Dynamics of seabird colonies vulnerable to sea-level rise at French Frigate Shoals, Hawai`i
Michelle H. Reynolds, Karen N. Courtot, Crystal M. Krause, Nathaniel E. Seavy, Paula Hartzell, Jeff S. Hatfield
2013, Hawai‘i Cooperative Studies Unit Technical Report HCSU-037
Globally, seabirds are vulnerable to anthropogenic threats both at sea and on land. Seabirds typically nest colonially and show strong site fidelity; therefore, conservation strategies could benefit from an understanding of the population dynamics and vulnerability of breeding colonies to climate change. More than 350 atolls exist across the Pacific...
Ecosystem engineering varies spatially: a test of the vegetation modification paradigm for prairie dogs
Bruce W. Baker, David J. Augustine, James A. Sedgwick, Bruce C. Lubow
2013, Ecography: Pattern and Diversity in Ecology (36) 230-239
Colonial, burrowing herbivores can be engineers of grassland and shrubland ecosystems worldwide. Spatial variation in landscapes suggests caution when extrapolating single-place studies of single species, but lack of data and the need to generalize often leads to ‘model system’ thinking and application of results beyond appropriate statistical inference. Generalizations about...
Environmental factors that influence cyanobacteria and geosmin occurrence in reservoirs
Celeste A. Journey, Karen M. Beaulieu, Paul M. Bradley
2013, Book chapter, Current perspectives in contaminant hydrology and water resources sustainability
Phytoplankton are small to microscopic, free-floating algae that inhabit the open water of freshwater, estuarine, and saltwater systems. In freshwater lake and reservoirs systems, which are the focus of this chapter, phytoplankton communities commonly consist of assemblages of the major taxonomic groups, including green algae, diatoms, dinoflagellates, and cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria...
Preliminary stratigraphy and facies analysis of the Upper Cretaceous Kaguyak Formation, including a brief summary of newly discovered oil stain, upper Alaska Peninsula
Marwan A. Wartes, Paul L. Decker, Richard G. Stanley, Trystan M. Herriott, Kenneth P. Helmold, Robert J. Gillis
2013, Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys Preliminary Interpretive Report 2013-1F
The Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys has an ongoing program aimed at evaluating the Mesozoic forearc stratigraphy, structure, and petroleum systems of lower Cook Inlet. Most of our field studies have focused on the Jurassic component of the petroleum system[this report.] However, in late July and early August...
Structural design of Kaohsiung Stadium, Taiwan
Hideyuki Watanabe, Yoshiro Tanno, Masayoshi Nakai, Takashi Ohshima, Akihiro Suguichi, William H. Lee, Jensen Wang
2013, Structural Engineering International (23) 75-79
This paper presents an outline description of the structural design of the main stadium for the World Games held in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, in 2009. Three new design concepts, unseen in previous stadiums, were proposed and realized: “an open stadium”, “an urban park”, and “a spiral continuous form”. Based on...
Integration of bed characteristics, geochemical tracers, current measurements, and numerical modeling for assessing the provenance of beach sand in the San Francisco Bay Coastal System
Patrick L. Barnard, Amy C. Foxgrover, Edwin P.L. Elias, Li H. Erikson, James R. Hein, Mary McGann, Kira Mizell, Robert J. Rosenbauer, Peter W. Swarzenski, Renee K. Takesue, Florence L. Wong, Don Woodrow
2013, Marine Geology (345) 181-206
Over 150 million m3 of sand-sized sediment has disappeared from the central region of the San Francisco Bay Coastal System during the last half century. This enormous loss may reflect numerous anthropogenic influences, such as watershed damming, bay-fill development, aggregate mining, and dredging. The reduction in Bay sediment also appears to be...
Regional contingencies in the relationship between aboveground Bbomass and litter in the world’s grasslands
Lydia R. O’Halloran, Elizabeth T. Borer, Eric W. Seabloom, Andrew S. MacDougall, Elsa E. Cleland, Rebecca L. McCulley, Sarah Hobbie, W. Stan Harpole, Nicole M. DeCrappeo, Cheng-Jin Chu, Jonathan D. Bakker, Kendi F. Davies, Guozhen Du, Jennifer Firn, Nicole Hagenah, Kirsten S. Hofmockel, Johannes M.H. Knops, Wei Li, Brett A. Melbourne, John W. Morgan, John L. Orrock, Suzanne M. Prober, Carly J. Stevens
2013, PLoS ONE (8)
Based on regional-scale studies, aboveground production and litter decomposition are thought to positively covary, because they are driven by shared biotic and climatic factors. Until now we have been unable to test whether production and decomposition are generally coupled across climatically dissimilar regions, because we lacked replicated data collected within...
The effect of coachwhip presence on body size of North American racers suggests competition between these sympatric snakes
David A. Steen, Christopher J.W. McClure, Lora L. Smith, Brian J. Halstead, C. Kenneth Dodd Jr., William B. Sutton, James R. Lee, Danna L. Baxley, W. Jeffrey Humphries, Craig Guyer
2013, Journal of Zoology (289) 86-93
When sympatric species compete, character divergence may help maintain coexistence. Snakes are often found in species-rich assemblages while exploiting similar resources; because snake body size is a relatively plastic trait that determines the range of prey sizes an individual may consume, divergence in body size between sympatric species may arise...
VisTrails SAHM: visualization and workflow management for species habitat modeling
Jeffrey T. Morisette, Catherine S. Jarnevich, Tracy R. Holcombe, Colin B. Talbert, Drew A. Ignizio, Marian Talbert, Claudio Silva, David Koop, Alan Swanson, Nicholas E. Young
2013, Ecography: Pattern and Diversity in Ecology (36) 129-135
The Software for Assisted Habitat Modeling (SAHM) has been created to both expedite habitat modeling and help maintain a record of the various input data, pre- and post-processing steps and modeling options incorporated in the construction of a species distribution model through the established workflow management and visualization VisTrails software....
Intercontinental dispersal of bacteria and archaea by transpacific winds
D. Smith, H. Timonen, D. Jaffe, Dale W. Griffin, M. Birmele, K.D. Perry, P.D. Ward, M. Roberts
2013, Applied and Environmental Microbiology (79) 1134-1139
Microorganisms are abundant in the upper atmosphere, particularly downwind of arid regions, where winds can mobilize large amounts of topsoil and dust. However, the challenge of collecting samples from the upper atmosphere and reliance upon culture-based characterization methods have prevented a comprehensive understanding of globally dispersed airborne microbes. In spring...
Valuing morbidity from wildfire smoke exposure: a comparison of revealed and stated preference techniques
Leslie Richardson, John B. Loomis, Patricia A. Champ
2013, Land Economics (89) 76-100
Estimating the economic benefits of reduced health damages due to improvements in environmental quality continues to challenge economists. We review welfare measures associated with reduced wildfire smoke exposure, and a unique dataset from California’s Station Fire of 2009 allows for a comparison of cost of illness (COI) estimates with willingness...
Consumption of freshwater bivalves by muskrats in the Green River, Kentucky
Kimberly Asmus Hersey, Joseph D. Clark, James B. Layzer
2013, American Midland Naturalist (170) 248-259
Muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus) are known to prey on freshwater bivalves (mussels and clams) and can negatively impact imperiled mussel species. However, factors that influence muskrat predation on bivalves are poorly understood. We evaluated the feeding ecology of muskrats in the Green River, Kentucky, by using stable isotope analysis of muskrat...
Monitoring the status of forests and rangelands in the Western United States using ecosystem performance anomalies
Matthew B. Rigge, Bruce Wylie, Yingxin Gu, Jayne Belnap, Khem P. Phuyal, Larry Tieszen
2013, International Journal of Remote Sensing (34) 4049-4068
The effects of land management and disturbance on ecosystem performance (i.e. biomass production) are often confounded by those of weather and site potential. The current study overcomes this issue by calculating the difference between actual and expected ecosystem performance (EEP) to generate ecosystem performance anomalies (EPA). This study aims to...
Volatile fluxes through the Big Bend section of the San Andreas Fault, California: helium and carbon-dioxide systematics
Justin T. Kulongoski, David R. Hilton, Peter H. Barry, Bradley K. Esser, Darren Hillegonds, Kenneth Belitz
2013, Chemical Geology (339) 92-102
To investigate the source of volatiles and their relationship to the San Andreas Fault System (SAFS), 18 groundwater samples were collected from wells near the Big Bend section of the SAFS in southern California and analyzed for helium and carbon abundance and isotopes. Concentrations of 4He, corrected for air-bubble entrainment,...
Temporal and spatial distribution of alteration, mineralization and fluid inclusions in the transitional high-sulfidation epithermal-porphyry copper system at Red Mountain, Arizona
Pilar Lecumberri-Sanchez, M. Claiborne Newton III, Erik C. Westman, Robert J. Kamilli, Vertrees M. Canby, Robert J. Bodnar
2013, Journal of Geochemical Exploration (125) 80-93
Red Mountain, Arizona, is a Laramide porphyry Cu system (PCD) that has experienced only a modest level of erosion compared to most other similar deposits in the southwestern United States. As a result, the upper portion of the magmatic–hydrothermal system, which represents the transition from shallower high-sulfidation epithermal mineralization to...
Limitation and facilitation of one of the world's most invasive fish: an intercontinental comparison
Phaedra E. Budy, Gary P. Thiede, Javier Lobon-Cervia, Gustavo Gonzolez Fernandez, Peter McHugh, Angus McIntosh, Lief Asbjorn Vollestad, Eloy Becares, Phillip Jellyman
2013, Ecology (94) 356-367
Purposeful species introductions offer opportunities to inform our understanding of both invasion success and conservation hurdles. We evaluated factors determining the energetic limitations of brown trout (Salmo trutta) in both their native and introduced ranges. Our focus was on brown trout because they are nearly globally distributed, considered one of...
You're standing on it! Coal-tar-based pavement sealcoat and environmental and human health
Barbara Mahler, Peter C. Van Metre
2013, APWA Reporter 64-66
Coal-tar-based sealcoat—a product marketed to protect and beautify asphalt pavement—is a potent source of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) to air, soils, streams and lakes, and homes. Does its use present a risk to human health? Results from a new study by researchers from Baylor University and the...
Plausible combinations: An improved method to evaluate the covariate structure of Cormack-Jolly-Seber mark-recapture models
Jeffrey F. Bromaghin, Trent L. McDonald, Steven C. Amstrup
2013, Open Journal Of Ecology (3) 11-22
Mark-recapture models are extensively used in quantitative population ecology, providing estimates of population vital rates, such as survival, that are difficult to obtain using other methods. Vital rates are commonly modeled as functions of explanatory covariates, adding considerable flexibility to mark-recapture models, but also increasing the subjectivity and complexity of...
Using isotopes of dissolved inorganic carbon species and water to separate sources of recharge in a cave spring, northwestern Arkansas, USA Blowing Spring Cave
Katherine J. Knierim, Erik Pollock, Phillip D. Hays
2013, Acta Carsologica (42) 261-276
Blowing Spring Cave in northwestern Arkansas is representative of cave systems in the karst of the Ozark Plateaus, and stable isotopes of water (δ18O and δ2H) and inorganic carbon (δ13C) were used to quantify soil-water, bedrock-matrix water, and precipitation contributions to cave-spring flow during storm events to understand controls on...
Late quaternary slip-rate variations along the Warm Springs Valley fault system, northern Walker Lane, California-Nevada border
Ryan Gold, Craig dePolo, Richard W. Briggs, Anthony Crone, John Goss
2013, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (103) 542-558
The extent to which faults exhibit temporally varying slip rates has important consequences for models of fault mechanics and probabilistic seismic hazard. Here, we explore the temporal behavior of the dextral‐slip Warm Springs Valley fault system, which is part of a network of closely spaced (10–20 km) faults in the...
Mapping river bathymetry with a small footprint green LiDAR: Applications and challenges
Paul J. Kinzel, Carl J. Legleiter, Jonathan M. Nelson
2013, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (49) 183-204
Airborne bathymetric Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) systems designed for coastal and marine surveys are increasingly sought after for high-resolution mapping of fluvial systems. To evaluate the potential utility of bathymetric LiDAR for applications of this kind, we compared detailed surveys collected using wading and sonar techniques with measurements from...
Effects of drought on birds and riparian vegetation in the Colorado River Delta, Mexico
Osvel Hinojosa-Huerta, Pamela L. Nagler, Yamilett K. Carrillo-Guererro, Edward P. Glenn
2013, Ecological Engineering (51) 275-281
The riparian corridor in the delta of the Colorado River in Mexico supports internationally important bird habitat. The vegetation is maintained by surface flows from the U.S. and Mexico and by a high, non-saline aquifer into which the dominant phreatophytic shrubs and trees are rooted. We studied the effects of...
Rapid increases and time-lagged declines in amphibian occupancy after wildfire
Blake R. Hossack, Winsor H. Lowe, Paul Stephen Corn
2013, Conservation Biology (27) 219-228
Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of drought and wildfire. Aquatic and moisture-sensitive species, such as amphibians, may be particularly vulnerable to these modified disturbance regimes because large wildfires often occur during extended droughts and thus may compound environmental threats. However, understanding of the effects of...
Identification of contamination in a lake sediment core using Hg and Pb isotopic compositions, Lake Ballinger, Washington, USA
John E. Gray, Michael J. Pribil, Peter C. Van Metre, David M. Borrok, Anita Thapalia
2013, Applied Geochemistry (29) 1-12
Concentrations and isotopic compositions of Hg and Pb were measured in a sediment core collected from Lake Ballinger, near Seattle, Washington, USA. Lake Ballinger has been affected by input of metal contaminants emitted from the Tacoma smelter, which operated from 1887 to 1986 and was located about 53 km south...
Crowdsourcing to Acquire Hydrologic Data and Engage Citizen Scientists: CrowdHydrology
Michael N. Fienen, Chris Lowry
2013, Ground Water (51) 151-156
Spatially and temporally distributed measurements of processes, such as baseflow at the watershed scale, come at substantial equipment and personnel cost. Research presented here focuses on building a crowdsourced database of inexpensive distributed stream stage measurements. Signs on staff gauges encourage citizen scientists to voluntarily send hydrologic measurements (e.g., stream...
