Nocturnal insect availability in bottomland hardwood forests managed for wildlife in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley
Loraine P. Ketzler, Christopher Comer, Daniel J. Twedt
2017, Forest Ecology and Management (391) 127-134
Silviculture used to alter forest structure and thereby enhance wildlife habitat has been advocated for bottomland hardwood forest management on public conservation lands in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Although some songbirds respond positively to these management actions to attain desired forest conditions for wildlife, the response of other species, is...
Recommended approaches to the scientific evaluation of ecotoxicological hazards and risks of endocrine-active substances
Peter Matthiessen, Gerald T. Ankley, Ronald C. Biever, Poul Bjerregaard, Christopher Borgert, Kristin Brugger, Amy Blankinship, Janice Chambers, Katherine K. Coady, Lisa Constantine, ZhiChao Dang, Nancy D. Denslow, David Dreier, Steve Dungey, L. Earl Gray, Melanie Gross, Patrick D. Guiney, Markus Hecker, Henrik Holbech, Taisen Iguchi, Sarah Kadlec, Natalie K. Karouna-Renier, Ioanna Katsiadaki, Yukio Kawashima, Werner Kloas, Henry Krueger, Anu Kumar, Laurent Lagadic, Annegaaike Leopold, Steven L. Levine, Gerd Maack, Sue Marty, James P. Meador, Ellen Mihaich, Jenny Odum, Lisa Ortego, Joanne L. Parrott, Daniel Pickford, Mike Roberts, Christoph Schaefers, Tamar Schwarz, Keith Solomon, Tim Verslycke, Lennart Weltje, James R. Wheeler, Mike Williams, Jeffery C. Wolf, Kunihiko Yamazaki
2017, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (13) 267-279
A SETAC Pellston Workshop® “Environmental Hazard and Risk Assessment Approaches for Endocrine-Active Substances (EHRA)” was held in February 2016 in Pensacola, Florida, USA. The primary objective of the workshop was to provide advice, based on current scientific understanding, to regulators and policy makers; the aim being to make considered, informed decisions...
Managing native predators: Evidence from a partial removal of raccoons (Procyon lotor) on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, USA
Jessica J. Stocking, Theodore R. Simons, Arielle W. Parsons, Allan F. O’Connell
2017, Waterbirds (40) 10-18
Raccoons (Procyon lotor) are important predators of ground-nesting species in coastal systems. They have been identified as a primary cause of nest failure for the American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus) throughout its range. Concerns over the long-term effects of raccoon predation and increased nest success following a hurricane inspired a mark-resight...
Ground-rupturing earthquakes on the northern Big Bend of the San Andreas Fault, California, 800 A.D. to Present
Katherine M. Scharer, Ray J. Weldon, Glenn Biasi, Ashley Streig, Thomas E. Fumal
2017, Journal of Geophysical Research (122) 2193-2218
Paleoseismic data on the timing of ground-rupturing earthquakes constrain the recurrence behavior of active faults and can provide insight on the rupture history of a fault if earthquakes dated at neighboring sites overlap in age and are considered correlative. This study presents the evidence and ages for 11 earthquakes that...
Intraspecific functional diversity of common species enhances community stability
Connor M. Wood, Shawn T. McKinney, Cynthia S. Loftin
2017, Ecology and Evolution (7) 1553-1560
Common species are fundamental to the structure and function of their communities and may enhance community stability through intraspecific functional diversity (iFD). We measured among-habitat and within-habitat iFD (i.e., among- and within-plant community types) of two common small mammal species using stable isotopes and functional trait dendrograms, determined whether iFD...
Conservation status of the American horseshoe crab, (Limulus polyphemus): A regional assessment
David R. Smith, H. Jane Brockmann, Mark A. Beekey, Tim L. King, Mike Millard, Jaime Zaldivar-Rae
2017, Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries (27) 135-175
Horseshoe crabs have persisted for more than 200 million years, and fossil forms date to 450 million years ago. The American horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus), one of four extant horseshoe crab species, is found along the Atlantic coastline of North America ranging from Alabama to Maine, USA with...
South Polar Skua breeding populations in the Ross Sea assessed from demonstrated relationship with Adélie Penguin numbers
Deborah J. Wilson, Phil O’B. Lyver, Terry C. Greene, Amy L. Whitehead, Katie M. Dugger, Brian J. Karl, James R. F. Barringer, Roger McGarry, Annie M. Pollard, David G. Ainley
2017, Polar Biology (40) 577-592
In the Ross Sea region, most South Polar Skuas (Stercorarius maccormicki) nest near Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) colonies, preying and scavenging on fish, penguins, and other carrion. To derive a relationship to predict skua numbers from better-quantified penguin numbers, we used distance sampling to estimate breeding...
Divergent surface and total soil moisture projections under global warming
Alexis Berg, Justin Sheffield, Paul C.D. Milly
2017, Geophysical Research Letters (44) 236-244
Land aridity has been projected to increase with global warming. Such projections are mostly based on off-line aridity and drought metrics applied to climate model outputs but also are supported by climate-model projections of decreased surface soil moisture. Here we comprehensively analyze soil moisture projections from the Coupled Model Intercomparison...
Large earthquakes and creeping faults
Ruth A. Harris
2017, Reviews of Geophysics (55) 169-198
Faults are ubiquitous throughout the Earth's crust. The majority are silent for decades to centuries, until they suddenly rupture and produce earthquakes. With a focus on shallow continental active-tectonic regions, this paper reviews a subset of faults that have a different behavior. These unusual faults slowly creep for long periods...
Mitogenomes and relatedness do not predict frequency of tool-use by sea otters
Katherine Ralls, Nancy Rotzel McInerney, Roderick B. Gagne, Holly B. Ernest, M. Tim Tinker, Jessica Fujii, Jesus Maldonado
2017, Biology Letters (13)
Many ecological aspects of tool-use in sea otters are similar to those in Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins. Within an area, most tool-using dolphins share a single mitochondrial haplotype and are more related to each other than to the population as a whole. We asked whether sea otters in California showed similar...
Toppling analysis of the Echo Cliffs precariously balanced rock
Swetha Veeraraghavan, Kenneth W. Hudnut, Swaminathan Krishnan
2017, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (107) 72-84
Toppling analysis of a precariously balanced rock (PBR) can provide insight into the nature of ground motion that has not occurred at that location in the past and, by extension, can constrain peak ground motions for use in engineering design. Earlier approaches have targeted 2D models of the rock or...
Advancing the match-mismatch framework for large herbivores in the Arctic: Evaluating the evidence for a trophic mismatch in caribou
David D. Gustine, Perry Barboza, Layne G. Adams, Brad Griffith, Raymond D. Cameron, Kenneth R. Whitten
2017, PLoS ONE (12) 1-18
Climate-induced shifts in plant phenology may adversely affect animals that cannot or do not shift the timing of their reproductive cycle. The realized effect of potential trophic “mismatches” between a consumer and its food varies with the degree to which species rely on dietary income and stored capital. Large Arctic...
Biota: Providing often-overlooked connections among freshwater systems
David M. Mushet, Jay R. Christensen, Michah Bennett, Laurie C. Alexander
2017, Water Resources Impact (19) 11-13
When we think about connections in and among aquatic systems, we typically envision clear headwater streams flowing into downstream rivers, river floodwaters spilling out onto adjacent floodplains, or groundwater connecting wetlands to lakes and streams. However, there is another layer of connectivity moving materials among freshwater systems, one with connections...
Petrology and geochronology of Mesoproterozoic basement of the Mount Rogers area of southwestern Virginia and northwestern North Carolina: Implications for the Precambrian tectonic evolution of the southern Blue Ridge province
Richard P. Tollo, John N. Aleinikoff, Alan P. Dickin, Molly S. Radwany, C. Scott Southworth, C. Mark Fanning
2017, American Journal of Science (317) 251-337
Results from new geologic mapping, SHRIMP U-Pb geochronology, and petrologic studies indicate that Mesoproterozoic basement in the northern French Broad massif near Mount Rogers consists of multiple, mostly granitic plutons, map- and outcrop-scale xenoliths of pre-existing crustal rocks, and remnants of formerly overlying meta-sedimentary lithologies. Zircon and titanite ages demonstrate...
Integrating multiple data sources in species distribution modeling: A framework for data fusion
Krishna Pacifici, Brian J. Reich, David A.W. Miller, Beth Gardner, Glenn E. Stauffer, Susheela Singh, Alexa McKerrow, Jaime A. Collazo
2017, Ecology (98) 840-850
The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the use of species distribution models (SDMs) to characterize patterns of species’ occurrence and abundance. Efforts to parameterize SDMs often create a tension between the quality and quantity of data available to fit models. Estimation methods that integrate both standardized and...
Delta-Flux: An eddy covariance network for a climate-smart Lower Mississippi Basin
Benjamin R. K. Runkle, James R. Rigby, Michele L. Reba, Saseendran S. Anapalli, Joydeep Bhattacharjee, Ken W. Krauss, Lu Liang, Martin A. Locke, Kimberly A. Novick, Ruixiu Sui, Kosana Suvocarev, Paul M. White Jr.
2017, Agricultural & Environmental Letters (2)
Networks of remotely monitored research sites are increasingly the tool used to study regional agricultural impacts on carbon and water fluxes. However, key national networks such as the National Ecological Observatory Network and AmeriFlux lack contributions from the Lower Mississippi River Basin (LMRB), a highly productive agricultural area with opportunities...
Low pathogenic avian influenza viruses in wild migratory waterfowl in a region of high poultry production, Delmarva, Maryland
Diann J. Prosser, Christine L. Densmore, Larry J. Hindman, Deborah D. Iwanowicz, Christopher A. Ottinger, Luke R. Iwanowicz, Cindy P. Driscoll, Jessica L. Nagel
2017, Avian Diseases (61) 128-134
Migratory waterfowl are natural reservoirs for low pathogenic avian influenza viruses (AIVs) and may contribute to the long-distance dispersal of these pathogens as well as spillover into domestic bird populations. Surveillance for AIVs is critical to assessing risks for potential spread of these viruses among wild and domestic bird populations....
Autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) presence and proliferation on former surface coal mines in Eastern USA
Adam J. Oliphant, R.H. Wynne, Carl E. Zipper, W. Mark Ford, P. F. Donovan, Jing Li
2017, Biological Invasions (19) 179-195
Invasive plants threaten native plant communities. Surface coal mines in the Appalachian Mountains are among the most disturbed landscapes in North America, but information about land cover characteristics of Appalachian mined lands is lacking. The invasive shrub autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) occurs on these sites and interferes with...
When perception reflects reality: Non-native grass invasion alters small mammal risk landscapes and survival
Joseph P. Ceradnini, Anna D. Chalfoun
2017, Ecology and Evolution (7) 1823-1835
Modification of habitat structure due to invasive plants can alter the risk landscape for wildlife by, for example, changing the quality or availability of refuge habitat. Whether perceived risk corresponds with actual fitness outcomes, however, remains an important open question. We simultaneously measured how habitat changes due to a common...
Mercury exposure may influence fluctuating asymmetry in waterbirds
Garth Herring, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Joshua T. Ackerman
2017, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (36) 1599-1605
Variation in avian bilateral symmetry can be an indicator of developmental instability in response to a variety of stressors, including environmental contaminants. The authors used composite measures of fluctuating asymmetry to examine the influence of mercury concentrations in 2 tissues on fluctuating asymmetry within 4 waterbird species. Fluctuating asymmetry increased...
Effects of CFT Legumine (5% Rotenone) on tadpole survival and metamorphosis of Chiricahua leopard frogs Lithobates chiricahuensis, Northern leopard frogs L. pipiens, and American bullfrogs L. catesbeianus
Guillermo Alvarez, Colleen A. Caldwell, Carter G. Kruse
2017, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (146) 512-522
Amphibians may experience collateral effects if exposed to CFT Legumine (5% rotenone), a piscicide that is used to remove invasive fish. A series of 48-h static toxicity tests assessed the acute effects of CFT Legumine on multi-aged tadpoles of the federally listed Chiricahua leopard frog Lithobates chiricahuensis, the widespread northern leopard...
In-well time-of-travel approach to evaluate optimal purge duration during low-flow sampling of monitoring wells
Philip T. Harte
2017, Environmental Earth Sciences (76) 1-13
A common assumption with groundwater sampling is that low (<0.5 L/min) pumping rates during well purging and sampling captures primarily lateral flow from the formation through the well-screened interval at a depth coincident with the pump intake. However, if the intake is adjacent to a low hydraulic conductivity part of the...
Winter 2016, Part B—Coastal oblique aerial photographs collected from Assateague Island, Virginia, to Montauk Point, New York, March 8–9, 2016
Karen L. M. Morgan
2017, Data Series 1030
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), as part of the National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards project, conducts baseline and storm-response photography missions to document and understand the changes in the vulnerability of the Nation's coasts to extreme storms. On March 8–9, 2016, the USGS conducted an oblique aerial photographic survey...
Winter 2016, Part A—Coastal oblique aerial photographs collected from the South Carolina/North Carolina border to Assateague Island, Virginia, February 18–19, 2016
Karen L. M. Morgan
2017, Data Series 1029
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), as part of the National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards project, conducts baseline and storm-response photography missions to document and understand the changes in the vulnerability of the Nation's coasts to extreme storms. On February 18–19, 2016, the USGS conducted an oblique aerial photographic survey...
Five-year external reviews of the eight department of interior climate science centers
Jill B. Rolland, P. B. Duffy, Clifford Duke, David Helweg, Stephen L. Katz, Olivia E. LeDee, Steven Quiring
2017, Report
No abstract available....
