Application and evaluation of a rapid response earthquake-triggered landslide model to the 25 April 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorkha earthquake, Nepal
Sean F. Gallen, Marin K. Clark, Jonathan W. Godt, Kevin Roback, Nathan A Niemi
2017, Tectonophysics (714-715) 173-187
The 25 April 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorkha earthquake produced strong ground motions across an approximately 250 km by 100 km swath in central Nepal. To assist disaster response activities, we modified an existing earthquake-triggered landslide model based on a Newmark sliding block analysis to estimate the extent and intensity of landsliding and landslide...
Urban forest management in New England: Towards a contemporary understanding of tree wardens in Massachusetts communities
Richard W. Harper, David V. Bloniarz, Stephen DeStefano, Craig Nicolson
2017, Arboricultural Journal (39) 162-178
In the New England states, tree wardens are local officials responsible for the preservation, maintenance and stewardship of municipal public trees. This study explores the emerging professional challenges, duties and responsibilities of tree wardens, from the subject’s point of view, by conducting in-person, semi-structured qualitative research interviews with 50 tree...
Comparison of acoustic recorders and field observers for monitoring tundra bird communities
Skyler T. Vold, Colleen M. Handel, Lance B. McNew
2017, Wildlife Society Bulletin (41) 566-576
Acoustic recorders can be useful for studying bird populations but their efficiency and accuracy should be assessed in pertinent ecological settings before use. We investigated the utility of an acoustic recorder for monitoring abundance of tundra‐breeding birds relative to point‐count surveys in northwestern Alaska, USA, during 2014. Our objectives were...
Using remote sensing to characterize and compare evapotranspiration from different irrigation regimes in the Smith River Watershed of central Montana
Roy Sando, Rodney R. Caldwell, Kyle W. Blasch
2017, Irrigation & Drainage Systems Engineering (6) 1-10
According to the 2005 U.S. Geological Survey national water use compilation, irrigation is the second largest use of fresh water in the United States, accounting for 37%, or 484.48 million cubic meters per day, of total freshwater withdrawal. Accurately estimating the amount of water withdrawals and actual consumptive water use...
Landscape- and local-scale habitat influences on occupancy and detection probability of stream-dwelling crayfish: Implications for conservation
Daniel D. Magoulick, Robert J. DiStefano, Emily M. Imhoff, Matthew S. Nolen, Brian K. Wagner
2017, Hydrobiologia (799) 217-231
Crayfish are ecologically important in freshwater systems worldwide and are imperiled in North America and globally. We sought to examine landscape- to local-scale environmental variables related to occupancy and detection probability of a suite of stream-dwelling crayfish species. We used a quantitative kickseine method to sample crayfish presence at 102...
New Zealand supereruption provides time marker for the Last Glacial Maximum in Antarctica
Nelia W. Dunbar, Nels A. Iverson, Alexa R. Van Eaton, Michael Sigl, Brent V. Alloway, Andrei V. Kurbatov, Larry G. Mastin, Joseph R. McConnell, Colin J. N. Wilson
2017, Scientific Reports (7)
Multiple, independent time markers are essential to correlate sediment and ice cores from the terrestrial, marine and glacial realms. These records constrain global paleoclimate reconstructions and inform future climate change scenarios. In the Northern Hemisphere, sub-visible layers of volcanic ash (cryptotephra) are valuable time markers due to their widespread dispersal...
Satellite monitoring of cyanobacterial harmful algal bloom frequency in recreational waters and drinking water sources
John M. Clark, Blake A. Schaeffer, John A. Darling, Erin A. Urquhart, John M. Johnston, Amber R. Ignatius, Mark H. Myer, Keith A. Loftin, P. Jeremy Werdell, Richard P. Stumpf
2017, Ecological Indicators (80) 84-95
Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHAB) cause extensive problems in lakes worldwide, including human and ecological health risks, anoxia and fish kills, and taste and odor problems. CyanoHABs are a particular concern in both recreational waters and drinking water sources because of their dense biomass and the risk of exposure to...
A new parameterization for integrated population models to document amphibian reintroductions
Adam Duarte, Christopher Pearl, M. J. Adams, James T. Peterson
2017, Ecological Applications (27) 1761-1775
Managers are increasingly implementing reintroduction programs as part of a global effort to alleviate amphibian declines. Given uncertainty in factors affecting populations and a need to make recurring decisions to achieve objectives, adaptive management is a useful component of these efforts. A major impediment to the estimation of demographic rates...
Modifications to EPA Method 3060A to Improve Extraction of Cr(VI) from Chromium Ore Processing Residue-Contaminated Soils
Christopher T. Mills, Carleton R. Bern, Ruth E. Wolf, Andrea L. Foster, Jean M. Morrison, William Benzel
2017, Environmental Science & Technology (51) 11235-11243
It has been shown that EPA Method 3060A does not adequately extract Cr(VI) from chromium ore processing residue (COPR). We modified various parameters of EPA 3060A toward understanding the transformation of COPR minerals in the alkaline extraction and improving extraction of Cr(VI) from NIST SRM 2701, a standard COPR-contaminated soil....
Geomorphic responses to dam removal in the United States – a two-decade perspective
Jon J. Major, Amy E. East, Jim E. O'Connor, Gordon E. Grant, Andrew C. Wilcox, Christopher S. Magirl, Matthias J. Collins, Desiree D. Tullos
Daizo Tsutsumi, Jonathan B. Laronne, editor(s)
2017, Book chapter, Gravel bed rivers: Processes and disasters
Recent decades have seen a marked increase in the number of dams removed in the United States. Investigations following a number of removals are beginning to inform how, and how fast, rivers and their ecosystems respond to released sediment. Though only a few tens of studies detail physical responses to...
Results of hydrologic monitoring on landslide-prone coastal bluffs near Mukilteo, Washington
Joel B. Smith, Rex L. Baum, Benjamin B. Mirus, Abigail R. Michel, Ben Stark
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1095
A hydrologic monitoring network was installed to investigate landslide hazards affecting the railway corridor along the eastern shore of Puget Sound between Seattle and Everett, near Mukilteo, Washington. During the summer of 2015, the U.S. Geological Survey installed monitoring equipment at four sites equipped with instrumentation to measure rainfall and...
Increasing rock-avalanche size and mobility in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska detected from 1984 to 2016 Landsat imagery
Jeffrey A. Coe, Erin Bessette-Kirton, M. Geertsema
2017, Landslides (15) 393-407
In the USA, climate change is expected to have an adverse impact on slope stability in Alaska. However, to date, there has been limited work done in Alaska to assess if changes in slope stability are occurring. To address this issue, we used 30-m Landsat imagery acquired from 1984 to...
Lessons from the Tōhoku tsunami: A model for island avifauna conservation prioritization
Michelle H. Reynolds, Paul Berkowitz, John Klavitter, Karen Courtot
2017, Ecology and Evolution (7) 5873-5890
Earthquake-generated tsunamis threaten coastal areas and low-lying islands with sudden flooding. Although human hazards and infrastructure damage have been well documented for tsunamis in recent decades, the effects on wildlife communities rarely have been quantified. We describe a tsunami that hit the world's largest remaining tropical seabird rookery and estimate...
Long-term dynamics and characteristics of snags created for wildlife habitat
Amy M. Barry, Joan Hagar, James W. Rivers
2017, Forest Ecology and Management (403) 145-151
Snags provide essential habitat for numerous organisms and are therefore critical to the long-term maintenance of forest biodiversity. Resource managers often use snag creation to mitigate the purposeful removal of snags at the time of harvest, but information regarding how created snags change over long timescales (>20 y) is absent from...
Late Quaternary environmental dynamics in the Atacama Desert reconstructed from rodent midden pollen records
M.E. de Porras, A. Maldonado, R. De Pol-Holz, C. Latorre, Julio L. Betancourt
2017, Journal of Quaternary Science (32) 665-684
In the past two decades, much has been learned about the late Quaternary climate history of the Atacama Desert with some details still unclear about the seasonality, timing and extent of wet and dry phases. Modern climate studies reveal that, far from exhibiting a unique pattern, seasonal precipitation originates from...
Extension of the analytical window for characterizing aromatic compounds in oils using a comprehensive suite of high-resolution mass spectrometry techniques and double bond equivalence versus carbon number plot
Yunju Cho, Justin E. Birdwell, Manhoi Hur, Joonhee Lee, Byungjoo Kim, Sunghwan Kim
2017, Energy & Fuels (31) 7874-7883
In this study, comprehensive two-dimensional (2D) gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI) quadrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometry (MS), and Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) were used to study the aromatic fractions of crude oil and oil shale pyrolysates (shale oils). The collected data were compared and...
Hydrologic regimes as potential drivers of morphologic divergence in fish
Lindsey Bruckerhoff, Daniel D. Magoulick
2017, Evolutionary Ecology (31) 517-531
Fishes often exhibit phenotypic divergence across gradients of abiotic and biotic selective pressures. In streams, many of the known selective pressures driving phenotypic differentiation are largely influenced by hydrologic regimes. Because flow regimes drive so many attributes of lotic systems, we hypothesized fish exhibit phenotypic divergence among streams with different...
Prediction of forest canopy and surface fuels from Lidar and satellite time series data in a bark beetle-affected forest
Benjamin C. Bright, Andrew T. Hudak, Arjan J.H. Meddens, Todd Hawbaker, Jenny S. Briggs, Robert E. Kennedy
2017, Forests (9) 1-22
Wildfire behavior depends on the type, quantity, and condition of fuels, and the effect that bark beetle outbreaks have on fuels is a topic of current research and debate. Remote sensing can provide estimates of fuels across landscapes, although few studies have estimated surface fuels from remote sensing data. Here...
Biological and ecological science for Florida—The Sunshine State
Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3066
Florida is rich in sunshine and other natural resources essential to the State's economy. More than 100 million tourists visit Florida's beaches, wetlands, forests, oceans, lakes, and streams where they generate billions of dollars and sustain more than a million jobs. Florida also provides habitat for several thousand freshwater and...
Logistic quantile regression provides improved estimates for bounded avian counts: A case study of California Spotted Owl fledgling production
Brian S. Cade, Barry R. Noon, Rick D. Scherer, John J. Keane
2017, The Auk (134) 783-801
Counts of avian fledglings, nestlings, or clutch size that are bounded below by zero and above by some small integer form a discrete random variable distribution that is not approximated well by conventional parametric count distributions such as the Poisson or negative binomial. We developed a logistic quantile regression model...
Simultaneous estimation of diet composition and calibration coefficients with fatty acid signature data
Jeffrey F. Bromaghin, Suzanne M. Budge, Gregory W. Thiemann, Karyn D. Rode
2017, Ecology and Evolution (7) 6103-6113
Knowledge of animal diets provides essential insights into their life history and ecology, although diet estimation is challenging and remains an active area of research. Quantitative fatty acid signature analysis (QFASA) has become a popular method of estimating diet composition, especially for marine species. A primary assumption of QFASA is...
Trophic structure of mesopelagic fishes in the Gulf of Mexico revealed by gut content and stable isotope analyses
Jennifer P. McClain-Counts, Amanda W.J. Demopoulos, Steve W. Ross
2017, Marine Ecology (38)
Mesopelagic fishes represent an important component of the marine food web due to their global distributions, high abundances and ability to transport organic material throughout a large part of the water column. This study combined stable isotope (SIAs) and gut content analyses (GCAs) to characterize the trophic structure of mesopelagic...
Monitoring the southwestern Wyoming landscape—A foundation for management and science
Daniel J. Manier, Patrick J. Anderson, Timothy J. Assal, Geneva W. Chong, Cynthia P. Melcher
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3030
Natural resource monitoring involves repeated collections of resource condition data and analyses to detect possible changes and identify underlying causes of changes. For natural resource agencies, monitoring provides the foundation for management and science. Specifically, analyses of monitoring data allow managers to better understand effects of land-use and other changes...
Polar bears and sea ice habitat change
George M. Durner, Todd C. Atwood
Andy Butterworth, editor(s)
2017, Book chapter, Marine mammal welfare
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is an obligate apex predator of Arctic sea ice and as such can be affected by climate warming-induced changes in the extent and composition of pack ice and its impacts on their seal prey. Sea ice declines have negatively impacted some polar bear...
Predicting redox-sensitive contaminant concentrations in groundwater using random forest classification
Anthony J. Tesoriero, Jo Ann M. Gronberg, Paul F. Juckem, Matthew P. Miller, Brian P. Austin
2017, Water Resources Research (53) 7316-7331
Machine learning techniques were applied to a large (n > 10,000) compliance monitoring database to predict the occurrence of several redox-active constituents in groundwater across a large watershed. Specifically, random forest classification was used to determine the probabilities of detecting elevated concentrations of nitrate, iron, and arsenic in the Fox, Wolf, Peshtigo,...
