Lepomis...
Diel periodicity and chronology of upstream migration in yellow-phase American eels (Anguilla rostrata)
Joni L. Aldinger, Stuart A. Welsh
2017, Environmental Biology of Fishes (100) 829-838
Yellow-phase American eel (Anguilla rostrata) upstream migration is temporally punctuated, yet migration chronology within diel time periods is not well-understood. This study examined diel periodicity, chronology, and total length (TL) of six multi-day, high-count (285–1,868 eels) passage events of upstream migrant yellow-phase American eels at the Millville Dam...
USGS Integration of New Science and Technology, Appendix A
Marybeth K. Brey, Brent C. Knights, Aaron R. Cupp, Jon Amberg, Duane Chapman, Robin D. Calfee, James J. Duncker
2017, Report, 2017 Asian Carp Monitoring and Response Plan
This product summarizes the USGS plans for integration of new science and technology into Asian Carp control efforts for 2017. This includes the 1) implementation and evaluation of new tactics and behavioral information for monitoring, surveillance, control and containment; 2) understanding behavior and reproduction of Asian carp in established and...
The difficulty of measuring the absorption of scattered sunlight by H2O and CO2 in volcanic plumes: A comment on Pering et al. “A novel and inexpensive method for measuring volcanic plume water fluxes at high temporal resolution,” Remote Sens. 2017, 9, 146
Christoph Kern
2017, Remote Sensing (9)
In their recent study, Pering et al. (2017) presented a novel method for measuring volcanic water vapor fluxes. Their method is based on imaging volcanic gas and aerosol plumes using a camera sensitive to the near-infrared (NIR) absorption of water vapor. The imaging data are empirically calibrated by comparison with...
Remote measurement of high preeruptive water vapor emissions at Sabancaya volcano by passive differential optical absorption spectroscopy
Christoph Kern, Pablo Masias, Fredy Apaza, Kevin Reath, Ulrich Platt
2017, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (122) 3540-3564
Water (H2O) is by far the most abundant volcanic volatile species and plays a predominant role in driving volcanic eruptions. However, numerous difficulties associated with making accurate measurements of water vapor in volcanic plumes have limited their use as a diagnostic tool. Here we present the first detection of water...
How uncertainty analysis of streamflow data can reduce costs and promote robust decisions in water management applications
Hilary McMilan, Jan Seibert, Asgeir Petersen-Overleir, Michel Lang, Paul White, Ton Snelder, Kit Rutherford, Tobias Krueger, Robert R. Mason, Jr., Julie E. Kiang
2017, Water Resources Research (53) 5220-5228
Streamflow data are used for important environmental and economic decisions, such as specifying and regulating minimum flows, managing water supplies, and planning for flood hazards. Despite significant uncertainty in most flow data, the flow series for these applications are often communicated and used without uncertainty information. In this commentary, we...
Chemical and isotopic evidence for CO2 charge and migration within Bravo Dome and potential CO2 leakage to the southwest
Sean T. Brennan
2017, Energy Procedia (114) 2996-3005
Gas analyses from northeastern New Mexico, USA indicate that previous interpretations of the location of gas charge into the northeastern portion of Bravo Dome are likely correct, and that there may be multiple migration pathways from the same source for different regions in northeastern New Mexico....
Geomorphic processes responsible for decadal-scale arroyo changes, Rio Puerco, New Mexico
Allen C. Gellis, John G. Elliott, Milan Pavich
2017, Geological Society of America Bulletin (129) 1660-1680
The channel and arroyo of the Rio Puerco have continued to evolve since incision in the late 1800s. Resurveys of channel cross sections and aerial imagery over time indicate that between the 1970s and 1990s, the upstream reaches (type 1 morphology) of the Rio Puerco have continued to undergo construction...
Understanding and finding solutions to the problem of sedimentation in the National Wildlife Refuge System
Max Post van der Burg, Karen Jenni, Timothy L. Nieman, Josh D. Eash, Gregory A. Knutsen
2017, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (8) 648-660
The National Wildlife Refuge System (Refuge System) is a collection of public lands maintained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for migratory birds and other wildlife. Wetlands on individual National Wildlife Refuges (Refuges) may be at risk of increased sedimentation because of land use...
Population characteristics and the influence of discharge on Bluehead Sucker and Flannelmouth Sucker
Zachary B. Klein, Matthew J. Breen, Michael C. Quist
2017, Copeia (105) 375-388
Rivers are among some of the most complex and important ecosystems in the world. Unfortunately, many fishes endemic to rivers have suffered declines in abundance and distribution suggesting that alterations to lotic environments have negatively influenced native fish populations. Of the 35 fishes native to the Colorado River basin (CRB),...
Lake nutrient stoichiometry is less predictable than nutrient concentrations at regional and sub-continental scales
Sarah M. Collins, Samantha K. Oliver, Jean-Francois Lapierre, Emily H. Stanley, John R. Jones, Tyler Wagner, Patricia A. Soranno
2017, Ecological Applications (27) 1529-1540
Production in many ecosystems is co-limited by multiple elements. While a known suite of drivers associated with nutrient sources, nutrient transport, and internal processing controls concentrations of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) in lakes, much less is known about whether the drivers of single nutrient concentrations can also explain spatial...
Unique genome organization of non-mammalian papillomaviruses provides insights into the evolution of viral early proteins
Koenraad Van Doorslaer, Valeria Ruoppolo, Annie Schmidt, Amelie Lescroel, Dennis Jongsomjit, Megan Elrod, Simona Kraberger, Daisy Stainton, Katie M. Dugger, Grant Ballard, David G. Ainley, Arvind Varsani
2017, Virus Evolution (3)
The family Papillomaviridae contains more than 320 papillomavirus types, with most having been identified as infecting skin and mucosal epithelium in mammalian hosts. To date, only nine non-mammalian papillomaviruses have been described from birds (n = 5), a fish (n = 1), a snake (n = 1), and turtles (n = 2). The identification of papillomaviruses in sauropsids and a...
Downscaling wind and wavefields for 21st century coastal flood hazard projections in a region of complex terrain
Andrea C. O'Neill, Li H. Erikson, Patrick L. Barnard
2017, Earth and Space Science (4) 314-334
While global climate models (GCMs) provide useful projections of near-surface wind vectors into the 21st century, resolution is not sufficient enough for use in regional wave modeling. Statistically downscaled GCM projections from Multivariate Adaptive Constructed Analogues provide daily averaged near-surface winds at an appropriate spatial resolution for wave modeling within...
Gradients in Catostomid assemblages along a reservoir cascade
Leandro E. Miranda, Kevin R. Keretz, Chelsea R. Gilliland
2017, River Research and Applications (33) 983-990
Serial impoundment of major rivers leads to alterations of natural flow dynamics and disrupts longitudinal connectivity. Catostomid fishes (suckers, family Catostomidae) are typically found in riverine or backwater habitats yet are able to persist in impounded river systems. To the detriment of conservation, there is limited information about distribution of...
Novel, continuous monitoring of fine‐scale movement using fixed‐position radiotelemetry arrays and random forest location fingerprinting
Andrew B. Harbicht, Theodore R. Castro-Santos, William R. Ardren, Dimitry Gorsky, Dylan Fraser
2017, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (8) 850-859
Radio‐tag signals from fixed‐position antennas are most often used to indicate presence or absence of individuals, or to estimate individual activity levels from signal strength variation within an antenna's detection zone. The potential of such systems to provide more precise information on tag location and movement has not been...
Real-time geomagnetic monitoring for space weather-related applications: Opportunities and challenges
Jeffrey J. Love, Carol Finn
2017, Space Weather (15) 820-827
An examination is made of opportunities and challenges for enhancing global, real-time geomagnetic monitoring that would be beneficial for a variety of operational projects. This enhancement in geomagnetic monitoring can be attained by expanding the geographic distribution of magnetometer stations, improving the quality of magnetometer data, increasing acquisition sampling rates,...
Landform features and seasonal precipitation predict shallow groundwater influence on temperature in headwater streams
Zachary C. Johnson, Craig D. Snyder, Nathaniel P. Hitt
2017, Water Resources Research (53) 5788-5812
Headwater stream responses to climate change will depend in part on groundwater‐surface water exchanges. We used linear modeling techniques to partition likely effects of shallow groundwater seepage and air temperature on stream temperatures for 79 sites in nine focal watersheds using hourly air and water temperature measurements collected during summer...
Species distribution models for a migratory bird based on citizen science and satellite tracking data
Christopher L. Coxen, Jennifer K. Frey, Scott A. Carleton, Daniel P. Collins
2017, Global Ecology and Conservation (11) 298-311
Species distribution models can provide critical baseline distribution information for the conservation of poorly understood species. Here, we compared the performance of band-tailed pigeon (Patagioenas fasciata) species distribution models created using Maxent and derived from two separate presence-only occurrence data sources in New Mexico: 1) satellite tracked birds and 2) observations...
Morphological and molecular characterization of Sarcocystis arctica-like sarcocysts from the Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) from Alaska, USA
Camila K. Cerqueira-Cezar, Peter C. Thompson, Shiv K. Verma, Joseph Mowery, Rafael Calero-Bernal, Fernando H. Antunes Murata, David R. Sinnett, Caroline R. Van Hemert, Benjamin M. Rosenthal, Jitender P. Dubey
2017, Parasitology Research (116) 1871-1878
The muscles of herbivores commonly harbor sarcocysts of parasites belonging to species in the genus Sarcocystis, but such muscle parasites are rare in carnivores. Here, we report Sarcocystis arctica-like sarcocysts in muscles of Arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) from Alaska, USA, for the first time. The tongues of...
A new species of freshwater eel-tailed catfish of the genus Tandanus (Teleostei: Plotosidae) from coastal rivers of mid-northern New South Wales, Australia
Stuart A. Welsh, Dean R. Jerry, Damien Burrows, Meaghan L. Rourke
2017, Copeia (105) 229-236
Tandanus bellingerensis, new species, is described based on specimens from four river drainages (Bellinger, Macleay, Hastings, and Manning rivers) of the mid-northern coast of New South Wales, Australia. Previously, three species were recognized in the genus Tandanus: T. tropicanus of the wet tropics region of northeast Queensland, T. tandanus of the Murray-Darling drainage and coastal...
Heat as a groundwater tracer in shallow and deep heterogeneous media: Analytical solution, spreadsheet tool, and field applications
Barret L. Kurylyk, Dylan J. Irvine, Sean K. Carey, Martin A. Briggs, Dale D. Werkema, Mariah Bonham
2017, Hydrological Processes (31) 2648-2661
Groundwater flow advects heat, and thus, the deviation of subsurface temperatures from an expected conduction‐dominated regime can be analysed to estimate vertical water fluxes. A number of analytical approaches have been proposed for using heat as a groundwater tracer, and these have typically assumed a homogeneous medium. However, heterogeneous thermal...
