Integrating seasonal information on nutrients and benthic algal biomass into stream water quality monitoring
Christopher P. Konrad, Mark D. Munn
2016, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (52) 1223-1237
Benthic chlorophyll a (BChl a) and environmental factors that influence algal biomass were measured monthly from February through October in 22 streams from three agricultural regions of the United States. At-site maximum BChl a ranged from 14 to 406 mg/m2 and generally varied with dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN): 8 out of...
Transformative environmental governance
Brian C. Chaffin, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Lance H. Gunderson, Melinda Harm Benson, David G. Angeler, Craig Anthony Arnold, Barbara Cosens, Robin Kundis Craig, J.B. Ruhl, Craig R. Allen
2016, Annual Review of Environment and Resources (41) 399-423
Transformative governance is an approach to environmental governance that has the capacity to respond to, manage, and trigger regime shifts in coupled social-ecological systems (SESs) at multiple scales. The goal of transformative governance is to actively shift degraded SESs to alternative, more desirable, or more functional regimes by altering the...
Late Oligocene to present contractional structure in and around the Susitna basin, Alaska—Geophysical evidence and geological implications
Richard W. Saltus, Richard G. Stanley, Peter J. Haeussler, James V. Jones III, Christopher J. Potter, Kristen A. Lewis
2016, Geosphere (12) 1378-1390
The Cenozoic Susitna basin lies within an enigmatic lowland surrounded by the Central Alaska Range, Western Alaska Range (including the Tordrillo Mountains), and Talkeetna Mountains in south-central Alaska. Some previous interpretations show normal faults as the defining structures of the basin (e.g., Kirschner, 1994). However, analysis of new and existing...
Influence of glacier runoff on ecosystem structure in Gulf of Alaska fjords
Mayumi L. Arimitsu, John F. Piatt, Franz J. Mueter
2016, Marine Ecology Progress Series (560) 19-40
To better understand the influence of glacier runoff on fjord ecosystems, we sampled oceanographic conditions, nutrients, zooplankton, forage fish and seabirds within 4 fjords in coastal areas of the Gulf Alaska. We used generalized additive models and geostatistics to identify the range of glacier runoff influence into coastal waters within...
Validation of a side-scan sonar method for quantifying walleye spawning habitat availability in the littoral zone of northern Wisconsin Lakes
Jacob T. Richter, Brian L. Sloss, Daniel A. Isermann
2016, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (36) 942-950
Previous research has generally ignored the potential effects of spawning habitat availability and quality on recruitment of Walleye Sander vitreus, largely because information on spawning habitat is lacking for many lakes. Furthermore, traditional transect-based methods used to describe habitat are time and labor intensive. Our objectives were to determine if...
Simulation modeling to explore the effects of length-based harvest regulations for Ictalurus fisheries
David R. Stewart, James M. Long, Daniel E. Shoup
2016, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (36) 1190-1204
Management of Blue Catfish Ictalurus furcatus and Channel Catfish I. punctatus for trophy production has recently become more common. Typically, trophy management is attempted with length-based regulations that allow for the moderate harvest of small fish but restrict the harvest of larger fish. However, the specific regulations used vary considerably...
A Lota lota consumption: Trophic dynamics of nonnative Burbot in a valuable sport fishery
Stephen L. Klobucar, W. Carl Saunders, Phaedra E. Budy
2016, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (145) 1386-1398
Unintentional and illegal introductions of species disrupt food webs and threaten the success of managed sport fisheries. Although many populations of Burbot Lota lota are declining in the species’ native range, a nonnative population recently expanded into Flaming Gorge Reservoir (FGR), Wyoming–Utah, and threatens to disrupt predator–prey interactions within this popular sport...
Climate change and indigenous peoples: A synthesis of current impacts and experiences
Kathryn Norton-Smith, Kathy Lynn, Karletta Chief, Karen Cozetto, Jamie Donatuto, Margaret Hiza, Linda Kruger, Julie Maldonado, Carson Viles, Kyle P. Whyte
2016, General Technical Report PNW-GTR-944
A growing body of literature examines the vulnerability, risk, resilience, and adaptation of indigenous peoples to climate change. This synthesis of literature brings together research pertaining to the impacts of climate change on sovereignty, culture, health, and economies that are currently being experienced by Alaska Native and American Indian tribes...
Inferring invasive species abundance using removal data from management actions
Amy J. Davis, Mevin Hooten, Ryan S. Miller, Matthew L. Farnsworth, Jesse S. Lewis, Michael Moxcey, Kim M. Pepin
2016, Ecological Applications (26) 2339-2346
Evaluation of the progress of management programs for invasive species is crucial for demonstrating impacts to stakeholders and strategic planning of resource allocation. Estimates of abundance before and after management activities can serve as a useful metric of population management programs. However, many methods of estimating population size are too...
Circumpolar distribution and carbon storage of thermokarst landscapes
David Olefeldt, S. Goswami, G. Grosse, D. Hayes, G. Hugelius, P. Kuhry, A. David McGuire, V.E. Romanovsky, A. B. K. Sannel, E.A.G. Schuur, M.R. Turetsky
2016, Nature Communications (7) 1-11
Thermokarst is the process whereby the thawing of ice-rich permafrost ground causes land subsidence, resulting in development of distinctive landforms. Accelerated thermokarst due to climate change will damage infrastructure, but also impact hydrology, ecology and biogeochemistry. Here, we present a circumpolar assessment of the distribution of thermokarst landscapes, defined as...
Evaluating methods to establish habitat suitability criteria: A case study in the upper Delaware River Basin, USA
Heather S. Galbraith, Carrie J. Blakeslee, Jeffrey C. Cole, Colin Talbert, Kelly O. Maloney
2016, River Research and Applications (32) 1765-1775
Defining habitat suitability criteria (HSC) of aquatic biota can be a key component to environmental flow science. HSC can be developed through numerous methods; however, few studies have evaluated the consistency of HSC developed by different methodologies. We directly compared HSC for depth and velocity developed by the Delphi method...
Magma decompression rates during explosive eruptions of Kīlauea volcano, Hawaii, recorded by melt embayments
David J. Ferguson, Helge M. Gonnermann, Philipp Ruprecht, Terry Plank, Erik H. Hauri, Bruce F. Houghton, Donald A. Swanson
2016, Bulletin of Volcanology (78)
The decompression rate of magma as it ascends during volcanic eruptions is an important but poorly constrained parameter that controls many of the processes that influence eruptive behavior. In this study, we quantify decompression rates for basaltic magmas using volatile diffusion in olivine-hosted melt tubes (embayments) for three contrasting eruptions...
Determining the flux of methane into Hudson Canyon at the edge of methane clathrate hydrate stability
A. Weinsten, L Navarrete, Carolyn D. Ruppel, T.C. Weber, M. Leonte, M. Kellermann, E. Arrington, D.L. Valentine, M.L Scranton, John D. Kessler
2016, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (17) 3882-3892
Methane seeps were investigated in Hudson Canyon, the largest shelf-break canyon on the northern US Atlantic Margin. The seeps investigated are located at or updip of the nominal limit of methane clathrate hydrate stability. The acoustic identification of bubble streams was used to guide water column sampling in a 32...
Potential interactions among disease, pesticides, water quality and adjacent land cover in amphibian habitats in the United States
William A. Battaglin, Kelly L. Smalling, Chauncey W. Anderson, Daniel L. Calhoun, Tara E. Chestnut, Erin L. Muths
2016, Science of the Total Environment (566-567) 320-332
To investigate interactions among disease, pesticides, water quality, and adjacent land cover, we collected samples of water, sediment, and frog tissue from 21 sites in 7 States in the United States (US) representing a variety of amphibian habitats. All samples were analyzed for > 90 pesticides and pesticide degradates, and...
First record of invasive Burmese Python oviposition and brooding inside an anthropogenic structure
Emma Hanslowe, Bryan Falk, Michelle A. M. Collier, Jillian Josimovich, Thomas Rahill, Robert Reed
2016, Southeastern Naturalist (15) 103-106
We discovered an adult female Python bivittatus (Burmese Python) coiled around a clutch of 25 eggs in a cement culvert in Flamingo, FL, in Everglades National Park. To our knowledge, this is the first record of an invasive Burmese Python laying eggs and brooding inside an anthropogenic structure in Florida....
Geology, selected geophysics, and hydrogeology of the White River and parts of the Great Salt Lake Desert regional groundwater flow systems, Utah and Nevada
Peter D. Rowley, Gary L. Dixon, James M. Watrus, Andrews G. Burns, Edward A. Mankinen, Edwin H. McKee, Keith T. Pari, E. Bartlett Ekren, William G. Patrick
John B. Comer, Paul C. Inkenbrandt, K.A. Krahulec, Michael L. Pinnell, editor(s)
2016, Book chapter, Resources and Geo- logy of Utah's West Desert
The east-central Great Basin near the Utah-Nevada border contains two great groundwater flow systems. The first, the White River regional groundwater flow system, consists of a string of hydraulically connected hydrographic basins in Nevada spanning about 270 miles from north to south. The northernmost basin is Long Valley...
Seismic evidence of glacial-age river incision into the Tahaa barrier reef, French Polynesia
Michael Toomey, Jonathan D. Woodruff, Andrew D. Ashton, J. Taylor Perron
2016, Marine Geology (380) 284-289
Rivers have long been recognized for their ability to shape reef-bound volcanic islands. On the time-scale of glacial–interglacial sea-level cycles, fluvial incision of exposed barrier reef lagoons may compete with constructional coral growth to shape the coastal geomorphology of ocean islands. However, overprinting of Pleistocene landscapes by Holocene erosion or...
Lateral and subsurface flows impact arctic coastal plain lake water budgets
Joshua C. Koch
2016, Hydrological Processes (30) 3918-3931
Arctic thaw lakes are an important source of water for aquatic ecosystems, wildlife, and humans. Many recent studies have observed changes in Arctic surface waters related to climate warming and permafrost thaw; however, explaining the trends and predicting future responses to warming is difficult without a stronger fundamental understanding of...
The timing of compositionally-zoned magma reservoirs and mafic 'priming' weeks before the 1912 Novarupta-Katmai rhyolite eruption
Brad S. Singer, Fidel Costa, Jason S. Herrin, Wes Hildreth, Judith Fierstein
2016, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (451) 125-137
The June 6, 1912 eruption of more than 13 km3 of dense rock equivalent (DRE) magma at Novarupta vent, Alaska was the largest of the 20th century. It ejected >7 km3 of rhyolite, ~1.3 km3 of andesite and ~4.6 km3 of dacite. Early ideas about the origin of pyroclastic flows...
Regional land subsidence caused by the compaction of susceptible aquifer systems accompanying groundwater extraction
Devin L. Galloway, Stanley A. Leake
Vijay P. Singh, editor(s)
2016, Book chapter, Handbook of applied hydrology
Land subsidence includes both gentle downwarping and sudden sinking of segments of the land surface. Major anthropogenic causes of land subsidence are extraction of fluids including water, oil, and gas. Measurement and detec- tion of land subsidence include both ground-based and remotely sensed air- borne and space-based methods. Methods for measurement of subsidence at points...
Development of habitat suitability indices for the Candy Darter, with cross-scale validation across representative populations
Corey G. Dunn, Paul L. Angermeier
2016, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (145) 1266-1281
Understanding relationships between habitat associations for individuals and habitat factors that limit populations is a primary challenge for managers of stream fishes. Although habitat use by individuals can provide insight into the adaptive significance of selected microhabitats, not all habitat parameters will be significant at the population level, particularly when...
Considerations for building climate-based species distribution models
David N. Bucklin, Mathieu Basille, Stephanie S. Romanach, Laura A. Brandt, Frank J. Mazzotti, James I. Watling
2016, Report
Climate plays an important role in the distribution of species. A given species may adjust to new conditions in-place, move to new areas with suitable climates, or go extinct. Scientists and conservation practitioners use mathematical models to predict the effects of future climate change on wildlife and plan for a...
Estimating mercury emissions resulting from wildfire in forests of the Western United States
Jackson Webster, Tyler J. Kane, Daniel Obrist, Joseph N. Ryan, George R. Aiken
2016, Science of Total Environment (568) 578-586
Understanding the emissions of mercury (Hg) from wildfires is important for quantifying the global atmospheric Hg sources. Emissions of Hg from soils resulting from wildfires in the Western United States was estimated for the 2000 to 2013 period, and the potential emission of Hg from forest soils was assessed as...
Long-term deer exclusion has complex effects on a suburban forest understory
Edward K. Faison, David R. Foster, Stephen DeStefano
2016, Rhodora (118) 382-402
Herbivory by deer is one of the leading biotic disturbances on forest understories (i.e., herbs, small shrubs, and small tree seedlings). A large body of research has reported declines in height, abundance, and reproductive capacity of forbs and woody plants coupled with increases in abundance of graminoids, ferns, and exotic...
Combining landscape variables and species traits can improve the utility of climate change vulnerability assessments
Christopher P. Nadeau, Angela K. Fuller
2016, Biological Conservation (202) 30-38
Conservation organizations worldwide are investing in climate change vulnerability assessments. Most vulnerability assessment methods focus on either landscape features or species traits that can affect a species vulnerability to climate change. However, landscape features and species traits likely interact to affect vulnerability. We compare a landscape-based assessment, a trait-based assessment,...
