Megafloods and Clovis cache at Wenatchee, Washington
Richard B. Waitt
2016, Quaternary Research (85) 430-444
Immense late Wisconsin floods from glacial Lake Missoula drowned the Wenatchee reach of Washington's Columbia valley by different routes. The earliest debacles, nearly 19,000 cal yr BP, raged 335 m deep down the Columbia and built high Pangborn bar at Wenatchee. As advancing ice blocked the northwest of Columbia valley, several giant floods descended...
Assessing predation risks for small fish in a large river ecosystem between contrasting habitats and turbidity conditions
Michael J. Dodrill, Michael D. Yard, William E. Pine III
2016, American Midland Naturalist (175) 206-221
This study examined predation risk for juvenile native fish between two riverine shoreline habitats, backwater and debris fan, across three discrete turbidity levels (low, intermediate, high) to understand environmental risks associated with habitat use in a section of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, AZ. Inferences are particularly important to...
Challenges for mapping cyanotoxin patterns from remote sensing of cyanobacteria
Rick P Stumpf, Timothy W. Davis, Timothy T. Wynne, Jennifer L. Graham, Keith A. Loftin, T.H. Johengen, D. Gossiaux, D. Palladino, A. Burtner
2016, Harmful Algae (54) 160-173
Using satellite imagery to quantify the spatial patterns of cyanobacterial toxins has several challenges. These challenges include the need for surrogate pigments – since cyanotoxins cannot be directly detected by remote sensing, the variability in the relationship between the pigments and cyanotoxins – especially microcystins (MC), and the lack of...
Geologic map of the Valdez D-1 and D-2 quadrangles (Mount Wrangell Volcano), Alaska
D.H. Richter, R. G. McGimsey, Keith A. Labay, M. A. Lanphere, R. B. Moore, C.J. Nye, D. S. Rosenkrans, G. R. Winkler
2016, Scientific Investigations Map 3351
Geologic Note Mount Wrangell (elev. 4,317 m) is the youngest and only active volcano in the Oligocene to Holocene-aged Wrangell volcanic field that extends from beyond the Alaska-Yukon border northwest through the Wrangell Mountains to the Copper River Basin. The volcano is a very large (900 km3) broad shield containing an...
Contaminants in urban waters—Science capabilities of the U.S. Geological Survey
John D. Jastram, Kenneth E. Hyer
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3024
Streams and estuaries with urban watersheds commonly exhibit increased streamflow and decreased base flow; diminished stream-channel stability; excessive amounts of contaminants such as pesticides, metals, industrial and municipal waste, and combustion products; and alterations to biotic community structure. Collectively, these detrimental effects have been termed the “urban-stream syndrome.” Water-resource managers...
Urban development and stream ecosystem health—Science capabilities of the U.S. Geological Survey
Pamela A. Reilly, Zoltan Szabo, James F. Coles
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3026
Urban development creates multiple stressors that can degrade stream ecosystems by changing stream hydrology, water quality, and physical habitat. Contaminants, habitat destruction, and increasing streamflow variability resulting from urban development have been associated with the disruption of biological communities, particularly the loss of sensitive aquatic biota. Understanding how algal, invertebrate,...
Urban hydrology—Science capabilities of the U.S. Geological Survey
Joseph M. Bell, Amy E. Simonson, Irene J. Fisher
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3023
Urbanization affects streamflow characteristics, coastal flooding, and groundwater recharge. Increasing impervious areas, streamflow diversions, and groundwater pumpage are some of the ways that the natural water cycle is affected by urbanization. Assessment of the relations among these factors and changes in land use helps water-resource managers with issues such as...
Urban infrastructure and water management—Science capabilities of the U.S. Geological Survey
Shawn C. Fisher, Rosemary M. Fanelli, William R. Selbig
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3025
Managing the urban-water cycle has increasingly become a challenge for water-resources planners and regulators faced with the problem of providing clean drinking water to urban residents. Sanitary and combined sanitary and storm sewer networks convey wastewater to centralized treatment plants. Impervious surfaces, which include roads, parking lots, and buildings, increase...
Seasonal patterns in carbon dioxide in 15 mid-continent (USA) reservoirs
John R. Jones, Daniel V. Obrecht, Jennifer L. Graham, Michelle B. Balmer, Christopher T. Filstrup, John A. Downing
2016, Inland Waters (2) 265-272
Evidence suggests that lakes are important sites for atmospheric CO2 exchange and so play a substantial role in the global carbon budget. Previous research has 2 weaknesses: (1) most data have been collected only during the open-water or summer seasons, and (2) data are concentrated principally on natural lakes in...
Post-Hurricane Ike coastal oblique aerial photographs collected along the Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana barrier islands and the north Texas coast, September 14-15, 2008
Karen L. M. Morgan, M. Dennis Krohn, Kristy K. Guy
2016, Data Series 990
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 vulnerability of the Nation's coasts to extreme storms (Morgan, 2009). On September 14-15, 2008, the USGS conducted an oblique...
Baseline coastal oblique aerial photographs collected from Calcasieu Lake, Louisiana, to Brownsville, Texas, September 9-10, 2008
Karen L. M. Morgan, Karen A. Westphal
2016, Data Series 991
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 vulnerability of the Nation's coasts to extreme storms (Morgan, 2009). On September 9-10, 2008, the USGS conducted an oblique...
Direct observations of ice seasonality reveal changes in climate over the past 320–570 years
Sapna Sharma, John J. Magnuson, Ryan D. Batt, Luke Winslow, Johanna Korhonen, Yasuyuki Aono
2016, Scientific Reports (6)
Lake and river ice seasonality (dates of ice freeze and breakup) responds sensitively to climatic change and variability. We analyzed climate-related changes using direct human observations of ice freeze dates (1443–2014) for Lake Suwa, Japan, and of ice breakup dates (1693–2013) for Torne River, Finland. We found a rich array...
The bee microbiome: Impact on bee health and model for evolution and ecology of host-microbe interactions
Philipp Engel, Waldan K. Kwong, Quinn McFrederick, Kirk E. Anderson, Seth Michael Barribeau, James Angus Chandler, Robert S. Cornman, Jacques Dainat, Joachim R. de Miranda, Vincent Doublet, Olivier Emery, Jay D. Evans, Laurent Farinelli, Michelle Flenniken, Fredrik Granberg, Juris A. Grasis, Laurent Gauthier, Juliette Hayer, Hauke Koch, Sarah Kocher, Vincent G. Martinson, Nancy Moran, Monica Munoz-Torres, Irene Newton, Robert J. Paxton, Eli Powell, Ben M. Sadd, Paul Schmid-Hempel, Regula Schmid-Hempel, Jin Song, Ryan S. Schwarz, Dennis vanEngelsdorp, Benjamin Dainat
2016, mBio
As pollinators, bees are cornerstones for terrestrial ecosystem stability and key components in agricultural productivity. All animals, including bees, are associated with a diverse community of microbes, commonly referred to as the microbiome. The bee microbiome is likely to be a crucial factor affecting host health. However, with the exception...
Spatial and temporal patterns of mercury concentrations in freshwater fish across the Western United States and Canada
Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Joshua T. Ackerman, James J. Willacker, Michael T. Tate, Michelle A. Lutz, Jacob Fleck, A. Robin Stewart, James G. Wiener, David C. Evers, Jesse M. Lepak, Jay A. Davis, Colleen Flanagan Pritz
2016, Science of the Total Environment (568) 1171-1184
Methylmercury contamination of fish is a global threat to environmental health. Mercury (Hg) monitoring programs are valuable for generating data that can be compiled for spatially broad syntheses to identify emergent ecosystem properties that influence fish Hg bioaccumulation. Fish total Hg (THg) concentrations were evaluated across the Western United States...
Carbon dioxide as a tool to deter the movement of invasive bigheaded carps
Michael R. Donaldson, Jon Amberg, Shivani Adhikari, Aaron R. Cupp, Nathan Jensen, Jason G. Romine, Adam Wright, Mark P. Gaikowski, Cory D. Suski
2016, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (145) 657-670
Nonnative bigheaded carps are established in the Mississippi River and there is substantial concern about their potential entry into the interconnected Laurentian Great Lakes. While electrical barriers currently exist as a preventative measure, there is need for additional control mechanisms to promote barrier security through redundancy. We tested the effectiveness...
Magnetotelluric investigation of the Vestfold Hills and Rauer Group, East Antarctica
Jared R. Peacock, Katherine Selway
2016, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (121) 2258-2273
The Vestfold Hills and Rauer Group in East Antarctica have contrasting Archean to Neoproterozoic geological histories and are believed to be juxtaposed along a suture zone that now lies beneath the Sørsdal Glacier. Exact location and age of this suture zone are unknown, as is its relationship to regional deformation...
Will changes in phenology track climate change? A study of growth initiation timing in coast Douglas-fir
Kevin R. Ford, Constance A. Harrington, Sheel Bansal, Petter J. Gould, Bradley St. Clair
2016, Global Change Biology (22) 3712-3723
Under climate change, the reduction of frost risk, onset of warm temperatures and depletion of soil moisture are all likely to occur earlier in the year in many temperate regions. The resilience of tree species will depend on their ability to track these changes in climate with shifts in phenology...
Fluctuating water depths affect American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) body condition in the Everglades, Florida, USA
Laura A. Brandt, Jeffrey S. Beauchamp, Brian M. Jeffery, Michael S. Cherkiss, Frank J. Mazzotti
2016, Ecological Indicators (67) 441-450
Successful restoration of wetland ecosystems requires knowledge of wetland hydrologic patterns and an understanding of how those patterns affect wetland plant and animal populations.Within the Everglades, Florida, USA restoration, an applied science strategy including conceptual ecological models linking drivers to indicators is being used to organize current scientific understanding to...
Longitudinal evaluation of leukocyte transcripts in killer whales (Orcinus Orca)
Tatjana Sitt, Lizabeth Bowen, Chia-Shan Lee, Myra Blanchard, James McBain, Christopher Dold, Jeffrey L. Stott
2016, Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology (175) 7-15
Early identification of illness and/or presence of environmental and/or social stressors in free-ranging and domestic cetaceans is a priority for marine mammal health care professionals. Incorporation of leukocyte gene transcript analysis into the diagnostic tool kit has the potential to augment classical diagnostics based upon ease of sample storage and...
Interactions between hatch dates, growth rates, and mortality of Age-0 native Rainbow Smelt and nonnative Alewife in Lake Champlain
Donna L. Parrish, Paul W. Simonin, Lars G. Rudstam, Bernard Pientka, Patrick J. Sullivan
2016, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (145) 649-656
Timing of hatch in fish populations can be critical for first-year survival and, therefore, year-class strength and subsequent species interactions. We compared hatch timing, growth rates, and subsequent mortality of age-0 Rainbow Smelt Osmerus mordax and Alewife Alosa pseudoharengus, two common open-water fish species of northern North America. In our study site, Lake...
Wave attenuation in the shallows of San Francisco Bay
Jessica R. Lacy, Lissa J. MacVean
2016, Coastal Engineering (114) 159-168
Waves propagating over broad, gently-sloped shallows decrease in height due to frictional dissipation at the bed. We quantified wave-height evolution across 7 km of mudflat in San Pablo Bay (northern San Francisco Bay), an environment where tidal mixing prevents the formation of fluid mud. Wave height was measured along a...
Numerical experiments to explain multiscale hydrological responses to mountain pine beetle tree mortality in a headwater watershed
Colin A. Penn, Lindsay A. Bearup, Reed M. Maxwell, David W. Clow
2016, Water Resources Research (52) 3143-3161
The effects of mountain pine beetle (MPB)-induced tree mortality on a headwater hydrologic system were investigated using an integrated physical modeling framework with a high-resolution computational grid. Simulations of MPB-affected and unaffected conditions, each with identical atmospheric forcing for a normal water year, were compared at multiple scales to evaluate...
U.S. Geological Survey response to flooding in Texas, May–June 2015
Jeffery W. East
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3027
As a Federal science agency within the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collects and disseminates streamflow stage and discharge information along with other types of water information as a major part of its Water mission area. Data collected at USGS streamflow-gaging stations (hereinafter referred to as...
Analysis of stable isotope ratios (δ18O and δ2H) in precipitation of the Verde River watershed, Arizona 2003 through 2014
Kimberly R. Beisner, Nicholas V. Paretti, Rachel S. Tucci
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1053
Stable isotope delta values (δ18O and δ2H) of precipitation can vary with elevation, and quantification of the precipitation elevation gradient can be used to predict recharge elevation within a watershed. Precipitation samples were analyzed for stable isotope delta values between 2003 and 2014 from the Verde River watershed of north-central...
Impacts of climate change on mangrove ecosystems: A region by region overview
Raymond D. Ward, Daniel A. Friess, Richard H. Day, Richard A. MacKenzie
2016, Ecosystem Health and Sustainability (2)
Inter-related and spatially variable climate change factors including sea level rise, increased storminess, altered precipitation regime and increasing temperature are impacting mangroves at regional scales. This review highlights extreme regional variation in climate change threats and impacts, and how these factors impact the structure of mangrove communities, their biodiversity and...
