Aftershocks of the 2014 South Napa, California, Earthquake: Complex faulting on secondary faults
Jeanne L. Hardebeck, David R. Shelly
2016, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (106) 1100-1109
We investigate the aftershock sequence of the 2014 MW6.0 South Napa, California, earthquake. Low-magnitude aftershocks missing from the network catalog are detected by applying a matched-filter approach to continuous seismic data, with the catalog earthquakes serving as the waveform templates. We measure precise differential arrival times between events, which we...
Variability and trends in runoff efficiency in the conterminous United States
Gregory J. McCabe, David M. Wolock
2016, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (52) 1046-1055
Variability and trends in water-year runoff efficiency (RE) — computed as the ratio of water-year runoff (streamflow per unit area) to water-year precipitation — in the conterminous United States (CONUS) are examined for the 1951 through 2012 period. Changes in RE are analyzed using runoff and precipitation data aggregated to...
Characterizing species interactions to understand press perturbations: What is the community matrix?
Mark Novak, Justin D. Yeakel, Andrew E. Noble, Daniel F. Doak, Mark Emmerson, James A. Estes, Ute Jacob, M. Tim Tinker, J. Timothy Wootton
2016, Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics (47) 409-432
The community matrix is among ecology's most important mathematical abstractions, formally encapsulating the interconnected network of effects that species have on one another's populations. Despite its importance, the term `community matrix' has been applied to matrices having differing interpretations. This has hindered the application of theory for understanding community structure...
Evaluating water management scenarios to support habitat management for the Cape Sable seaside sparrow
James M. Beerens, Stephanie S. Romañach, Mark McKelvy
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1107
The endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrow (Ammodramus maritimus mirabilis) is endemic to south Florida and a key indicator species of marl prairie, a highly diverse freshwater community in the Florida Everglades. Maintenance and creation of suitable habitat is seen as the most important pathway to the persistence of the six...
Resetting the bar: Establishing baselines for persistent contaminants after Hurricane Sandy in the coastal environments of New Jersey and New York, USA
Timothy J. Reilly, Michael J. Focazio, Dale L. Simmons
2016, Marine Pollution Bulletin (107) 414-421
In the immediate aftermath of natural disasters, public health officials and other first responders engage in many activities to protect the public and ecosystems in the affected area. These activities include critical tasks designed to minimize adverse consequences resulting from chemical and microbial contaminant exposures, such as acute disease incidence...
Effect of phenology on agonistic competitive interactions between invasive and native sheet-web spiders
Jeremy D. Houser, Adam H. Porter, Howard S. Ginsberg, Elizabeth M. Jakob
2016, Canadian Journal of Zoology (94) 427-434
The phenologies of introduced relative to native species can greatly influence the degree and symmetry of competition between them. The European spider Linyphia triangularis (Clerck, 1757) (Linyphiidae) reaches very high densities in coastal Maine (USA). Previous studies suggest thatL. triangularis negatively affects native linyphiid species, with competition for webs as one mechanism. We...
An automatic P‐Phase arrival‐time picker
Erol Kalkan
2016, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (106) 971-986
Presented is a new approach for picking P‐phase arrival time in single‐component acceleration or broadband velocity records without requiring detection interval or threshold settings. The algorithm PPHASEPICKER transforms the signal into a response domain of a single‐degree‐of‐freedom (SDOF) oscillator with viscous damping and then tracks the rate of change of dissipated damping energy...
Effects of salt pond restoration on benthic flux: Sediment as a source of nutrients to the water column
Brent R. Topping, James S. Kuwabara, James L. Carter, Krista K. Garrettt, Eric Mruz, Sarah Piotter, John Y. Takekawa
2016, Journal of Environmental Protection (7) 1064-1071
Understanding nutrient flux between the benthos and the overlying water (benthic flux) is critical to restoration of water quality and biological resources because it can represent a major source of nutrients to the water column. Extensive water management commenced in the San Francisco Bay, Beginning around 1850, San Francisco Bay...
Simulated impacts of climate change on phosphorus loading to Lake Michigan
Dale M. Robertson, David A. Saad, Daniel E. Christiansen, David J Lorenz
2016, Journal of Great Lakes Research (42) 536-548
Phosphorus (P) loading to the Great Lakes has caused various types of eutrophication problems. Future climatic changes may modify this loading because climatic models project changes in future meteorological conditions, especially for the key hydrologic driver — precipitation. Therefore, the goal of this study is to project how P loading...
Bathymetric and velocimetric surveys at highway bridges crossing the Missouri River near Kansas City, Missouri, June 2–4, 2015
Richard J. Huizinga
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5061
Bathymetric and velocimetric data were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Transportation, near 8 bridges at 7 highway crossings of the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri, from June 2 to 4, 2015. A multibeam echosounder mapping system was used to obtain channel-bed...
Waterfowl populations are resilient to immediate and lagged impacts of wildfires in the boreal forest
Tyler Lewis, Joel A. Schmutz, Courtney L. Amundson, Mark S. Lindberg
2016, Journal of Applied Ecology (53)
Summary 1. Wildfires are the principal disturbance in the boreal forest, and their size and frequency are increasing as the climate warms. Impacts of fires on boreal wildlife are largely unknown, especially for the tens of millions of waterfowl that breed in the region. This knowledge gap creates significant barriers...
A potential predator-prey interaction of an American badger and an Agassiz's desert tortoise with a review of badger predation on turtles
Amanda L. Smith, Shellie R. Puffer, Jeffrey E. Lovich, Laura A. Tennant, Terence R. Arundel, Michael S. Vamstad, Kathleen D. Brundige
2016, California Fish and Game (102) 131-144
The federally threatened Agassiz’s desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) was listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1990, but thus far, recovery efforts have been unsuccessful (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [USFWS] 2015). Predation has been identified as a contributing factor to declining G. agassizii populations range-wide (e.g., Esque et...
The 2014 annual report for the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory
James P. Kauahikaua, Tim R. Orr, Matt Patrick, Weston A. Thelen, Matthew K. Burgess, Asta Miklius, Michael P. Poland, Kyle R. Anderson, Loren Antolik, Tamar Elias, Jeff Sutton, Christoph Kern, Cindy Werner
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5059
Introduction This report summarizes team activities and findings of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory during the year 2014 in geology, geodesy, seismicity, and gas geochemistry. The eruption of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō continued into its 32nd year with flows active to the northeast of the vent. One of them, the June 27th lava...
Surface water connectivity drives richness and composition of Arctic lake fish assemblages
Sarah M. Laske, Trevor B. Haynes, Amanda E. Rosenberger, Joshua C. Koch, Mark S. Wipfli, Matthew Whitman, Christian E. Zimmerman
2016, Freshwater Biology (61) 1090-1104
Surface water connectivity can influence the richness and composition of fish assemblages, particularly in harsh environments where colonisation factors and access to seasonal refugia are required for species persistence. Studies regarding influence of connectivity on Arctic fish distributions are limited and are rarely applied to whole assemblage patterns....
Source, variability, and transformation of nitrate in a regional karst aquifer: Edwards aquifer, central Texas.
MaryLynn Musgrove, Stephen P. Opsahl, Barbara Mahler, Chris Herrington, Thomas Sample, John Banta
2016, Science of the Total Environment (568) 457-469
Many karst regions are undergoing rapid population growth and expansion of urban land accompanied by increases in wastewater generation and changing patterns of nitrate (NO3−) loading to surface and groundwater. We investigate variability and sources of NO3− in a regional karst aquifer system, the Edwards aquifer of central Texas. Samples from...
The geochemical atlas of Alaska, 2016
Gregory K. Lee, Douglas B. Yager, Jeffrey L. Mauk, Matthew Granitto, Paul Denning, Bronwen Wang, Melanie B. Werdon
2016, Data Series 908
A rich legacy of geochemical data produced since the early 1960s covers the great expanse of Alaska; careful treatment of such data may provide significant and revealing geochemical maps that may be used for landscape geochemistry, mineral resource exploration, and geoenvironmental investigations over large areas. To maximize the spatial density...
Catalog of type specimens of recent mammals: Orders Carnivora, Perissodactyla, Artiodactyla, and Cetacea in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
Robert D. Fisher, Craig A. Ludwig
2016, Book
The type collection of Recent mammals in the Division of Mammals, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, contains 612 specimens bearing names of 604 species-group taxa of Carnivora, Perissodactyla, Artiodactyla, and Cetacea as of May 2016. This catalog presents an annotated list of these holdings comprising 582 holotypes; 16...
Elements in whole blood of Northwestern Crows (Corvus caurinus) in Alaska: No evidence for an association with beak deformities
Caroline R. Van Hemert, Colleen M. Handel
2016, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (52) 713-718
A recent outbreak of beak deformities among resident birds in Alaska has raised concern about environmental contamination as a possible underlying factor. We measured whole blood concentrations of 30 essential and nonessential elements to determine whether any were associated with beak deformities in Northwestern Crows (Corvus caurinus). We tested for...
QRev—Software for computation and quality assurance of acoustic doppler current profiler moving-boat streamflow measurements—Technical manual for version 2.8
David S. Mueller
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1068
The software program, QRev applies common and consistent computational algorithms combined with automated filtering and quality assessment of the data to improve the quality and efficiency of streamflow measurements and helps ensure that U.S. Geological Survey streamflow measurements are consistent, accurate, and independent of the manufacturer of the instrument used...
Evaluating a strategy to deliver vaccine to white-tailed deer at a landscape level
Justin W. Fischer, Chad R. Blass, W. David Walter, Charles W. Anderson, Michael J. Lavelle, Wayne H. Hall, Kurt C. VerCauterren
2016, Wildlife Society Bulletin (40) 394-399
Effective delivery of vaccines and other pharmaceuticals to wildlife populations is needed when zoonotic diseases pose a risk to public health and natural resources or have considerable economic consequences. The objective of our study was to develop a bait-distribution strategy for potential delivery of oral bovine tuberculosis (bTB) vaccine to...
Evidence for the exchange of blood parasites between North America and the Neotropics in blue-winged teal (Anas discors)
Andrew M. Ramey, John A. Reed, Patrick Walther, Paul Link, Joel A. Schmutz, David C. Douglas, David E. Stallknecht, Catherine Soos
2016, Parasitology Research (115) 3923-3939
Blue-winged teal (Anas discors) are abundant, small-bodied dabbling ducks that breed throughout the prairies of the northcentral USA and central Canada and that winter in the southern USA and northern Neotropics. Given the migratory tendencies of this species, it is plausible that blue-winged teal may disperse avian pathogens,...
Wildfire risk as a socioecological pathology
A. Paige Fischer, Thomas A. Spies, Toddi A Steelman, Cassandra Moseley, Bart R. Johnson, John D. Bailey, Alan A Ager, Patrick S. Bourgeron, Susan Charnley, Brandon M. Collins, Jeffrey D Kline, Jessica E Leahy, Jeremy S. Littell, James D. A. Millington, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Christine S Olsen, Travis B Paveglio, Christopher I. Roos, Michelle M Steen-Adams, Forrest R Stevens, Jelena Vukomanovic, Eric M White, David M J S Bowman
2016, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (14) 276-284
Wildfire risk in temperate forests has become a nearly intractable problem that can be characterized as a socioecological “pathology”: that is, a set of complex and problematic interactions among social and ecological systems across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Assessments of wildfire risk could benefit from recognizing and accounting for...
Biological soil crusts as an organizing principle in drylands
Jayne Belnap, Bettina Weber, Burkhard Budel
Bettina Weber, Burkhard Buedel, Jayne Belnap, editor(s)
2016, Book chapter, Biological soil crusts: An organizing principle in drylands
Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) have been present on Earth’s terrestrial surfaces for billions of years. They are a critical part of ecosystem processes in dryland regions, as they cover most of the soil surface and thus mediate almost all inputs and outputs from soils in these areas. There are many...
Biological soil crusts as soil stabilizers
Jayne Belnap, Burkhard Buedel
Bettina Weber, Burkhard Buedel, Jayne Belnap, editor(s)
2016, Book chapter, Biological soil crusts: An organizing principle in drylands
Soil erosion is of particular concern in dryland regions, as the sparse cover of vascular plants results in large interspaces unprotected from the erosive forces of wind and water. Thus, most of these soil surfaces are stabilized by physical or biological soil crusts. However, as drylands are extensively used by...
Hydrologic impacts of thawing permafrost—A review
Michelle Ann Walvoord, Barret L. Kurylyk
2016, Vadose Zone Journal (15)
Where present, permafrost exerts a primary control on water fluxes, flowpaths, and distribution. Climate warming and related drivers of soil thermal change are expected to modify the distribution of permafrost, leading to changing hydrologic conditions, including alterations in soil moisture, connectivity of inland waters, streamflow seasonality, and the partitioning of...
