Captivity, reintroductions, and the rewilding of amphibian-associated bacterial communities
Timothy Korpita, Erin L. Muths, Mary Kay Watry, Valerie J. McKenzie
2023, Microbial Ecology (86) 2271-2281
Many studies have noted differences in microbes associated with animals reared in captivity compared to their wild counterparts, but few studies have examined how microbes change when animals are reintroduced to the wild after captive rearing. As captive assurance populations and reintroduction programs increase, a better understanding of how microbial...
Laboratory simulation of earthquake-induced damage in lava dome rocks
Lauren N. Schaefer, Jackie E. Kendrick, Yan Lavallee, Jenny Schauroth, Oliver D. Lamb, Anthony Lamur, Takahiro Miwa, Ben M. Kennedy
2023, Tektonika (1) 112-126
Earthquakes can impart varying degrees of damage and permanent, inelastic strain on materials, potentially resulting in ruptures that may promote hazards such as landslides and other collapse events. However, the accumulation of damage in rocks under the frequency and amplitude of shaking experienced during earthquake events is rarely systematically measured...
Flood-inundation maps for the Muddy River, near Moapa, Nevada
Christopher M. Morris, Hampton K. Childres
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5033
The Muddy River provides habitat for several wildlife and endemic aquatic species protected under the Endangered Species Act. Near Moapa, Nevada, in the Bureau of Land Management’s Muddy River Floodplain Restoration Project Area, a previously constructed levee on the east side of the river alters the natural hydrology and decreases...
Landslides triggered by the 2016–2017 storm season, eastern San Francisco Bay region, California
Skye C. Corbett, Brian D. Collins
2023, Scientific Investigations Map 3503
DiscussionThe winter rainy season of 2016–2017 brought abundant rainfall to the State of California and to the San Francisco Bay region. In January and February of 2017, intense rainfall from strong winter storms saturated soils in the region and triggered thousands of shallow landslides. The highest concentration of these landslides...
No evidence for cottonwood forest decline along a flow-augmented western U.S. river
Cetan Christensen, Gabrielle L. Katz, Jonathan M. Friedman, Miranda D. Redmond, Andrew S. Norton
2023, River Research and Applications (39) 1602-1615
In contrast to many other arid region rivers, streamflow in the South Platte River is heavily augmented by trans-basin water imports and irrigation return flows. Hydrological changes began in the 1880s, resulting in channel narrowing and the development of a continuous Populus-Salix forest by the mid-twentieth century. We assessed the composition, structure...
Taming wildfires in the context of climate change: The case of the United States
Emily Ann Orzechowski, Shawn Carter
2023, Report
This report provides a global assessment and outlook on wildfire risk in the context of climate change. It discusses the drivers behind the growing incidence of extreme wildfires and the attribution effect of climate change. It outlines the environmental, social and economic impacts of wildfires by illustrating the losses...
Operational forecasts of wave-driven water levels and coastal hazards for US Gulf and Atlantic coasts
Hilary F Stockdon, Joseph W. Long, Margaret L. Palmsten, Andre Van der Westhuysen, Kara S. Doran, Richard J. Snell
2023, Communications Earth & Environment (4)
Predictions of total water levels, the elevation of combined tides, surge, and wave runup at the shoreline, are necessary to provide guidance on potential coastal erosion and flooding. Despite the importance of early warning systems for these hazards, existing real-time meteorological and oceanographic forecast systems at regional and national scales,...
Remotely sensed short-crested breaking waves in a laboratory directional wave basin
Christine Baker, Melissa Moulton, Margaret L. Palmsten, Katherine Brodie, Emma Nuss, C. Christopher Chickadel
2023, Coastal Engineering (183)
Short-crested breaking waves that result from directionally spread wave conditions dissipate energy and generate turbulence within the surf zone, altering sediment transport processes, wave runup, and forces on structures. Additionally, vertical vorticity generated near crest ends during breaking, which depends on the gradient in wave height along a crest, may...
Comparison of nonergodic ground-motion components from CyberShake and NGA-West2 datasets in California
Xiaofeng Meng, Christine Goulet, Kevin R. Milner, Robert Graves, Scott Callaghan
2023, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (113) 1152-1175
In this study, we compare the Southern California Earthquake Center CyberShake platform against the Next Generation Attenuation‐West2 empirical datasets. Because the CyberShake and empirical datasets cover very different magnitude ranges and site conditions, we develop ground‐motion models (GMMs) for CyberShake datasets to compare trends with empirical GMMs and decompose the...
Generating a reference flow network with improved connectivity to support durable data integration and reproducibility in the coterminous US
David L. Blodgett, J. Michael Johnson, Andrew R. Bock
2023, Environmental Modelling and Software (165)
This report presents a reference flow network for the conterminous United States that is built from the best available information from the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The work is intended to support durable data integration and reproducibility. Originating...
User engagement testing with a pilot decision support tool aimed to support species managers
Haven J. Cashwell, Karen S. McNeal, Kathie Dello, Ryan Boyles, Corey Davis
2023, Weather, Climate, and Society (15) 327-338
Species status assessments (SSAs) are required for endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and focus on the resiliency, redundancy, and representation of endangered species. SSAs must include climate information, because climate is a factor that will impact species in the future. To aid in the inclusion of...
Permafrost microbial communities and functional genes are structured by latitudinal and soil geochemical gradients
Mark Waldrop, Chris Chabot, Susanne Liebner, Sheila Holmes, Marcia Snyder, Martin L. Dillon, S Dudgeon, Thomas A. Douglas, Mary-Catherine Leewis, Katie M Walter- Anthony, Jack McFarland, Christopher D. Arp, Allen C. Bondurant, Neslihan Tas, Rachel Mackelprang
2023, The ISME Journal (17) 1224-1235
Permafrost underlies approximately one quarter of Northern Hemisphere terrestrial surfaces and contains 25–50% of the global soil carbon (C) pool. Permafrost soils and the C stocks within are vulnerable to ongoing and future projected climate warming. The biogeography of microbial communities inhabiting permafrost has not been...
High resolution lidar data shed light on inter-island translocation of endangered bird species in the Hawaiian Islands
Erica M. Gallerani, Jeffrey Burgett, Nicolas R. Vaughn, Lucas Fortini, Geoffrey A. Fricker, Hanna L. Mounce, Thomas W. Gillespie, Lisa H. Crampton, David Knapp, Justin M. Hite, Roy Gilb
2023, Ecological Applications (33)
Translocation, often a management solution reserved for at-risk species, is a highly time-sensitive intervention in the face of a rapidly changing climate. The definition of abiotic and biotic habitat requirements is essential to the selection of appropriate release sites in novel environments. However, field-based...
Salinity and total dissolved solids measurements for natural waters: An overview and a new salinity method based on specific conductance and water type
R. Blaine McCleskey, Charles A. Cravotta III, Matthew P. Miller, Fred D. Tillman, Paul E. Stackelberg, Katherine J. Knierim, Daniel Wise
2023, Applied Geochemistry (154)
The total concentration of dissolved constituents in water is routinely quantified by measurements of salinity or total dissolved solids (TDS). However, salinity and TDS are operationally defined by their analytical methods and are not equivalent for most waters. Furthermore, multiple methods are available to determine salinity and TDS, and these...
Contemporary distribution of non-native Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in South America
Guillermo Figueroa-Munoz, J. Andres Olivos, Ivan Arismendi, Graciela Fabiano, Martin Laporta, Santiago Silveira, Ivan González-Bergonzoni, Guido Pavez, Billy Ernst, Javier E. Ciancio, Chris Harrod, Cecilia Y. Di Prinzio, Tomás Chalde, Christina Amy Murphy, Daniel Gomez-Uchida
2023, Biological Invasions (25) 2727-2735
Chinook salmon represent one of the most successful salmonid introductions in South America, and today multiple naturalized populations exist across Patagonia. Here, we present an updated regional distribution of Chinook salmon that includes new records of occurrences collected between 2006 and 2022. We found a significant range expansion in terms...
Bayesian forecasting of disease spread with little or no local data
Jonathan D Cook, David M. Williams, Daniel P. Walsh, Trevor J. Hefley
2023, Scientific Reports (13)
Rapid and targeted management actions are a prerequisite to efficiently mitigate disease outbreaks. Targeted actions, however, require accurate spatial information on disease occurrence and spread. Frequently, targeted management actions are guided by non-statistical approaches that define the affected area by a pre-determined distance surrounding a small...
Potential effects of climate change on Emydoidea blandingii (Blanding’s turtle)
Marta P. Lyons, Catherine A. Nikiel, Olivia E. LeDee, Ryan P. Boyles
2023, Open-File Report 2021-1104-D
Emydoidea blandingii (Holbrook, 1838; Blanding’s turtles) are a species of medium-sized, long-lived, semiaquatic, freshwater turtles with a wide distribution across the northern and eastern United States and southern Canada. They have an annual activity cycle consisting of late autumn and winter overwintering and spring emergence, spring movement and foraging, spring...
Rupture directivity of the 25 October 2022 Mw 5.1 Alum Rock earthquake
Evan Tyler Hirakawa, Grace Alexandra Parker, Annemarie S. Baltay Sundstrom, Thomas C. Hanks
2023, The Seismic Record (3) 144-155
The 25 October 2022 Mw 5.1 Alum Rock earthquake shows strong evidence for southeast rupture directivity along the central Calaveras fault (CCF), as indicated by observed ground motions and simulated kinematic ruptures. Peak ground accelerations (PGAs) and peak ground velocities (PGVs) are notably higher to the southeast, with an order...
Nest attendance, incubation constancy, and onset of incubation in dabbling ducks
C. Alex Hartman, Josh T. Ackerman, Sarah H. Peterson, Brady Lynn Fettig, Michael L. Casazza, Mark P. Herzog
2023, PLoS ONE (18)
In birds, parents must provide their eggs with a safe thermal environment suitable for embryonic development. Species with uniparental incubation must balance time spent incubating eggs with time spent away from the nest to satisfy self-maintenance needs. Patterns of nest attendance, therefore, influence embryonic development and the time it takes...
Use of environmental DNA to assess American Eel distribution, abundance, and barriers in a river-canal system
Scott D. George, Barry P. Baldigo, Christopher B. Rees, Meredith L. Bartron, John J. Wiley Jr., Daniel S. Stich, Scott M. Wells, Dylan R. Winterhalter
2023, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (152) 310-326
Objective: The American Eel Anguilla rostrata historically was one of the most common fish species in Atlantic coast watersheds, but extensive dam construction and other factors caused a widespread population decline. One of the watersheds where American Eels have declined considerably is the Mohawk River in eastern and central...
Watershed carbon yield derived from gauge observations and river network connectivity in the United States
Han Qiu, Xuesong Zhang, Anni Yang, Kimberly Wickland, Edward G. Stets, Min Chen
2023, Scientific Data (10)
River networks play a critical role in the global carbon cycle. Although global/continental scale riverine carbon cycle studies demonstrate the significance of rivers and streams for linking land and coastal regions, the lack of spatially distributed riverine carbon load data represents a gap for quantifying riverine carbon net gain or...
Survival, healing, and swim performance of juvenile migratory sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) implanted with a new acoustic microtransmitter designed for small eel-like fishes
Taylor F. Haas, Theodore R. Castro-Santos, Scott M. Miehls, Zhiqun D. Deng, Tyler Michael Bruning, C. Michael Wagner
2023, Animal Biotelemetry (11)
BackgroundLittle is known about the transformer stage of the parasitic lampreys, a brief but critical period that encompasses juvenile out-migration from rivers to lakes or oceans to begin parasitic feeding. Information about this life stage could have significant conservation implications for both imperiled and invasive lampreys. We investigated...
External quality-assurance project report for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program’s National Trends Network and Mercury Deposition Network, 2019–20
Gregory A. Wetherbee, RoseAnn Martin, Alexander Liethen
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5045
The U.S. Geological Survey Precipitation Chemistry Quality Assurance project (PCQA) operated four distinct programs to provide external quality-assurance monitoring for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program’s (NADP) National Trends Network (NTN) and Mercury Deposition Network (MDN) during 2019–20. The NTN programs included (1) a field audit program to evaluate sample contamination...
Evaluating drivers of hydrology, water quality, and benthic macroinvertebrates in streams of Fairfax County, Virginia, 2007–18
James S. Webber, Jeffrey G. Chanat, Aaron J. Porter, John D. Jastram
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5027
In 2007, the U.S. Geological Survey partnered with Fairfax County, Virginia, to establish a long-term water-resources monitoring program to evaluate the hydrology, water quality, and ecology of Fairfax County streams and the watershed-scale effects of management practices. Fairfax County uses a variety of management practices, policies, and programs to protect...
Simulation of flow and eutrophication in the central Salem River, New Jersey
Frederick J. Spitz, Vincent T. DePaul
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5047
The central Salem River in New Jersey is subject to periods of water-quality impairment, marked by elevated concentrations of phosphorus and chlorophyll-a, and low concentrations of and large diurnal swings in concentrations of dissolved oxygen. These seasonal eutrophic conditions are controlling factors for water quality in lower reaches, where the...
