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Potential bias in breeding population estimates of certain duck species from the Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey (WBPHS) has been a concern for decades. The WBPHS does not differentiate between lesser (Aythya affinis) and greater (A. marila) scaup, but lesser scaup comprise 89% of the combined scaup population and their...

Although most volcanic seismicity is shallow (within several kilometers of the surface), some volcanoes exhibit deeper seismicity (10 to 30+ km) that may reflect active processes such as magma resupply and volatile transfer. One such volcano is Mammoth Mountain, California, which has also recently exhibited high rates of CO2 discharge at...

Since the early 1900s, most of the groundwater withdrawals in the Houston-Galveston region, Texas, have been from the three primary aquifers that compose the Gulf Coast aquifer system—the Chicot, Evangeline, and Jasper aquifers. Withdrawals from these aquifers are used for municipal supply, industrial, and irrigation purposes. This report, prepared by...

Project SummaryThe Mexican wolf recovery team proposed to establish other populations of Mexican wolves (Canis lupus baileyi) in the Southwest (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1982). We were tasked to conduct an extensive simulation modeling exercise to determine release strategies (in conjunction with management actions) that best predict establishment...

The geology of San Francisco and the surrounding northern and central California area has played a pivotal role in the development of our understanding of Earth processes, especially the process of tectonic accretion at a continental margin and the development of transform plate margins. The Franciscan Complex, which underlies...

We evaluated the interacting influences of river flows and tides on travel time, routing, and survival of juvenile late-fall Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) migrating through the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. To quantify these effects, we jointly modeled the travel time, survival, and migration routing in relation to individual time-varying covariates...

Creative approaches to identifying umbrella species hold promise for devising effective surrogates of ecological communities or ecosystems. However, mechanistic niche models that predict range or habitat overlap among species may yet lack development. We reviewed literature on taxon-centered Bayesian belief network (BBN) models to explore a novel approach to identify...

In 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey reorganized the Landsat archive into a tiered collection structure, which ensures that Landsat Level-1 products provide a consistent archive of known data quality to support time-series analyses and data “stacking” while controlling continuous improvement of the archive and access to all data as they are...

Many parasites infect multiple hosts, but estimating the transmission across host species remains a key challenge in disease ecology. We investigated the within and across host species dynamics of canine distemper virus (CDV) in grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) and wolves (Canis lupus) of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). We hypothesized...

During the last deglaciation (19,000–9,000 years ago), atmospheric CO2increased by about 80 ppm. Understanding the mechanisms responsible for this change is a central theme of palaeoclimatology, relevant for predicting future CO2 transfers in a warming world. Deglacial CO2 rise hypothetically tapped an accumulated deep Pacific carbon reservoir, but the processes remain elusive...

Given the unique biogeochemical, physical, and hydrologic services provided by floodplain wetlands, proper management of river systems should include an understanding of how floodplain modifications influence wetland ecosystems. The construction of levees can reduce river–floodplain connectivity, yet it is unclear how levees affect wetlands within floodplains, let alone the cumulative impacts...

Deforestation associated with the initial settlement of New Zealand is a dramatic example of how humans can alter landscapes through fire. However, evidence linking early human presence and land-cover change is inferential in most continental sites. We employed a multi-proxy approach to reconstruct anthropogenic land use in New Zealand’s South...

The continued evaluation of fish-sampling gears and methods is essential to identify their applicability across environmental conditions and among species. Although limited by visibility, snorkeling has potential advantages relative to other fish-sampling gears in wadeable streams (e.g., minimally intrusive, cost effective, and appropriate in deeper areas). Clear water is common...

We describe and compare two probabilistic models for task-specific seafloor characterization based on multispectral backscatter. We examine whether generative or discriminative approaches to supervised seafloor characterization do better at harnessing the greatly increased information about seafloor substrate composition that is encoded in the backscattering response across multiple frequencies. A Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is proposed as a...

The liverwort flora of Attu Island, the westernmost Aleutian Island in the United States, was studied to assess species diversity in the hyperoceanic sector of the northern boreal subzone. The field study was undertaken in sites selected to represent a spectrum of environmental variation, primarily within the eastern part of...

From December 2 to 4, 2015, NatureServe and the U.S. Geological Survey organized and hosted a biodiversity and ecological informatics workshop at the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. The workshop objective was to identify user-driven future directions and areas of collaboration in advanced applications of environmental data...

Land management practices often directly alter vegetation structure and composition, but the degree to which ecological processes such as herbivory interact with management to influence biodiversity is less well understood. We hypothesized that large herbivores compound the effects of intensive forest management on early seral plant communities and plantation establishment...

Construction of a water management structure (WMS) in the levee surrounding The Nature Conservancy’s Emiquon Preserve (Havana, Illinois, USA) created a new hydrological connection and potential aquatic invasive species pathway between the Illinois River and a large conservation wetland complex. Site managers need a control tool that deters the upstream...

Lagoons provide critical habitats for many fishes, including coregonine whitefishes, which are a mainstay in many subsistence fisheries of rural communities in Arctic Alaska. Despite their importance, little is known about the overwintering habits of whitefishes in Arctic Alaska due to the challenges associated with sampling during winter. We developed...

Resource managers rely on long-term monitoring surveys conducted in the San Francisco Estuary to evaluate the status and trends of resident fish populations in this important region. These surveys are potentially confounded because of the incomplete detection of individuals and species, the magnitude of which is often related to the...

Experiments on MORB + 4 wt% H2O at 0.8–2.8 GPa and 700–950 °C (Liu in High pressure phase equilibria involving the amphibolite–eclogite transformation. PhD dissertation, Stanford University, Stanford, California, 1997; Liu et al. in Earth Planet Sci Lett 143:161–171, 1996) were reexamined for their major and trace element melt compositions and melting relations. Degree of...

The abundance of organic carbon (OC) in vegetation and soils (~2,600 PgC) compared to carbon in the atmosphere (~830 PgC) highlights the importance of terrestrial OC in global carbon budgets. The residence time of OC in continental reservoirs, which sets the rates of carbon exchange between land and atmosphere, represents...

Ohio is home to lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands, forests, prairies, and 312 miles of Lake Erie shoreline. These resources sustain Ohio’s communities by supporting vital sectors of the economy and cultural heritage such as fishing, hunting, and other outdoor recreation. Lake Erie provides drinking water for 3 million Ohioans,...

There are thousands of seeps in the deep ocean worldwide; however, many questions remain about their contributions to global biodiversity and the surrounding deep‐sea environment. In addition to being globally distributed, seeps provide several benefits to humans such as unique habitats, organisms with novel genes, and carbon regulation. The purpose...

Despite increased focus on their ecology and conservation, freshwater mussels remain one of the most imperiled groups of aquatic organisms. We documented current management actions, resources, and challenges in managing freshwater mussels in the United States through a survey of state natural resource agencies. Approximately 85% of surveyed states (N = 40)...