Thermokarst rates intensify due to climate change and forest fragmentation in an Alaskan boreal forest lowland
M. Lara, Helene Genet, A. David McGuire, Eugénie S. Euskirchen, Yujin Zhang, Dana R. N. Brown, M.T. Jorgenson, V. Romanovsky, Amy L. Breen, W.R. Bolton
2016, Global Change Biology (22) 816-829
Lowland boreal forest ecosystems in Alaska are dominated by wetlands comprised of a complex mosaic of fens, collapse-scar bogs, low shrub/scrub, and forests growing on elevated ice-rich permafrost soils. Thermokarst has affected the lowlands of the Tanana Flats in central Alaska for centuries, as thawing permafrost collapses forests that transition...
Spatial variations in immediate greenhouse gases and aerosol emissions and resulting radiative forcing from wildfires in interior Alaska
Shengli Huang, Heping Liu, Devendra Dahal, Suming Jin, Shuang Li, Shu-Guang Liu
2016, Theoretical and Applied Climatology (123) 581-592
Boreal fires can cool the climate; however, this conclusion came from individual fires and may not represent the whole story. We hypothesize that the climatic impact of boreal fires depends on local landscape heterogeneity such as burn severity, prefire vegetation type, and soil properties. To test this hypothesis, spatially explicit...
Post-eruptive inflation of Okmok Volcano, Alaska, from InSAR, 2008–2014
Feifei Qu, Zhong Lu, Michael P. Poland, Jeffrey T. Freymueller, Qin Zhang, Hyung-Sup Jung
2016, Remote Sensing (7) 16778-16794
Okmok, a ~10-km wide caldera that occupies most of the northeastern end of Umnak Island, is one of the most active volcanoes in the Aleutian arc. The most recent eruption at Okmok during July-August 2008 was by far its largest and most explosive since at least the early 19th century....
Dome growth at Mount Cleveland, Aleutian Arc, quantified by time-series TerraSAR-X imagery
Teng Wang, Michael P. Poland, Zhong Lu
2016, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 10614-10621
Synthetic aperture radar imagery is widely used to study surface deformation induced by volcanic activity; however, it is rarely applied to quantify the evolution of lava domes, which is important for understanding hazards and magmatic system characteristics. We studied dome formation associated with eruptive activity at Mount Cleveland, Aleutian Volcanic...
The 2014-2015 Pāhoa lava flow crisis at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i: Disaster avoided and lessons learned
Michael P. Poland, Tim R. Orr, James P. Kauahikaua, Steven R. Brantley, Janet L. Babb, Matthew R. Patrick, Christina A. Neal, Kyle R. Anderson, Loren Antolik, Matthew K. Burgess, Tamar Elias, Steven Fuke, Pauline Fukunaga, Ingrid A. Johanson, Marian Kagimoto, Kevan P. Kamibayashi, Lopaka Lee, Asta Miklius, William Million, Cyril J. Moniz, Paul G. Okubo, Andrew Sutton, T. Jane Takahashi, Weston A. Thelen, Willam Tollett, Frank A. Trusdell
2016, GSA Today (26) 4-10
Lava flow crises are nothing new on the Island of Hawai‘i, where their destructive force has been demonstrated repeatedly over the past several hundred years. The 2014–2015 Pāhoa lava flow crisis, however, was unique in terms of its societal impact and volcanological characteristics. Despite low effusion rates, a long-lived lava...
Conifer density within lake catchments predicts fish mercury concentrations in remote subalpine lakes
Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Garth Herring, Branden L. Johnson, Rick Graw
2016, Environmental Pollution (212) 279-289
Remote high-elevation lakes represent unique environments for evaluating the bioaccumulation of atmospherically deposited mercury through freshwater food webs, as well as for evaluating the relative importance of mercury loading versus landscape influences on mercury bioaccumulation. The increase in mercury deposition to these systems over the past century, coupled with their...
Endangered species management and ecosystem restoration: Finding the common ground
Michael L. Casazza, Cory T. Overton, Thuy-Vy D. Bui, Joshua M. Hull, Joy D. Albertson, Valary K. Bloom, Steven Bobzien, Jennifer McBroom, Marilyn Latta, Peggy Olofson, Tobias M. Rohmer, Steven E. Schwarzbach, Donald R. Strong, Erik Grijalva, Julian K. Wood, Shannon Skalos, John Y. Takekawa
2016, Ecology and Society (21)
Management actions to protect endangered species and conserve ecosystem function may not always be in precise alignment. Efforts to recover the California Ridgway’s Rail (Rallus obsoletus obsoletus; hereafter, California rail), a federally and state-listed species, and restoration of tidal marsh ecosystems in the San Francisco Bay estuary provide a prime...
Physical and chemical constraints limit the habitat window for an endangered mussel
Cara Campbell, Karen L. Prestegaard
2016, Hydrobiologia (772) 77-91
Development of effective conservation and restoration strategies for freshwater pearly mussels requires identification of environmental constraints on the distributions of individual mussel species. We examined whether the spatial distribution of the endangered Alasmidonta heterodon in Flat Brook, a tributary of the upper Delaware River, was constrained by water chemistry (i.e.,...
Reflectance spectroscopy (0.35–8 μm) of ammonium-bearing minerals and qualitative comparison to Ceres-like asteroids
Breanne L. Berg, Edward A. Cloutis, P. Beck, P. Vernazza, Janice L Bishop, Driss Takir, V. Reddy, D. Applin, Paul Mann
2016, Icarus (265) 218-237
Ammonium-bearing minerals have been suggested to be present on Mars, Ceres, and various asteroids and comets. We undertook a systematic study of the spectral reflectance properties of ammonium-bearing minerals and compounds that have possible planetary relevance (i.e., ammonium carbonates, chlorides, nitrates, oxalates, phosphates, silicates, and sulfates). Various synthetic and natural...
Does biodiversity protect humans against infectious disease? Reply
Chelsea L. Wood, Kevin D. Lafferty, Giulio DeLeo, Hillary S. Young, Peter J. Hudson, Armand M. Kuris
2016, Ecology (97) 543-546
The dilution effect is the sort of idea that everyone wants to be true. If nature protects humans against infectious disease, imagine the implications: nature's value could be tallied in terms of human suffering avoided. This makes a potent argument for conservation, convincing even to those who would otherwise be disinclined...
Continental Shelf Morphology and Stratigraphy Offshore San Onofre, CA: The Interplay Between Rates of Eustatic Change and Sediment Supply
Shannon Klotsko, Neal W. Driscoll, Graham Kent, Daniel S. Brothers
2016, Marine Geology (369) 116-126
New high-resolution CHIRP seismic data acquired offshore San Onofre, southern California reveal that shelf sediment distribution and thickness are primarily controlled by eustatic sea level rise and sediment supply. Throughout the majority of the study region, a prominent abrasion platform and associated shoreline cutoff are observed in the subsurface from...
Integrated risk and recovery monitoring of ecosystem restorations on contaminated sites
Michael J. Hooper, Stephen J. Glomb, David Harper, Timothy B. Hoelzle, Lisa M. McIntosh, David R. Mulligan
2016, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (12) 284-295
Ecological restorations of contaminated sites balance the human and ecological risks of residual contamination with the benefits of ecological recovery and the return of lost ecological function and ecosystem services. Risk and recovery are interrelated dynamic conditions, changing as remediation and restoration activities progress through implementation into long-term management and...
Recent rates of carbon accumulation in montane fens ofYosemite National Park, California, U.S.A.
Judith Z. Drexler, Christopher C. Fuller, James L. Orlando, Peggy E. Moore
2016, Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research (47) 657-659
Little is known about recent rates of carbon storage in montane peatlands, particularly in the western United States. Here we report on recent rates of carbon accumulation (past 50 to 100 years) in montane groundwater-fed peatlands (fens) of Yosemite National Park in central California, U.S.A. Peat cores were collected at...
Migratory corridors of adult female Kemp’s ridley turtles in the Gulf of Mexico
Donna J. Shaver, Kristen M. Hart, Ikuko Fujisaki, Cynthia Rubio, Autumn R. Sartain-Iverson, Jaime Pena, Daniel Gomez Gamez, Raul de Jesus Gonzales Diaz Miron, Patrick M. Burchfield, Hector J. Martinez, Jaime Ortiz
2016, Biological Conservation (194) 158-167
For many marine species, locations of migratory pathways are not well defined. We used satellite telemetry and switching state-space modeling (SSM) to define the migratory corridor used by Kemp's ridley turtles (Lepidochelys kempii) in the Gulf of Mexico. The turtles were tagged after nesting at Padre Island National Seashore, Texas,...
Elevated Rocky Mountain elk numbers prevent positive effects of fire on quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) recruitment
David Solance Smith, Stephen M. Fettig, Matthew A. Bowker
2016, Forest Ecology and Management (362) 46-54
Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) is the most widespread tree species in North America and has supported a unique ecosystem for tens of thousands of years, yet is currently threatened by dramatic loss and possible local extinctions. While multiple factors such as climate change and fire suppression are thought to contribute...
Who Knew? Inconnu
F. Joseph Margraf
2016, Fisheries (41) 70-70
In 1999, I moved to Alaska to serve as unit leader of the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and professor of fisheries in the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. What was unusual about this move was that before...
Dynamic occupancy models for explicit colonization processes
Kristin M. Broms, Mevin Hooten, Devin S. Johnson, Res Altwegg, Loveday Conquest
2016, Ecology (97) 194-204
The dynamic, multi-season occupancy model framework has become a popular tool for modeling open populations with occupancies that change over time through local colonizations and extinctions. However, few versions of the model relate these probabilities to the occupancies of neighboring sites or patches. We present a modeling framework that incorporates...
Mercury in fish and macroinvertebrates from New York's streams and rivers: A compendium of data sources
Karen Riva-Murray, Douglas A. Burns
2016, Report 16-07
The U.S. Geological Survey has compiled a list of existing data sets, from selected sources, containing mercury (Hg) concentration data in fish and macroinvertebrate samples that were collected from flowing waters of New York State from 1970 through 2014. Data sets selected for inclusion in this report were limited to...
Differences in impacts of Hurricane Sandy on freshwater swamps on the Delmarva Peninsula, Mid−Atlantic Coast, USA
Beth A. Middleton
2016, Ecological Engineering (87) 62-70
Hurricane wind and surge may have different influences on the subsequent composition of forests. During Hurricane Sandy, while damaging winds were highest near landfall in New Jersey, inundation occurred along the entire eastern seaboard from Georgia to Maine. In this study, a comparison of damage from salinity intrusion vs. wind/surge...
Mapping extent and change in surface mines within the United States for 2001 to 2006
Christopher E. Soulard, William Acevedo, Stephen V. Stehman, Owen P. Parker
2016, Land Degradation and Development (27) 248-257
A complete, spatially explicit dataset illustrating the 21st century mining footprint for the conterminous United States does not exist. To address this need, we developed a semi-automated procedure to map the country's mining footprint (30-m pixel) and establish a baseline to monitor changes in mine extent over time. The process...
Book review: Mineral resource estimation
Mark J. Mihalasky
2016, Economic Geology (111) 272-274
Mineral Resource Estimation is about estimating mineral resources at the scale of an ore deposit and is not to be mistaken with mineral resource assessment, which is undertaken at a significantly broader scale, even if similar data and geospatial/geostatistical methods are used. The book describes geological, statistical, and geostatistical tools...
Evaluating geothermal and hydrogeologic controls on regional groundwater temperature distribution
Erick R. Burns, Steven E. Ingebritsen, Michael Manga, Colin F. Williams
2016, Water Resources Research (52) 1328-1344
A one-dimensional (1-D) analytic solution is developed for heat transport through an aquifer system where the vertical temperature profile in the aquifer is nearly uniform. The general anisotropic form of the viscous heat generation term is developed for use in groundwater flow simulations. The 1-D solution is extended to more...
Quantifying pollen-vegetation relationships to reconstruct ancient forests using 19th-century forest composition and pollen data
Andria Dawson, Christopher J. Paciorek, Jason S. McLachlan, Simon Goring, John W. Williams, Stephen T. Jackson
2016, Quaternary Science Reviews (137) 156-175
Mitigation of climate change and adaptation to its effects relies partly on how effectively land-atmosphere interactions can be quantified. Quantifying composition of past forest ecosystems can help understand processes governing forest dynamics in a changing world. Fossil pollen data provide information about past forest composition,...
Constraints on the source parameters of low-frequency earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault
Amanda M. Thomas, Gregory C. Beroza, David R. Shelly
2016, Geophysical Research Letters (43) 1464-1471
Low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs) are small repeating earthquakes that occur in conjunction with deep slow slip. Like typical earthquakes, LFEs are thought to represent shear slip on crustal faults, but when compared to earthquakes of the same magnitude, LFEs are depleted in high-frequency content and have lower corner frequencies, implying longer...
Ungulate reproductive parameters track satellite observations of plant phenology across latitude and climatological regimes
David Stoner, Joseph O. Sexton, Jyoteshwar Nagol, Heather H. Bernales, Thomas C. Edwards Jr.
2016, PLoS ONE (11) 1-19
The effect of climatically-driven plant phenology on mammalian reproduction is one key to predicting species-specific demographic responses to climate change. Large ungulates face their greatest energetic demands from the later stages of pregnancy through weaning, and so in seasonal environments parturition dates should match periods of high primary productivity. Interannual...
