Predicted vulnerability of carbon in permafrost peatlands With future climate change and permafrost thaw in western Canada
Claire C. Treat, Miriam C. Jones, Jay R. Alder, A. Britta K. Sannel, Philip Camill, Steve Frolking
2021, JGR Biogeosciences (126)
Climate warming in high-latitude regions is thawing carbon-rich permafrost soils, which can release carbon to the atmosphere and enhance climate warming. Using a coupled model of long-term peatland dynamics (Holocene Peat Model, HPM-Arctic), we quantify the potential loss of carbon with future climate warming for six sites with differing climates...
Delineation of the freshwater-saltwater interface on southwestern Long Island, New York, through use of surface and borehole geophysical methods
Frederick Stumm, Michael D. Como, Marie A. Zuck
2021, Conference Paper
The U.S. Geological Survey used surface and borehole geophysical methods to delineate the freshwater-saltwater interface in coastal plain aquifers along the southwestern part of Long Island, New York. Over pumping of groundwater in the early 20th century combined with freshwater-saltwater interfaces at the coastline created saltwater intrusion in the upper...
Acoustic tag retention and tagging mortality of juvenile cisco Coregonus artedi
James E. McKenna Jr., Suresh Sethi, Grant Marvin Scholten, Jeremy W. Kraus, Marc Chalupnicki
2021, Journal of Great Lakes Research (47) 937-942
Release of hatchery-reared juvenile cisco (Coregonus artedi) is an important tool for recovering Great Lakes populations, but post-release survival is unknown. Telemetry using small acoustic tags provides opportunities to assess the efficacy of hatchery-reared fish releases. However, better understanding of the tolerance of juvenile cisco to acoustic tags is needed. Juvenile cisco...
Nitrogen biogeochemistry in a boreal headwater stream network in interior Alaska
Richard L. Smith, Deborah A. Repert, Joshua C. Koch
2021, Science of the Total Environment (764)
High latitude, boreal watersheds are nitrogen (N)-limited ecosystems that export large amounts of organic carbon (C). Key controls on C cycling in these environments are the biogeochemical processes affecting the N cycle. A study was conducted in Nome Creek, an upland headwater tributary of the Yukon River,...
Regional target loads of atmospheric nitrogen and sulfur deposition for the protection of stream and watershed soil resources of the Adirondack Mountains, USA
Todd C. McDonnell, Charles T. Driscoll, Timothy J. Sullivan, Douglas A. Burns, Barry P. Baldigo, Shuai Shao, Gregory B. Lawrence
2021, Environmental Pollution (281)
Acidic deposition contributes to a range of environmental impacts across forested landscapes, including acidification of soil and drainage water, toxic aluminum mobilization, depletion of available soil nutrient cations, and impacts to forest and aquatic species health and biodiversity. In response to decreasing levels of...
3-D geologic controls of hydrothermal fluid flow at Brady geothermal field, Nevada, USA
Drew L. Siler, Jeff D. Pepin
2021, Geothermics (94)
In many hydrothermal systems, fracture permeability along faults provides pathways for groundwater to transport heat from depth. Faulting generates a range of deformation styles that cross-cut heterogeneous geology, resulting in complex patterns of permeability, porosity, and hydraulic conductivity. Vertical connectivity (a throughgoing network of permeable areas...
Characterization of water-resource threats and needs for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuges in the Legacy Mountain-Prairie Region, 2020
Nancy J. Bauch, Michael S. Kohn, Brian S. Caruso
2021, Open-File Report 2021-1007
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), began a study in 2019 to complete the compilation and quality assurance of water-resource threats and needs data for the 117 National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) in the FWS Legacy Mountain-Prairie Region (LMPR) and to characterize the...
Remote sensing analysis to quantify change in woodland canopy cover on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, Arizona (1935 vs. 2017)
Barry R. Middleton, Laura M. Norman
2021, Land (10)
Since the late 1800s, pinyon–juniper woodland across the western U.S. has increased in density and areal extent and encroached into former grassland areas. The San Carlos Apache Tribe wants to gain qualitative and quantitative information on the historical conditions of their tribal woodlands to use as a baseline for restoration...
Exploring the regional dynamics of U.S. irrigated agriculture from 2002 to 2017
Dinesh Shrestha, Jesslyn F. Brown, Trenton D Benedict, Daniel Howard
2021, Land (10) 394
The United States has a geographically mature and stable land use and land cover system including land used as irrigated cropland; however, changes in irrigation land use frequently occur related to various drivers. We applied a consistent methodology at a 250 m spatial resolution across the lower 48 states to...
Metabarcoding of environmental samples suggest wide distribution of eelgrass (Zostera marina) pathogens in the north Pacific
Damian M. Menning, Hunter A Gravley, Melissa N. Cady, Daniel J Pepin, Sandy Wyllie-Echeverria, David H. Ward, Sandra L. Talbot
2021, Metabarcoding and Metagenomics (5) 35-42
Seagrass meadows provide important ecological services to the marine environment but are declining worldwide. Although eelgrass meadows in the north Pacific are thought to be relatively healthy, few studies have assessed the presence of known disease pathogens in these meadows. In a pilot study to test the efficacy...
Alternating wet and dry depositional environments recorded in the stratigraphy of Mt Sharp at Gale Crater, Mars
William Rapin, Gilles Dromart, Dave Rubin, Laticia Le Deit, Nicolas Mangold, Lauren A. Edgar, Olivier Gasnault, Kenneth E. Herkenhoff, S. Lemouelic, Ryan B. Anderson, S. Maurice, V. Fox, B. L. Ehlmann, J. L. Dickson, R. C. Wiens
2021, Geology (49) 842-846
The Curiosity rover is exploring Hesperian-aged stratigraphy in Gale crater, Mars, where a transition from clay-bearing units to a layered sulfate-bearing unit has been interpreted to represent a major environmental transition of unknown character. We present the first description of key facies in the sulfate-bearing unit, recently observed in the...
Draft genome sequence of Bordetella sp. strain FB-8, isolated from a former uranium mining area in Germany
Cassandra Rashan Harris, Denise M. Akob, Maria Fabisch, Felix Beulig, Tanya Woyke, Nicole Shapiro, Alla Lapidus, Hans-Peter Klenk, Kirsten Küsel
2021, Microbiology Resource Announcements (10)
Here, we present the draft genome sequence of Bordetella sp. strain FB-8, a mixotrophic iron-oxidizing bacterium isolated from creek sediment in the former uranium-mining district of Ronneburg, Germany. To date, iron oxidation has not been reported in Bordetella species, indicating that FB-8 may be an environmentally important Bordetella sp....
The systematics of chlorine, lithium, and boron and δ37Cl, δ7Li, and δ11B in the hydrothermal system of the Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field
Jeffrey T. Cullen, Shaul Hurwitz, Jaime D. Barnes, John C Lassiter, Sarah Penniston-Dorland, Anette Meixner, Frederike Wilckens, Simone A Kasemann, R. Blaine McCleskey
2021, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (22)
Chlorine, lithium, and boron are trace elements in rhyolite but are enriched in groundwater flowing through rhyolite because they tend to partition into the fluid phase during high‐temperature fluid‐rock reactions. We present a large data set of major element and δ37Cl, δ7Li, and δ11B compositions of thermal water and rhyolite...
Genetic considerations for rewilding the San Joaquin Desert
Jonathan Q. Richmond, Dustin A. Wood, Marjorie D Matocq
2021, Book chapter, Rewilding agricultural landscapes: a California study in rebalancing the needs of people and nature
Genetic data are a powerful and important tool for guiding rewilding efforts and for monitoring the recovery outcomes of those efforts. When used in conjunction with historic species’ distribution records and predictive habitat suitability modeling, genetic information adds a key piece to the puzzle that will increase the probability of...
Reconstructing the dynamics of the highly similar May 2016 and June 2019 Iliamna Volcano, Alaska ice–rock avalanches from seismoacoustic data
Liam Toney, David Fee, Kate E. Allstadt, Matthew M. Haney, Robin S. Matoza
2021, Earth Surface Dynamics (9) 271-293
Surficial mass wasting events are a hazard worldwide. Seismic and acoustic signals from these often remote processes, combined with other geophysical observations, can provide key information for monitoring and rapid response efforts and enhance our understanding of event dynamics. Here, we present seismoacoustic data and analyses for two very large...
How does climate change affect emergent properties of aquatic ecosystems?
Michelle Staudinger, Abigail Lynch, Sarah Gaichas, Michael Fox, Daniel Gibson-Reinemer, Joseph Langan, Amy K. Teffer, Stephen Thackeray, Ian Winfield
2021, Fisheries (46) 423-441
Emergent properties of ecosystems are community attributes, such as structure and function, that arise from connections and interactions (e.g., predator–prey, competition) among populations, species, or assemblages that, when viewed together, provide a holistic representation that is more than...
Assessing the biological reactivity of organic compounds on volcanic ash: Implications for human health hazard
Ines Tomasek, David Damby, Daniele Andronico, Peter J. Baxter, Imke Boonen, Philippe Claeys, Michael S. Denison, Claire J. Horwell, Matthieu Kervyn, Ulrich Kueppers, Manolis N Romanias, Marc Elskens
2021, Bulletin of Volcanology (83)
Exposure to volcanic ash is a long-standing health concern for people living near active volcanoes and in distal urban areas. During transport and deposition, ash is subjected to various physicochemical processes that may change its surface composition and, consequently, bioreactivity. One such process is the interaction...
A food web including parasites for kelp forests of the Santa Barbara Channel, California
Dana N. Morton, Cristiana Y. Antonino, Farallon J Broughton, Lauren N Dykman, Armand M. Kuris, Kevin D. Lafferty
2021, Scientific Data (8)
We built a high-resolution topological food web for the kelp forests of the Santa Barbara Channel, California, USA that includes parasites and significantly improves resolution compared to previous webs. The 1,098 nodes and 21,956 links in the web describe an economically, socially, and ecologically vital system....
Balancing the need for seed against invasive species risks in prairie habitat restorations
Jennifer L Larson, Diane L. Larson, Robert Venette
2021, PLoS ONE (16)
Adequate diversity and abundance of native seed for large-scale grassland restorations often require commercially produced seed from distant sources. However, as sourcing distance increases, the likelihood of inadvertent introduction of multiple novel, non-native weed species as seed contaminants also increases. We created a model to determine...
Evaluation of connectivity among black bear populations in Georgia
Michael J. Hooker, Joseph D. Clark, Bobby T Bond, Michael J Chamberlain
2021, Journal of Wildlife Management (85) 979-988
Habitat fragmentation and loss contribute to isolation of wildlife populations and increased extinction risks for various species, including many large carnivores. We studied a small and isolated population of American black bears (Ursus americanus) that is of conservation concern in central Georgia, USA (i.e., central Georgia...
Isotope fractionation from In Vivo methylmercury detoxification in waterbirds
Brett Poulin, Sarah Elizabeth Janssen, Tylor Rosera, David P. Krabbenhoft, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Joshua T. Ackerman, Robin Stewart, Eunhee Kim, Zofia Baumann, Jeong-Hoon Kim, Alain Manceau
2021, ACS Earth and Space Chemistry (5) 990-997
The robust application of stable mercury (Hg) isotopes for mercury source apportionment and risk assessment necessitates the understanding of mass-dependent fractionation (MDF) due to internal transformations within organisms. Here, we used high energy-resolution XANES spectroscopy and isotope ratios of total mercury (δ202THg) and methylmercury (δ202MeHg) to elucidate the chemical speciation...
Effects of midazolam on corticosterone and blood gases in spectacled eiders prior to transmitter implantation
Maria Spriggs, Daniel Rizzolo, Kate Martin, Gwen E. Myers, Matthew G. Sexson
2021, Journal of Wildlife Management (85) 909-919
Stress and physical exertion may affect the physiology and behavior of wildlife during and after capture, and consequently, survival following release. Such effects may reduce the quality and quantity of the data obtained from captured wildlife. We captured spectacled eiders (Somateria fischeri), a species listed as...
Effects of supplemental feeding on the fecal bacterial communities of Rocky Mountain elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
Claire E Couch, Benjamin Wise, Brandon Scurlock, Jared D. Rogerson, Rebecca K. Fuda, Eric K Cole, Kimberly E Szcodronski, Adam Sepulveda, Patrick R. Hutchins, Paul C. Cross
2021, PLoS ONE (16)
Supplemental feeding of wildlife is a common practice often undertaken for recreational or management purposes, but it may have unintended consequences for animal health. Understanding cryptic effects of diet supplementation on the gut microbiomes of wild mammals is important to inform conservation and management strategies. Multiple laboratory studies have demonstrated...
Impact of "non-lethal" tarsal clipping on bumble bees (Bombus vosnesenskii) may depend on queen stage and worker size
John Michael Mola, Clara Stuligross, Maureen L. Page, Danielle Rutkowski, Neal M. Williams
2021, Journal of Insect Conservation (25) 195-201
Recent bumble bee declines have prompted the development of novel population monitoring tools, including the use of putatively non-lethal tarsal clipping to obtain genetic material. However, the potential side effects of tarsal clipping have only been tested in the worker caste of a single domesticated species, prompting the need to...
Roads less travelled by— Pleistocene piracy in Washington’s northwestern Channeled Scabland
Richard B. Waitt
Richard B. Waitt, Glenn D. Thackray, Alan R. Gillespie, editor(s)
2021, Book chapter, Untangling the Quaternary period—A legacy of Stephen C. Porter
The Pleistocene Okanogan lobe of Cordilleran ice in north-central Washington State dammed Columbia River to pond glacial Lake Columbia and divert the river south across one or another low spot along a 230-km-long drainage divide. When enormous Missoula floods from the east briefly engulfed the lake, water poured across a...
