Genetic analysis shows that morphology alone cannot distinguish asian carp eggs from those of other cyprinid species
James H. Larson, S. Grace McCalla, Duane Chapman, Christopher B. Rees, Brent C. Knights, Jonathan M. Vallazza, Amy E. George, William B. Richardson, Jon Amberg
2016, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (36) 1053-1058
Fish eggs and embryos (hereafter collectively referred to as “eggs”) were collected in the upper Mississippi River main stem (~300 km upstream of previously reported spawning by invasive Asian carp) during summer 2013. Based on previously published morphological characteristics, the eggs were identified as belonging to Asian carp. A subsample...
Renewable energy and wildlife conservation
Mona Khalil
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3067
The renewable energy sector is rapidly expanding and diversifying the power supply of the country. Yet, as our Nation works to advance renewable energy and to conserve wildlife, some conflicts arise. To address these challenges, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is conducting innovative research and developing workable solutions to reduce...
Modeling water quality, temperature, and flow in Link River, south-central Oregon
Annett B. Sullivan, Stewart A. Rounds
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1146
The 2.1-km (1.3-mi) Link River connects Upper Klamath Lake to the Klamath River in south-central Oregon. A CE-QUAL-W2 flow and water-quality model of Link River was developed to provide a connection between an existing model of the upper Klamath River and any existing or future models of Upper Klamath...
Determination of heat purgeable and ambient purgeable volatile organic compounds in water by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry
Donna L. Rose, Mark W. Sandstrom, Lucinda K. Murtagh
2016, Techniques and Methods 5-B12
Two new analytical methods have been developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL) that allow the determination of 37 heat purgeable volatile organic compounds (VOCs) (USGS Method O-4437-16 [NWQL Laboratory Schedule (LS) 4437]) and 49 ambient purgeable VOCs (USGS Method O-4436-16 [NWQL LS 4436]) in...
Quaternary geologic map of the Wolf Point 1° × 2° quadrangle, Montana and North Dakota
David S. Fullerton, Roger B. Colton, Charles A. Bush
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1142
The Wolf Point quadrangle encompasses approximately 16,084 km2 (6,210 mi2). The northern boundary is the Montana/Saskatchewan (U.S.-Canada) boundary. The quadrangle is in the Northern Plains physiographic province and it includes the Peerless Plateau and Flaxville Plain. The primary river is the Missouri River.The map units are surficial deposits and materials,...
Consistent response of bird populations to climate change on two continents
Philip A. Stephens, Lucy R. Mason, Rhys E. Green, Richard D. Gregory, John R. Sauer, Jamie Alison, Ainars Aunins, Lluis Brotons, Stuart H.M. Butchart, Tommaso Campedelli, Tomasz Chodkiewicz, Przemyslaw Chylarecki, Olivia Crowe, Jaanus Elts, Virginia Escandell, Ruud P.B. Foppen, Henning Heldbjerg, Sergi Herrando, Magne Husby, Frederic Jiguet, Aleksi Lehikoinen, Ake Lindstrom, David G. Noble, Jean-Yves Paquet, Jiri Reif, Thomas Sattler, Tibor Szep, Norbert Teufelbauer, Sven Trautmann, Arco Van Strien, Chris van Turnhout, Petr Vorisek, Stephen G. Willis
2016, Science (352) 84-87
Global climate change is a major threat to biodiversity. Large-scale analyses have generally focused on the impacts of climate change on the geographic ranges of species and on phenology, the timing of ecological phenomena. We used long-term monitoring of the abundance of breeding birds across Europe and the United States...
Uncertainty in tsunami sediment transport modeling
Bruce E. Jaffe, Kazuhisa Goto, Daisuke Sugawara, Guy R. Gelfenbaum, SeanPaul M. La Selle
2016, Journal of Disaster Research (11) 647-661
Erosion and deposition from tsunamis record information about tsunami hydrodynamics and size that can be interpreted to improve tsunami hazard assessment. We explore sources and methods for quantifying uncertainty in tsunami sediment transport modeling. Uncertainty varies with tsunami, study site, available input data, sediment grain size, and model. Although uncertainty...
Piscivorous fish exhibit temperature-influenced binge feeding during an annual prey pulse
Nathan B. Furey, Scott G. Hinch, Matthew G. Mesa, David A. Beauchamp
2016, Journal of Animal Ecology (85) 1307-1317
Understanding the limits of consumption is important for determining trophic influences on ecosystems and predator adaptations to inconsistent prey availability. Fishes have been observed to consume beyond what is sustainable (i.e. digested on a daily basis), but this phenomenon of hyperphagia (or binge-feeding) is largely overlooked. We...
Assessment of managed aquifer recharge at Sand Hollow Reservoir, Washington County, Utah, updated to conditions through 2014
Thomas M. Marston, Victor M. Heilweil
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1078
Sand Hollow Reservoir in Washington County, Utah, was completed in March 2002 and is operated primarily for managed aquifer recharge by the Washington County Water Conservancy District. From 2002 through 2014, diversions of about 216,000 acre-feet from the Virgin River to Sand Hollow Reservoir have allowed the reservoir to...
Contemporary deposition and long-term accumulation of sediment and nutrients by tidal freshwater forested wetlands impacted by sea level rise
Gregory E. Noe, Cliff R. Hupp, Christopher E. Bernhardt, Ken W. Krauss
2016, Estuaries and Coasts (39) 1006-1019
Contemporary deposition (artificial marker horizon, 3.5 years) and long-term accumulation rates (210Pb profiles, ~150 years) of sediment and associated carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) were measured in wetlands along the tidal Savannah and Waccamaw rivers in the southeastern USA. Four sites along each river spanned an upstream-to-downstream salinification gradient, from...
Land-use change reduces habitat suitability for supporting managed honey bee colonies in the Northern Great Plains
Clint Otto, Cali L. Roth, Benjamin Carlson, Matthew Smart
2016, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (113) 10430-10435
Human reliance on insect pollination services continues to increase even as pollinator populations exhibit global declines. Increased commodity crop prices and federal subsidies for biofuel crops, such as corn and soybeans, have contributed to rapid land-use change in the US Northern Great Plains (NGP), changes that may jeopardize habitat for...
Testing the apparent resistance of three dominant plants to chronic drought on the Colorado Plateau
David L. Hoover, Michael C. Duniway, Jayne Belnap
2016, Journal of Ecology (105) 152-162
Many drylands, including the south-western United States, are projected to become more water-limited as these regions become warmer and drier with climate change. Such chronic drought may push individual species or plant functional types beyond key thresholds leading to reduced growth or even mortality. Indeed, recent observational...
Organic-matter retention and macroinvertebrate utilization of seasonally inundated bryophytes in a mid-order Piedmont River
James Wood, Meryom Pattillo, Mary Freeman
2016, Southeastern Naturalist (15) 403-414
There is increased understanding of the role of bryophytes in supporting invertebrate biomass and for their influence on nutrient cycling and carbon balance in aquatic systems, but the structural and functional role of bryophytes growing in seasonally inundated habitats is substantially less studied. We conducted a study on the Middle...
Detecting failure of climate predictions
Michael C. Runge, Julienne C. Stroeve, Andrew P. Barrett, Eve McDonald-Madden
2016, Nature Climate Change (6) 861-864
The practical consequences of climate change challenge society to formulate responses that are more suited to achieving long-term objectives, even if those responses have to be made in the face of uncertainty<a id="ref-link-2" title="McDonald-Madden, E., Runge, M. C., Martin, T. G. & Possingham, H. Optimal timing for managed relocation of...
Experience drives innovation of new migration patterns of whooping cranes in response to global change
Claire S. Teitelbaum, Sarah J. Converse, William F. Fagan, Katrin Böhning-Gaese, Robert B. O’Hara, Anne E Lacy, Thomas Mueller
2016, Nature Communications (7) 1-7
Anthropogenic changes in climate and land use are driving changes in migration patterns of birds worldwide. Spatial changes in migration have been related to long-term temperature trends, but the intrinsic mechanisms by which migratory species adapt to environmental change remain largely unexplored. We show that, for a long-lived social species,...
Estimating indices of range shifts in birds using dynamic models when detection is imperfect
Matthew J. Clement, James E. Hines, James D. Nichols, Keith L. Pardieck, David J. Ziolkowski Jr.
2016, Global Change Biology (22) 3273-3285
There is intense interest in basic and applied ecology about the effect of global change on current and future species distributions. Projections based on widely used static modeling methods implicitly assume that species are in equilibrium with the environment and that detection during surveys is perfect. We used multiseason correlated...
Effects of coded-wire-tagging on stream-dwelling Sea Lamprey larvae
Nicholas S. Johnson, William D. Swink, Heather A. Dawson, Michael L. Jones
2016, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (36) 1059-1067
The effects of coded wire tagging Sea Lamprey Petromyzon marinus larvae from a known-aged stream-dwelling population were assessed. Tagged larvae were significantly shorter on average than untagged larvae from 3 to 18 months after tagging. However, 30 months after tagging, the length distribution of tagged and untagged larvae did not...
Assessing range-wide habitat suitability for the Lesser Prairie-Chicken
Catherine S. Jarnevich, Tracy R. Holcombe, Blake A. Grisham, Jennifer M. Timmer, Clint W. Boal, Matthew Butler, James C. Pitman, Sean Kyle, David Klute, Grant M. Beauprez, Allan Janus, William E. Van Pelt
2016, Avian Conservation and Ecology (11)
Population declines of many wildlife species have been linked to habitat loss incurred through land-use change. Incorporation of conservation planning into development planning may mitigate these impacts. The threatened Lesser Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) is experiencing loss of native habitat and high levels of energy development across its multijurisdictional range. Our...
Detection of spring viraemia of carp virus in imported amphibians reveals an unanticipated foreign animal disease threat
S. Ip, Jeffrey M. Lorch, David S. Blehert
2016, Emerging Microbes & Infections (5)
Global translocation of plants and animals is a well-recognized mechanism for introduction of pathogens into new regions. To mitigate this risk, various tools such as preshipment health certificates, quarantines, screening for specific disease agents and outright bans have been implemented. However, such measures only target known infectious agents and their...
Acquisition of a unique onshore/offshore geophysical and geochemical dataset in the Northern Malawi (Nyasa) Rift
Donna J. Shillington, J. B. Gaherty, Cynthia J. Ebinger, Christopher A. Scholz, Kate Selway, Andrew A. Nyblade, Paul A. Bedrosian, Cornelia Class, Scott Nooner, Matthew E. Pritchard, Julie L. Elliott, Patrick R. N. Chindandali, Gaby Mbogoni, Richard Wambura Ferdinand, Nelson Boniface, Shukrani Manya, Godson Kamihanda, Elifuraha Saria, Gabriel Mulibo, Jalf Salima, Abdul Mruma, Leonard Kalindekafe, Natalie J. Accardo, Ntambila Daud, Marsella Kachingwe, Gary T. Mesko, Tannis McCartney, Melania Maquay, J. P. O’Donnell, Gabrielle Tepp, Khalfan Mtelela, Per Trinhammer, Douglas Wood, Ernest Aaron, Mark Gibaud, Martin Rapa, Cathy Pfeifer, Felix Mphepo, Duncan Gondwe, Gabriella Arroyo, Celia Eddy
2016, Seismological Research Letters (87) 1406-1416
The Study of Extension and maGmatism in Malawi aNd Tanzania (SEGMeNT) project acquired a comprehensive suite of geophysical and geochemical datasets across the northern Malawi (Nyasa) rift in the East Africa rift system. Onshore/offshore active and passive seismic data, long‐period and wideband magnetotelluric data, continuous Global Positioning System data, and...
Quality of surface-water supplies in the Triangle Area of North Carolina, water years 2012–13
C.A. Pfeifle, J.L. Cain, R.B. Rasmussen
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1137
Surface-water supplies are important sources of drinking water for residents in the Triangle area of North Carolina, which is located within the upper Cape Fear and Neuse River Basins. Since 1988, the U.S. Geological Survey and a consortium of local governments have tracked water-quality conditions and trends in several of...
History of U.S. Geological Survey streamgaging on the Souris River in and near Minot, North Dakota, 1903–2016
Kevin K. Baker, Steven M. Robinson
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3061
The U.S. Geological Survey began collecting streamflow data, in cooperation with the North Dakota State Water Commission, on the Souris River in and near Minot, North Dakota, in April 1903. The gage was started up to better understand the water resources available in North Dakota. Currently (2016), water availability is...
Technical Note: Harmonizing met-ocean model data via standard web services within small research groups
Richard P. Signell, E. Camossi
2016, Ocean science and engineering (12) 633-645
Work over the last decade has resulted in standardised web services and tools that can significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of working with meteorological and ocean model data. While many operational modelling centres have enabled query and access to data via common web services, most small research groups have...
Evolution of 'smoke' induced seed germination in pyroendemic plants
J. E. Keeley, J.G. Pausas
2016, South African Journal of Botany
Pyroendemics are plants in which seedling germination and successful seedling recruitment are restricted to immediate postfire environments. In many fire-prone ecosystems species cue their germination to immediate postfire conditions. Here we address how species have evolved one very specific mechanism, which is using the signal of combustion products from biomass....
Desert Scrublands
L.L.C. Jones, K.J. Halama, R.E. Lovich, editor(s)
2016, Book chapter, Habitat management guidelines for reptiles and amphibians of the southwestern United States. Technical Publication HMG-5
Desert scrublands comprise the lower to mid-elevation portions of four different ecosystems including the Chihuahuan, Great Basin, Mojave and Sonoran Deserts. Together the area inside their outer boundaries includes over 8% of the surface area of the United States. Despite significant differences in the flora and fauna of these bioregions...
