Effect of diet quality on chronic toxicity of aqueous lead to the amphipod Hyalella azteca
John M. Besser, Chris D. Ivey, William G. Brumbaugh, Christopher G. Ingersoll
2016, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (35) 1825-1834
The authors investigated the chronic toxicity of aqueous Pb to the amphipod Hyalella azteca (Hyalella) in 42-d tests using 2 different diets: 1) the yeastþcereal leafþtrout pellet (YCT) diet, fed at the uniform low ration used in standard methods for sediment toxicity tests; and 2) a new diet of diatomsþTetraMin...
Molecular evidence of undescribed Ceratonova sp. (Cnidaria: Myxosporea) in the freshwater polychaete, Manayunkia speciosa, from western Lake Erie
David M. Malakauskas, Robert Benjamin Snipes, Ann M. Thompson, Donald W. Schloesser
2016, Journal of Invertebrate Pathology (137) 49-53
We used PCR to screen pooled individuals of Manayunkia speciosa from western Lake Erie, Michigan, USA for myxosporean parasites. Amplicons from positive PCRs were sequenced and showed a Ceratonova species in an estimated 1.1% (95% CI = 0.46%, 1.8%) of M. speciosa individuals. We sequenced 18S, ITS1, 5.8S, ITS2 and most of the 28S rDNA regions of...
Practical bias correction in aerial surveys of large mammals: Validation of hybrid double-observer with sightability method against known abundance of feral horse (Equus caballus) populations
Bruce C. Lubow, Jason I. Ransom
Kathryn A. Schoenecker, editor(s)
2016, PLoS ONE (11)
Reliably estimating wildlife abundance is fundamental to effective management. Aerial surveys are one of the only spatially robust tools for estimating large mammal populations, but statistical sampling methods are required to address detection biases that affect accuracy and precision of the estimates. Although various methods for correcting aerial survey bias...
Improve wildlife species tracking—Implementing an enhanced global positioning system data management system for California condors
Robert G. Waltermire, Christopher U. Emmerich, Laura C. Mendenhall, Gil Bohrer, Rolf P. Weinzierl, Andrew J. McGann, Pat K. Lineback, Tim J. Kern, David C. Douglas
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1030
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) staff in the Pacific Southwest Region and at the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex requested technical assistance to improve their global positioning system (GPS) data acquisition, management, and archive in support of the California Condor Recovery Program. The USFWS deployed and maintained GPS...
Geologic history of the Blackbird Co-Cu district in the Lemhi subbasin of the Belt-Purcell Basin
Arthur A. Bookstrom, Stephen E. Box, Pamela M. Cossette, Thomas P. Frost, Virginia Gillerman, George King, N. Alex Zirakparvar
2016, GSA Special Papers (522) 185-219
The Blackbird cobalt-copper (Co-Cu) district in the Salmon River Mountains of east-central Idaho occupies the central part of the Idaho cobalt belt—a northwest-elongate, 55-km-long belt of Co-Cu occurrences, hosted in grayish siliciclastic metasedimentary strata of the Lemhi subbasin (of the Mesoproterozoic Belt-Purcell Basin). The Blackbird district contains at least...
Geology of the Greenwater Range, and the dawn of Death Valley, California—Field guide for the Death Valley Natural History Conference, 2013
J.P. Calzia, O.T. Ramo, Robert Jachens, Eugene Smith, Jeffrey Knott
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1064
Much has been written about the age and formation of Death Valley, but that is one—if not the last—chapter in the fascinating geologic history of this area. Igneous and sedimentary rocks in the Greenwater Range, one mountain range east of Death Valley, tell an earlier story that overlaps with the...
Flow management for hydropower extirpates aquatic insects, undermining river food webs
Theodore A. Kennedy, Jeffrey D. Muehlbauer, Charles B. Yackulic, D.A. Lytle, S.A. Miller, Kimberly L. Dibble, Eric W. Kortenhoeven, Anya N. Metcalfe, Colden V. Baxter
2016, BioScience (66) 561-575
Dams impound the majority of rivers and provide important societal benefits, especially daily water releases that enable on-peak hydroelectricity generation. Such “hydropeaking” is common worldwide, but its downstream impacts remain unclear. We evaluated the response of aquatic insects, a cornerstone of river food webs, to hydropeaking using a life history–hydrodynamic...
Timing and composition of continental volcanism at Harrat Hutaymah, western Saudi Arabia
Robert A. Duncan, Adam J R Kent, Carl Thornber, Tyler D Schliedler, Abdullah M Al-Amri
2016, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (313) 1-14
Harrat Hutaymah is an alkali basalt volcanic field in north-central Saudi Arabia, at the eastern margin of a large Neogene continental, intraplate magmatic province. Lava flow, tephra and spatter cone compositions in the field include alkali olivine basalts and basanites. These compositions contrast with the predominantly tholeiitic, fissure-fed basalts found...
Hydrologic exchanges and baldcypress water use on deltaic hummocks, Louisiana, USA
Yu-Hsin Hsueh, Jim L. Chambers, Ken W. Krauss, Scott T. Allen, Richard F. Keim
2016, Ecohydrology (9) 1452-1463
Coastal forested hummocks support clusters of trees in the saltwater–freshwater transition zone. To examine how hummocks support trees in mesohaline sites that are beyond physiological limits of the trees, we used salinity and stable isotopes (2H and 18O) of water as tracers to understand water fluxes in hummocks and uptake...
Female gonadal hormones and reproductive behaviors as key determinants of successful reproductive output of breeding whooping cranes (Grus americana)
Megan E. Brown, Sarah J. Converse, Jane N. Chandler, Charles Shafer, Janine L Brown, Carol L Keefer, Nucharin Songsasen
2016, General and Comparative Endocrinology (230-231) 158-165
Reproductive success of endangered whooping cranes (Grus americana) maintained ex situ is poor. As part of an effort to identify potential causes of poor reproductive success in a captive colony, we used non-invasive endocrine monitoring to assess gonadal and adrenal steroids of bird pairs with various reproductive outcomes and evaluated the relationships...
Geology of tight oil and potential tight oil reservoirs in the lower part of the Green River Formation, Uinta, Piceance, and Greater Green River Basins, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming
Ronald C. Johnson, Justin E. Birdwell, Tracey J. Mercier, Michael E. Brownfield
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5008
The recent successful development of a tight oil play in the Eocene-age informal Uteland Butte member of the lacustrine Green River Formation in the Uinta Basin, Utah, using modern horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques has spurred a renewed interest in the tight oil potential of lacustrine rocks. The Green...
Geologic and geochemical insights into the formation of the Taiyangshan porphyry copper–molybdenum deposit, Western Qinling Orogenic Belt, China
Kun-Feng Qiu, Ryan D. Taylor, Yao-Hui Song, Hao-Cheng Yu, Kai-Rui Song, Nan Li
2016, Gondwana Research (35) 40-58
Taiyangshan is a poorly studied copper–molybdenum deposit located in the Triassic Western Qinling collisional belt of northwest China. The intrusions exposed in the vicinity of the Taiyangshan deposit record episodic magmatism over 20–30 million years. Pre-mineralization quartz diorite porphyries, which host some of the deposit, were emplaced at 226.6 ± 6.2 Ma. Syn-collisional monzonite and...
A millennial-scale record of Pb and Hg contamination in peatlands of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta of California, USA
Judith Z. Drexler, Charles N. Alpers, Leonid A. Neymark, James B. Paces, Howard E. Taylor, Christopher C. Fuller
2016, Science of the Total Environment (551-552) 738-751
In this paper, we provide the first record of millennial patterns of Pb and Hg concentrations on the west coast of the United States. Peat cores were collected from two micro-tidal marshes in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta of California. Core samples were analyzed for Pb, Hg, and Ti concentrations and...
Spectrally based mapping of riverbed composition
Carl J. Legleiter, Tobin K. Stegman, Brandon T. Overstreet
2016, Geomorphology (264) 61-79
Remote sensing methods provide an efficient means of characterizing fluvial systems. This study evaluated the potential to map riverbed composition based on in situ and/or remote measurements of reflectance. Field spectra and substrate photos from the Snake River, Wyoming, USA, were used to identify different sediment facies and degrees of algal development...
Developing population models with data from marked individuals
Hae Yeong Ryu, Kevin T. Shoemaker, Eva Kneip, Anna Pidgeon, Patricia Heglund, Brooke Bateman, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Resit Akcakaya
2016, Biological Conservation (197) 190-199
Population viability analysis (PVA) is a powerful tool for biodiversity assessments, but its use has been limited because of the requirements for fully specified population models such as demographic structure, density-dependence, environmental stochasticity, and specification of uncertainties. Developing a fully specified population model from commonly available data sources – notably,...
Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge comprehensive conservation plan
Catherine M. Cullinane Thomas, Lynne Koontz
2016, Report
No abstract available....
Regional patterns of total nitrogen concentrations in the National Rivers and Streams Assessment
James M. Omernik, Steven G. Paulsen, Glenn E. Griffith, Marc H. Weber
2016, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation (71) 167-181
Patterns of nitrogen (N) concentrations in streams sampled by the National Rivers and Streams Assessment (NRSA) were examined semiquantitatively to identify regional differences in stream N levels. The data were categorized and analyzed by watershed size classes to reveal patterns of the concentrations that are consistent with the spatial homogeneity...
Federal interagency nature‐like fishway passage design guidelines for Atlantic coast diadromous fishes
James Turek, Alexander J. Haro, Brett Towler
2016, Report
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) have collaborated to develop passage design guidance for use by engineers and other restoration practitioners considering and designing nature‐like fishways (NLFs). The primary purpose of these guidelines is to provide a...
Organic petrology and geochemistry of Eocene Suzak bituminous marl, north-central Afghanistan: Depositional environment and source rock potential
Paul C. Hackley, John Sanfilipo
2016, Marine and Petroleum Geology (73) 572-589
Organic geochemistry and petrology of Eocene Suzak bituminous marl outcrop samples from Madr village in north-central Afghanistan were characterized via an integrated analytical approach to evaluate depositional environment and source rock potential. Multiple proxies suggest the organic-rich (TOC ∼6 wt.%) bituminous marls are ‘immature’ for oil generation (e.g., vitrinite Ro < 0.4%, Tmax < 425 °C,...
Do transmitters affect survival and body condition of American beavers Castor canadensis?
Joshua B. Smith, Steve K. Windels, Tiffany Wolf, Robert W. Klaver, Jerrold L. Belant
2016, Wildlife Biology (22) 117-123
One key assumption often inferred with using radio-equipped individuals is that the transmitter has no effect on the metric of interest. To evaluate this assumption, we used a known fate model to assess the effect of transmitter type (i.e. tail-mounted or peritoneal implant) on short-term (one year) survival and a...
Summary of the GK15 ground‐motion prediction equation for horizontal PGA and 5% damped PSA from shallow crustal continental earthquakes
Vladimir; Graizer, Erol Kalkan
2016, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (106) 687-707
We present a revised ground‐motion prediction equation (GMPE) for computing medians and standard deviations of peak ground acceleration (PGA) and 5% damped pseudospectral acceleration (PSA) response ordinates of the horizontal component of randomly oriented ground motions to be used for seismic‐hazard analyses and engineering applications. This GMPE is derived from...
Estimating forest and woodland aboveground biomass using active and passive remote sensing
Zhuoting Wu, Dennis G. Dye, John M. Vogel, Barry R. Middleton
2016, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing (82) 271-281
Aboveground biomass was estimated from active and passive remote sensing sources, including airborne lidar and Landsat-8 satellites, in an eastern Arizona (USA) study area comprised of forest and woodland ecosystems. Compared to field measurements, airborne lidar enabled direct estimation of individual tree height with a slope of 0.98 (R2 = 0.98)....
Coesite in suevites from the Chesapeake Bay impact structure
John C. Jackson, J. Wright Horton Jr., I-Ming Chou, Harvey E. Belkin
2016, Meteoritics and Planetary Science (51) 946-965
The occurrence of coesite in suevites from the Chesapeake Bay impact structure is confirmed within a variety of textural domains in situ by Raman spectroscopy for the first time and in mechanically separated grains by X-ray diffraction. Microtextures of coesite identified in situ investigated under transmitted light and by scanning electron microscope...
Trends in pesticide use on soybean, corn and cotton since the introduction of major genetically modified crops in the United States
Richard H. Coupe, Paul D. Capel
2016, Pest Management Science (72) 1013-1022
BACKGROUNDGenetically modified (GM) varieties of soybean, corn and cotton have largely replaced conventional varieties in the United States. The most widely used applications of GM technology have been the development of crops that are resistant to a specific broad-spectrum herbicide (primarily glyphosate) or that produce insecticidal compounds within the plant...
Economic impacts of a California tsunami
Adam Rose, Ian Sue Wing, Dan Wei, Anne Wein
2016, Natural Hazards Review (17) 1-12
The economic consequences of a tsunami scenario for Southern California are estimated using computable general equilibrium analysis. The economy is modeled as a set of interconnected supply chains interacting through markets but with explicit constraints stemming from property damage and business downtime. Economic impacts are measured by...
