Lake Ontario August gillnet survey and Lake Trout assessment, 2022
Brian O'Malley, Brian F. Lantry, Scott P. Minihkeim, James Duncan Mckenna, Jessica A. Goretzke, Alexander J. Gatch, Dimitry Gorsky
2023, Report
Lake Ontario Lake Trout (Salvelinus namaycush) rehabilitation has been annually assessed with fishery independent surveys since 1983, in an effort to evaluate program benchmarks and compare observations with management objectives. These surveys provide information on the abundance, strain composition, and condition of the adult Lake Trout stock, as well as...
Observed and projected functional reorganization of riverine fish assemblages from global change
Taylor E Woods, Mary Freeman, Kevin P. Krause, Kelly O. Maloney
2023, Global Change Biology (29) 3759-3780
Climate and land-use/land-cover change (‘global change’) are restructuring biodiversity, globally. Broadly, environmental conditions are expected to become warmer, potentially drier (particularly in arid regions), and more anthropogenically developed in the future, with spatiotemporally complex effects on ecological communities. We used functional traits to inform...
Landsat Collection 2 U.S. Analysis Ready Data
U.S. Geological Survey
2023, Fact Sheet 2023-3015
Landsat Collection 2 (C2) U.S. Analysis Ready Data (U.S. ARD) are bundles of tiled Landsat data that make the Landsat archive easier to analyze and reduce the amount of time users spend on data processing for time-series analysis. Landsat C2 was released in 2020 and includes improvements over Landsat Collection...
Salinity and selenium yield maps derived from geostatistical modeling in the lower Gunnison River Basin, western Colorado, 1992–2013
Cory A. Williams, Rachel G. Gidley, Michael R. Stevens
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5013
Salinity is known to affect drinking-water supplies and damage irrigated agricultural lands. Selenium in high concentrations is harmful to fish and other wildlife. Land managers, water providers, and agricultural producers in the lower Gunnison River Basin in western Colorado expend resources mitigating the effects of these constituents. The U.S. Geological...
Visualization of petroleum exploration maturity for six petroleum provinces outside the United States and Canada
Emil D. Attanasi, Philip A. Freeman
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5010
Outside the United States and Canada, most of the world’s supplies of oil and natural gas are recovered from conventional (or discrete) oil and gas accumulations. This type of hydrocarbon accumulation remains a target for exploration. In this report, exploration and discovery data are used to visually assist in describing...
Preliminary surficial geologic map of Leuhman Ridge and the surrounding area, Edwards Air Force Base and Air Force Research Laboratory, Kern and San Bernardino Counties, California
Andrew J. Cyr, David M. Miller
2023, Open-File Report 2023-1014
This preliminary geologic map presents mapping of the Leuhman Ridge area of Edwards Air Force Base, California, conducted between April 2020 and June 2021. The report focuses on surficial materials and bedrock to evaluate potential faults and other geologic features that may influence groundwater movement. The preliminary work confirms that...
Potential effects of climate change on Ambystoma barbouri (streamside salamander)
Marta P. Lyons, Olivia E. LeDee, Ryan Boyles
2023, Open-File Report 2021-1104-C
Ambystoma barbouri (streamside salamanders) are stream-breeding mole salamanders that rely on seasonally intermittent, fishless streams for egg and larval development but are primarily fossorial as adults. Climate-driven changes are likely to alter streamflow duration, peak, and seasonality within the range of A. barbouri, reducing reproductive habitat and larval survival. Although...
Nonlinear radiation damping: A new method for dissipating energy in dynamic earthquake rupture simulations
Michael Barall, Ruth A. Harris
2023, The Seismic Record (3) 69-76
Dynamic earthquake rupture simulations are used to understand earthquake mechanics and the ground shaking that earthquakes produce. These simulations can help diagnose past earthquake behavior and are also used to generate scenarios of possible future earthquakes. Traditional dynamic rupture models generally assume elastic rock response, but this can lead to...
High-resolution recording of foraging behaviour over multiple annual cycles shows decline in old Adélie penguins’ performance
Amélie Lescroël, Annie Schmidt, David G. Ainley, Katie Dugger, Megan Elrod, Dennis Jongsomjit, Virginia Morandini, Suzanne Winquist, Grant Ballard
2023, Proceedings of the Royal Society B (290)
Age-related variation in foraging performance can result from both within-individual change and selection processes. These mechanisms can only be disentangled by using logistically challenging long-term, longitudinal studies. Coupling a long-term demographic data set with high-temporal-resolution tracking of 18 Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae, age 4–15 yrs old) over three consecutive annual...
Assessment of three methods to evaluate the distribution of submersed aquatic vegetation in western Lake Erie
Nicole R. King, Jenny L. Hanson, Travis J. Harrison, Patrick M. Kočovský, Christine M. Mayer
2023, Hydrobiologia (850) 1737-1750
Submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV) plays an important role in ecosystems. Inventories of SAV spatial distribution and composition are important for monitoring changes in SAV. In this study, we compared three common SAV sampling methods to quantify SAV in western Lake Erie. Aerial imagery of near-shore areas...
Nocturnal basking in freshwater turtles: A global assessment
Donald T. McKnight, Kendall Ard, Renoir J. Auguste, Gaurav Barhadiya, Michael F. Benard, Paige Boban, Martin L. Dillon, Colleen T. Downs, Brett Alexander DeGregorio, Brad Glorioso, Rachel M. Goodman, Coen Hird, Ethan C. Hollender, Malcolm Kennedy, Rosie A. Kidman, Andrhea Massey, Pearson McGovern, Max Mühlenhaupt, Kayhan Ostovar, Danusia Podgorski, Cormac Price, Beth A. Reinke, Louise M. Streeting, Jane Venezia, Jeanne Young, Eric J. Nordberg
2023, Global Ecology and Conservation (43)
Diurnal basking (“sunning”) is common in many ectotherms and is generally thought to be a behavioural mechanism for thermoregulation. Recent studies have reported the occurrence of nocturnal basking in a few distantly-related species of freshwater turtles, but the true extent of this behaviour is...
Does coat colour influence survival? A test in a cyclic population of snowshoe hares
Madan K. Oli, Alice J Kenny, Rudy Boonstra, Stan Boutin, Dennis L. Murray, Michael J.L. Peers, B. Scott Gilbert, Thomas S. Jung, Vratika Chaudhary, James E. Hines, Charles J Krebs
2023, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Ser B. (290)
Some mammal species inhabiting high-latitude biomes have evolved a seasonal moulting pattern that improves camouflage via white coats in winter and brown coats in summer. In many high-latitude and high-altitude areas, the duration and depth of snow cover has been substantially reduced in the last five decades....
Calibration of imperfect geophysical models by multiple satellite interferograms with measurement bias
Mengyang Gu, Kyle R. Anderson, Erika McPhillips
2023, Technometrics (65) 453-464
Model calibration consists of using experimental or field data to estimate the unknown parameters of a mathematical model. The presence of model discrepancy and measurement bias in the data complicates this task. Satellite interferograms, for instance, are widely used for calibrating geophysical models in geological hazard quantification....
Energy-related wastewater contamination alters microbial communities of sediment, water, and amphibian skin
Brian J. Tornabene, Kelly L. Smalling, Carrie E Givens, Emily Bea Oja, Blake R. Hossack
2023, Science of the Total Environment (880)
To inform responsible energy development, it is important to understand the ecological effects of contamination events. Wastewaters, a common byproduct of oil and gas extraction, often contain high concentrations of sodium chloride (NaCl) and heavy metals (e.g., strontium and vanadium). These constituents can negatively...
Investigating spatio-temporal variability of initial 230Th/232Th in intertidal corals
Hong-Wei Chiang, Belle E. Philibosian, Aron J. Meltzner, Chung-Che Wu, Chuan-Chou Shen, R. Lawrence Edwards, Chih-Kai Chuang, Bambang W. Suwargadi, Danny H. Natawidjaja
2023, Quaternary Science Reviews (307)
One of the key factors in obtaining precise and accurate 230Th ages of corals, especially for corals with ages less than a few thousand years, is the correction for non-radiogenic 230Th based on an initial 230Th/232Th value (230Th/232Th0). Studies that consider coral 230Th/232Th0 values in intertidal environments are limited, and it is in these environments...
22 years of aquatic plant spatiotemporal dynamics in the upper Mississippi River
Alicia Carhart, Jason J. Rohweder, Danelle M. Larson
2023, Diversity (15)
Macrophyte (aquatic plant) recovery has occurred in rivers worldwide, but assemblage patterns and habitat requirements are generally not well understood. We examined patterns of species composition and macrophyte abundance in the Upper Mississippi River (UMR), spanning 22 years of monitoring and a period of vegetation recovery. Non-metric multidimensional scaling...
A new permanent, low-cost, low-power SO2 camera for continuous measurement of volcanic emissions
Thomas Charles Wilkes, Tom David Pering, Felipe Aguilera, Susana Layana, Patricia Nadeau, Christoph Kern, Andrew J.S. McGonigle, Mauricio Aguilera, Chengxi Zhu
2023, Frontiers in Earth Science (11)
Since its introduction to volcanology in the mid-2000 s, the SO2 camera has become an important instrument for the acquisition of accurate and high time-resolution SO2 emission rates, aiding in hazard assessment and volcanological research. However, with the exception of a few locations (Stromboli, Etna, Kīlauea), hitherto the majority of measurements...
U.S. Geological Survey and Blackfeet Water Department Hydrologic Assessment of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Montana
Sean M. Lawlor, Rodney R. Caldwell, Timothy T. Bartos, Brett Price
2023, Fact Sheet 2023-3012
The Blackfeet Nation seeks an increased scientific understanding of the water resources within the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of northwestern Montana. Hydrologic information is needed to better inform water-management decisions as the Blackfeet Nation implements the Blackfeet Water Rights Compact, initiates new water-use projects, and improves the Blackfeet Irrigation Project.The U.S....
Gulf watch Alaska: Long-term research and monitoring in the Gulf of Alaska
Robert M. Suryan, Mandy Lindeberg, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Daniel Esler, Heather Coletti, Russell Hopcroft, W. Scott Pegau
2023, Newsletter
Within the Gulf of Alaska, in the North Pacific Ocean, three major events - both natural and human-caused – resulted in large-scale ecosystem changes during the last 50 years...
Population dynamics and harvest management of eastern mallards
Anthony J. Roberts, Jeffrey A. Hostetler, Joshua C. Stiller, Patrick K. Devers, William Link
2023, Journal of Wildlife Management (87)
Managing sustainable harvest of wildlife populations requires regular collection of demographic data and robust estimates of demographic parameters. Estimates can then be used to develop a harvest strategy to guide decision-making. Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) are an important species in the Atlantic Flyway for many...
Multiresidue extraction of current-use pesticides from complex solid matrices using energized dispersive guided extraction with analysis by gas and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectroscopy
Gabrielle Pecora Black, Emily Woodward, Corey Sanders, Michael S. Gross, Michelle Hladik
2023, Chemosphere (327)
The development of sample processing techniques that recover a broad suite of pesticides from solid matrices, while mitigating coextracted matrix interferences, and reducing processing time is beneficial for high throughput analyses. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an automated...
Flood-frequency analysis in the Midwest: Addressing potential nonstationarity of annual peak-flow records
Mackenzie K. Marti, Karen R. Ryberg, Sara B. Levin
2023, Newsletter
Flood-frequency analysis is essential in numerous water-resource management applications, including critical structure design and flood-plain mapping. A basic assumption within Bulletin 17C [1], the standardized guidelines for conducting flood-frequency analysis, is that basins without major hydrologic alterations, such as regulation or urbanization, exhibit stationary statistical properties of the distribution of...
The Lower Cretaceous sequence of western Alaska – demise of the Koyukuk terrane?
Travis L. Hudson, Robert Blodgett, Frederic H. Wilson
2023, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (60) 422-441
Lower Cretaceous marine sedimentary rocks, deposited in shallow shelf and basin settings and unconformity-bound, are well exposed in southwest Alaska. Collections of Early Cretaceous fossils from across western Alaska show that similar and coeval Lower Cretaceous clastic rocks are widely distributed though only locally exposed. Volcanic rocks become...
The NEON Ecological Forecasting Challenge
R. Quinn Thomas, Carl Boettiger, Cayelan C. Carey, Michael Dietze, Leah R. Johnson, Melissa A. Kenney, Jason S. McLachlan, Jody A. Peters, Eric R. Sokol, Jake Weltzin, Alyssa Willson, Whitney M. Woelmer
2023, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (21) 112-113
The 21st century continues to be characterized by major changes to the environment and the ecosystem services upon which society depends. Anticipating and responding to these changes requires that scientists explicitly forecast future conditions in real time (Dietze et al. 2018). Ecological forecasting, like weather and...
Habitat use by breeding waterbirds in relation to tidal marsh restoration in the San Francisco Bay estuary
Carley Rose Schacter, C. Alex Hartman, Mark P. Herzog, Sarah H. Peterson, Max L. Tarjan, Yewei Wang, Cheryl Strong, Rachel Tertes, Neil Warnock, Josh T. Ackerman
2023, San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science (21)
The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project aims to restore many former salt production ponds, now managed for wildlife and water quality, to tidal marsh. However, because managed ponds support large densities of breeding waterbirds, reduction of pond habitat may influence breeding...
