Comments to Middle Miocene closure of the Central American Seaway
A.G. Coates, Robert F. Stallard
2016, Science (348)
In a recent paper proposing an early (mid-Miocene) closure of the Central American Seaway (CAS), Montes et al. 2015 (1) disregard existing paleogeographic data that invalidate Panama as a source for zircons, and inappropriately ignore the evidence for trans-isthmian marine connections until 4-3 Ma. They also fail to cite previous...
Map visualization of groundwater withdrawals at the sub-basin scale
Daniel J. Goode
2016, Hydrogeology Journal (24) 1057-1065
A simple method is proposed to visualize the magnitude of groundwater withdrawals from wells relative to user-defined water-resource metrics. The map is solely an illustration of the withdrawal magnitudes, spatially centered on wells—it is not capture zones or source areas contributing recharge to wells. Common practice is to...
Emerging coral diseases in Kāne'ohe Bay, O'ahu, Hawai'i (USA): two major disease outbreaks of acute Montipora white syndrome
Greta S. Aeby, Sean Callahan, Evelyn F. Cox, Christina M. Runyon, Ashley Smith, Frank G. Stanton, Blake Ushijima, Thierry M. Work
2016, Diseases of Aquatic Organisms (119) 189-198
In March 2010 and January 2012, we documented 2 widespread and severe coral disease outbreaks on reefs throughout Kāne‘ohe Bay, Hawai‘i (USA). The disease, acute Montipora white syndrome (aMWS), manifested as acute and progressive tissue loss on the common reef coral M. capitata. Rapid visual surveys in 2010 revealed 338...
Ecology and control of an introduced population of Southern Watersnakes (Nerodia fasciata) in southern California
Robert Reed, Brian D Todd, Oliver J. Miano, Mark Canfield, Robert N. Fisher, Louanne McMartin
2016, Herpetologica (72) 130-136
Native to the southeastern United States, Southern Watersnakes (Nerodia fasciata) are known from two sites in California, but their ecological impacts are poorly understood. We investigated the ecology of Southern Watersnakes in Machado Lake, Harbor City, Los Angeles County, California, including an assessment of control opportunities. We captured 306 watersnakes...
Planning for ex situ conservation in the face of uncertainty
Stefano Canessa, Sarah J. Converse, Matt West, Nick Clemann, Graeme Gillespie, Michael McFadden, Aimee J. Silla, Kirsten M Parris, Michael A McCarthy
2016, Conservation Biology (30) 599-609
Ex situ conservation strategies for threatened species often require long-term commitment and financial investment to achieve management objectives. We present a framework that considers the decision to adopt ex situ management for a target species as the end point of several linked decisions. We used a decision tree to intuitively...
Should fatty acid signature proportions sum to 1 for diet estimation?
Jeffrey F. Bromaghin, Suzanne M. Budge, Gregory W. Thiemann
2016, Ecological Research (31) 597-606
Knowledge of predator diets, including how diets might change through time or differ among predators, provides essential insights into their ecology. Diet estimation therefore remains an active area of research within quantitative ecology. Quantitative fatty acid signature analysis (QFASA) is an increasingly common method of diet estimation. QFASA is based...
Palaeodata-informed modelling of large carbon losses from recent burning of boreal forests
Ryan Kelly, Helene Genet, A. David McGuire, Feng Sheng Hu
2016, Nature Climate Change (6) 79-82
Wildfires play a key role in the boreal forest carbon cycle1, <a id="ref-link-2" title="Bond-Lamberty, B., Peckham, S. D., Ahl,...
Book review: Current perspectives on zinc deposits
Karen D. Kelley
2016, Economic Geology (111) 545-546
This book, published in 2015 by the Irish Association for Economic Geology (IAEG), is a compilation of papers and abstracts written by selected authors who attended the ZINC 2010 Conference in Cork, Ireland. Unlike most books produced each decade by the IAEG, which are focused primarily on achievements of the Irish and...
Book review: Advances in reintroduction biology of Australian and New Zealand fauna
Erin L. Muths
2016, Journal of Wildlife Management (80) 579-580
Reintroduction, and other forms of moving animals around the landscape, is an established action that has been used in the...
Book review: New concepts and discoveries: the Geological Society of Nevada 2015 Symposium Proceedings
Warren C. Day
2016, Economic Geology (111) 543-546
The Nevada Geological Society has a long history of convening meetings and workshops focused on the geology and metallogeny of the western United States relevant to the mineral exploration and mining community across the Great Basin. One outgrowth of the Geological Society of Nevada’s 2015 Symposium is a two-volume set,...
Geologic map of the Morena Reservoir 7.5-minute quadrangle, San Diego County, California
Victoria R. Todd
2016, Open-File Report 95-50
IntroductionMapping in the Morena Reservoir 7.5-minute quadrangle began in 1980, when the Hauser Wilderness Area, which straddles the Morena Reservoir and Barrett Lake quadrangles, was mapped for the U.S. Forest Service. Mapping was completed in 1993–1994. The Morena Reservoir quadrangle contains part of a regional-scale Late Jurassic(?) to Early Cretaceous...
Enhancing drought resilience with conjunctive use and managed aquifer recharge in California and Arizona
Bridget R. Scanlon, Robert C. Reedy, Claudia C. Faunt, Donald R. Pool, Kristine; Uhlman
2016, Environmental Research Letters (11)
Projected longer‐term droughts and intense floods underscore the need to store more water to manage climate extremes. Here we show how depleted aquifers have been used to store water by substituting surface water use for groundwater pumpage (conjunctive use, CU) or recharging groundwater with surface water (Managed Aquifer Recharge, MAR)....
Hydrologic analyses in support of the Navajo Generating Station–Kayenta Mine Complex environmental impact statement
Stanley A. Leake, Jamie P. Macy, Margot Truini
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1088
IntroductionThe U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation, Lower Colorado Region (Reclamation) is preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Navajo Generating Station-Kayenta Mine Complex Project (NGS-KMC Project). The proposed project involves various Federal approvals that would facilitate continued operation of the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) from December...
Number of genera as a potential screening tool for assessing quality of bryophyte communities in Ohio wetlands
William Schumacher, Martin A. Stapanian, Barbara Andreas, Brian Gara
2016, Wetlands (36) 771-778
Bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts) have numerous advantages as indicators of environmental quality. A quality assessment index for bryophyte species assemblages (BQAI) was developed for the State of Ohio, USA. Reliable identification of bryophytes to species often requires considerable training, practice, and time. In contrast, reliable identification to genera for...
Design for mosquito abundance, diversity, and phenology sampling within the National Ecological Observatory Network
D. Hoekman, Yuri P. Springer, C.M. Barker, R. Barrera, M.S. Blackmore, W.E. Bradshaw, D. H. Foley, Howard S. Ginsberg, M. H. Hayden, C. M. Holzapfel, S. A. Juliano, L. D. Kramer, S. L. LaDeau, T. P. Livdahl, C. G. Moore, R.S. Nasci, W.K. Reisen, H. M. Savage
2016, Ecosphere (7)
The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) intends to monitor mosquito populations across its broad geographical range of sites because of their prevalence in food webs, sensitivity to abiotic factors and relevance for human health. We describe the design of mosquito population sampling in the context of NEON’s long term continental...
Assessment of error rates in acoustic monitoring with the R package monitoR
Jonathan Katz, Sasha D. Hafner, Therese Donovan
2016, Bioacoustics: The International Journal of Animal Sound and its Recording (25) 177-196
Detecting population-scale reactions to climate change and land-use change may require monitoring many sites for many years, a process that is suited for an automated system. We developed and tested monitoR, an R package for long-term, multi-taxa acoustic monitoring programs. We tested monitoR with two northeastern songbird species: black-throated green...
Future land-use related water demand in California
Tamara Wilson, Benjamin M. Sleeter, D. Richard Cameron
2016, Environmental Research Letters (11)
Water shortages in California are a growing concern amidst ongoing drought, earlier spring snowmelt, projected future climate warming, and currently mandated water use restrictions. Increases in population and land use in coming decades will place additional pressure on already limited available water supplies. We used a state-and-transition simulation model to...
Regional assessment of persistent organic pollutants in resident mussels from New Jersey and New York estuaries following Hurricane Sandy
Kelly L. Smalling, Ashok D. Deshpande, Heather S. Galbraith, Beth Sharack, DeMond Timmons, Ronald J. Baker
2016, Marine Pollution Bulletin (107) 432-441
Resident mussels are effective indicators of ecosystem health and have been utilized in national assessment and monitoring studies for over two decades. Mussels were chosen because contaminant concentrations in their tissues respond to changes in ambient environmental levels, accumulation occurs with little metabolic transformation and a substantial amount of historic...
Dynamic simulation and numerical analysis of hurricane storm surge under sea level rise with geomorphologic changes along the northern Gulf of Mexico
Matthew V. Bilskie, S.C. Hagen, K.A. Alizad, S.C. Medeiros, Davina Passeri, H.F. Needham, A. Cox
2016, Earth's Future (4) 177-193
This work outlines a dynamic modeling framework to examine the effects of global climate change, and sea level rise (SLR) in particular, on tropical cyclone-driven storm surge inundation. The methodology, applied across the northern Gulf of Mexico, adapts a present day large-domain, high resolution, tide, wind-wave, and hurricane storm surge...
Landsat Science Team: 2016 winter meeting summary
Todd Schroeder, Thomas Loveland, Michael A. Wulder, James R. Irons
2016, The Earth Observer 19-23
The winter meeting of the joint U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)–NASA Landsat Science Team (LST) was held January 12-14, 2016, at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, VA. LST co-chairs Tom Loveland [USGS’s Earth Resources Observation and Science Data Center (EROS)—Senior Scientist] and Jim Irons [NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)—Landsat 8...
Mercury accumulation, and the mercury-PCB-sex interaction, in lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis)
Charles P. Madenjian, Mark P. Ebener, David P. Krabbenhoft
2016, Environments (3)
We determined whole-fish Hg concentrations of 26 female and 34 male adult lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) from northern Lake Huron captured during November 2010. Subsampling from these 60 fish, Hg concentration was also determined in both the somatic tissue and ovaries (n=5), while methylmercury (MeHg) concentration was determined in whole...
A decision framework for identifying models to estimate forest ecosystem services gains from restoration
Zachary Christin, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Michael Verdone
2016, Forest Ecosystems (3)
Restoring degraded forests and agricultural lands has become a global conservation priority. A growing number of tools can quantify ecosystem service tradeoffs associated with forest restoration. This evolving “tools landscape” presents a dilemma: more tools are available, but selecting appropriate tools has become more challenging. We present a Restoration Ecosystem...
Optical properties of dissolved organic matter (DOM): Effects of biological and photolytic degradation
Angela Hansen, Tamara E. C. Kraus, Brian Pellerin, Jacob Fleck, Bryan D. Downing, Brian A. Bergamaschi
2016, Limnology and Oceanography (61) 1015-1032
Advances in spectroscopic techniques have led to an increase in the use of optical properties (absorbance and fluorescence) to assess dissolved organic matter (DOM) composition and infer sources and processing. However, little information is available to assess the impact of biological and photolytic processing on the optical properties of original...
MODIS derived vegetation index for drought detection on the San Carlos Apache Reservation
Zhuoting Wu, Miguel G. Velasco, Jason McVay, Barry R. Middleton, John M. Vogel, Dennis G. Dye
2016, International Journal of Advanced Remote Sensing and GIS (5) 1524-1538
A variety of vegetation indices derived from remotely sensed data have been used to assess vegetation conditions, enabling the identification of drought occurrences as well as the evaluation of drought impacts. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Terra 8-day composite data were used to compute the Modified Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index...
Tools for automated acoustic monitoring within the R package monitoR
Jonathan Katz, Sasha D. Hafner, Therese Donovan
2016, Bioacoustics: The International Journal of Animal Sound and its Recording (25) 197-210
The R package monitoR contains tools for managing an acoustic-monitoring program including survey metadata, template creation and manipulation, automated detection and results management. These tools are scalable for use with small projects as well as larger long-term projects and those with expansive spatial extents. Here, we describe typical workflow when...
