An evaluation of unsupervised and supervised learning algorithms for clustering landscape types in the United States
Jochen Wendel, Barbara P. Buttenfield, Larry V. Stanislawski
2016, Cartography and Geographic Information Science (43) 233-249
Knowledge of landscape type can inform cartographic generalization of hydrographic features, because landscape characteristics provide an important geographic context that affects variation in channel geometry, flow pattern, and network configuration. Landscape types are characterized by expansive spatial gradients, lacking abrupt changes between adjacent classes; and as having a limited number...
Evaluating abundance and trends in a Hawaiian avian community using state-space analysis
Richard J. Camp, Kevin W. Brinck, P. M. Gorresen, Eben H. Paxton
2016, Bird Conservation International (26) 225-242
Estimating population abundances and patterns of change over time are important in both ecology and conservation. Trend assessment typically entails fitting a regression to a time series of abundances to estimate population trajectory. However, changes in abundance estimates from year-to-year across time are due to both true variation in population...
A new method for discovering behavior patterns among animal movements
Y. Wang, Ze Luo, John Y. Takekawa, Diann J. Prosser, Y. Xiong, S. Newman, X. Xiao, N. Batbayar, Kyle A. Spragens, S. Balachandran, B. Yan
2016, International Journal of Geographical Information Science (30) 929-947
Advanced satellite tracking technologies enable biologists to track animal movements at fine spatial and temporal scales. The resultant data present opportunities and challenges for understanding animal behavioral mechanisms. In this paper, we develop a new method to elucidate animal movement patterns from tracking data. Here, we propose the notion of...
Human activities cause distinct dissolved organic matter composition across freshwater ecosystems
Clayton J. Williams, Paul C. Frost, Ana M. Morales-Williams, James H. Larson, William B. Richardson, Aisha S. Chiandet, Marguerite A. Xenopoulos
2016, Global Change Biology (22) 613-626
Dissolved organic matter (DOM) composition in freshwater ecosystems is influenced by interactions between physical, chemical, and biological processes that are controlled, at one level, by watershed landscape, hydrology, and their connections. Against this environmental template, humans may strongly influence DOM composition. Yet, we lack a comprehensive understanding of DOM composition...
Precipitation regime classification for the Mojave Desert: Implications for fire occurrence
Jerry Tagestad, Matthew L. Brooks, Valerie Cullinan, Janelle Downs, Randy McKinley
2016, Journal of Arid Environments (124) 388-397
Long periods of drought or above-average precipitation affect Mojave Desert vegetation condition, biomass and susceptibility to fire. Changes in the seasonality of precipitation alter the likelihood of lightning, a key ignition source for fires. The objectives of this study were to characterize the relationship between recent, historic, and future precipitation...
Blind identification of the Millikan Library from earthquake data considering soil–structure interaction
S. F. Ghahari, F. Abazarsa, O. Avci, Mehmet Çelebi, E. Taciroglu
2016, Structural Control and Health Monitoring (23) 684-706
The Robert A. Millikan Library is a reinforced concrete building with a basement level and nine stories above the ground. Located on the campus of California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena California, it is among the most densely instrumented buildings in the U.S. From the early dates of its...
Seasonal temperature and precipitation regulate brook trout young-of-the-year abundance and population dynamics
Yoichiro Kanno, Kasey C. Pregler, Nathaniel P. Hitt, Benjamin Letcher, Daniel Hocking, John E. B. Wofford
2016, Freshwater Biology (61) 88-99
Abundance of the young‐of‐the‐year (YOY) fish can vary greatly among years and it may be driven by several key biological processes (i.e. adult spawning, egg survival and fry survival) that span several months. However, the relative influence of seasonal weather patterns on YOY abundance is poorly understood.We assessed the...
Restoration of impaired ecosystems: An ounce of prevention or a pound of cure? introduction, overview, and key messages from a SETAC-SER workshop
Aida M. Farag, Ruth N. Hull, Will H. Clements, Steve Glomb, Diane L. Larson, Ralph G. Stahl, Jenny Stauber
2016, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (12) 247-252
A workshop on Restoration of Impaired Ecosystems was held in Jackson, Wyoming, in June 2014. Experts from Australia, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States in ecotoxicology, restoration, and related fields from both the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry and the Society for Ecological Restoration convened to...
Behavioural response of adult sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) to predator and conspecific alarm cues: evidence of additive effects
Richard T. Di Rocco, Istvan Imre, Nicholas S. Johnson, Grant B Brown
2016, Hydrobiologia (767) 279-287
Sea lampreys Petromyzon marinus, an invasive pest in the Upper Great Lakes, avoid odours that represent danger in their habitat. These odours include conspecific alarm cues and predator cues, like 2-phenylethylamine hydrochloride (PEA HCl), which is found in the urine of mammalian predators. Whether conspecific alarm cues and predator cues...
Two Holocene paleofire records from Peten, Guatemala: Implications for natural fire regime and prehispanic Maya land use
Lysanna Anderson, David B. Wahl
2016, Global and Planetary Change (138) 82-92
Although fire was arguably the primary tool used by the Maya to alter the landscape and extract resources, little attention has been paid to biomass burning in paleoenvironmental reconstructions from the Maya lowlands. Here we report two new well-dated, high-resolution records of biomass burning based on analysis of macroscopic fossil...
Evaluating the adequacy of a reference site pool for ecological assessments in environmentally complex regions
Peter R. Ode, Andrew C. Rehn, Raphael D. Mazor, Kenneth C. Schiff, Eric D. Stein, Jason May, Larry R. Brown, David B. Herbst, D.D. Gillette, Kevin Lunde, Charles P. Hawkins
2016, Freshwater Science (35) 237-248
Many advances in the field of bioassessment have focused on approaches for objectively selecting the pool of reference sites used to establish expectations for healthy waterbodies, but little emphasis has been placed on ways to evaluate the suitability of the reference-site pool for its intended applications (e.g., compliance assessment vs...
Relationships of maternal body size and morphology with egg and clutch size in the diamondback terrapin, Malaclemys terrapin (Testudines: Emydidae)
Maximilian M. Kern, Jacquelyn C. Guzy, Jeffrey E. Lovich, J. Whitfield Gibbons, Michael E. Dorcas
2016, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (117) 295-304
Because resources are finite, female animals face trade-offs between the size and number of offspring they are able to produce during a single reproductive event. Optimal egg size (OES) theory predicts that any increase in resources allocated to reproduction should increase clutch size with minimal effects on egg size. Variations...
Improving conservation outcomes with a new paradigm for understanding species’ fundamental and realized adaptive capacity
Erik A. Beever, John O’Leary, Claudia Mengelt, Jordan M. West, Susan Julius, Nancy Green, Dawn Magness, Laura E. Petes, Bruce A. Stein, Adrienne B Nicotra, Jessica J Hellmann, Amanda L Robertson, Michelle D. Staudinger, Andrew A. Rosenberg, Eleanora Babij, Jean Brennan, Gregor W. Schuurman, Gretchen E Hofmann
2016, Conservation Letters (9) 131-137
Worldwide, many species are responding to ongoing climate change with shifts in distribution, abundance, phenology, or behavior. Consequently, natural-resource managers face increasingly urgent conservation questions related to biodiversity loss, expansion of invasive species, and deteriorating ecosystem services. We argue that our ability to address these questions is hampered by the...
Assessing variability in chemical acute toxicity of unionid mussels: Influence of intra- and inter-laboratory testing, life stage, and species
Sandy Raimondo, Crystal R. Lilavois, Larisa Lee, Tom Augspurger, Ning Wang, Christopher G. Ingersoll, Candice R. Bauer, Edward J. Hammer, Mace G. Barron
2016, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (35) 750-758
We developed a toxicity database for unionid mussels to examine the extent of intra- and inter-laboratory variability in acute toxicity tests with mussel larvae (glochidia) and juveniles; the extent of differential sensitivity of the two life stages; and the variation in sensitivity among commonly tested mussels (Lampsilis siliquoidea, Utterbackia imbecillis,...
Transforming ecosystems: When, where, and how to restore contaminated sites
Jason R. Rohr, Aida M. Farag, Marc W. Cadotte, William H. Clements, James R. Smith, Cheryl P. Ulrich, Richard Woods
2016, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (12) 273-283
Chemical contamination has impaired ecosystems, reducing biodiversity and the provisioning of functions and services. This has spurred a movement to restore contaminated ecosystems and develop and implement national and international regulations that require it. Nevertheless, ecological restoration remains a young and rapidly growing discipline and its intersection with toxicology is...
Pathogen exposure varies widely among sympatric populations of wild and domestic felids across the United States
Scott Carver, Sarah N. Bevins, Michael R. Lappin, Erin E. Boydston, Lisa M. Lyren, Mathew W. Alldredge, Kenneth A. Logan, Linda L. Sweanor, Seth P.D. Riley, Laurel E.K. Serieys, Robert N. Fisher, T. Winston Vickers, Walter M. Boyce, Roy McBride, Mark C. Cunnigham, Megan Jennings, Jesse S. Lewis, Tamika Lunn, Kevin R. Crooks, Sue VandeWoude
2016, Ecological Applications (26) 367-381
Understanding how landscape, host, and pathogen traits contribute to disease exposure requires systematic evaluations of pathogens within and among host species and geographic regions. The relative importance of these attributes is critical for management of wildlife and mitigating domestic animal and human disease, particularly given rapid ecological changes, such as...
Bayesian data analysis in population ecology: motivations, methods, and benefits
Robert Dorazio
2016, Population Ecology (58) 31-44
During the 20th century ecologists largely relied on the frequentist system of inference for the analysis of their data. However, in the past few decades ecologists have become increasingly interested in the use of Bayesian methods of data analysis. In this article I provide guidance to ecologists who would like...
Multi‐season occupancy models identify biotic and abiotic factors influencing a recovering Arctic Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus tundrius population
Jason E. Bruggeman, Ted Swem, David E. Andersen, Patricia L. Kennedy, Debora Nigro
2016, Ibis (158) 61-74
Critical information for evaluating the effectiveness of management strategies for species of concern include distinguishing seldom occupied (or low‐quality) habitat from habitat that is frequently occupied and thus contributes substantially to population trends. Using multi‐season models that account for imperfect detection and a long‐term (1981–2002) dataset on migratory Arctic Peregrine...
Assessing the robustness of quantitative fatty acid signature analysis to assumption violations
Jeffrey F. Bromaghin, Suzanne M. Budge, Gregory W. Thiemann, Karyn D. Rode
2016, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (7) 51-59
Knowledge of animal diets can provide important insights into life history and ecology, relationships among species in a community and potential response to ecosystem change or perturbation. Quantitative fatty acid signature analysis (QFASA) is a method of estimating diets from data on the composition, or signature, of fatty acids stored...
Seasonal and spatial patterns of growth of rainbow trout in the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, AZ
Micheal D. Yard, Josh Korman, Carl J. Walters, T.A. Kennedy
2016, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (73) 125-139
Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) have been purposely introduced in many regulated rivers, with inadvertent consequences on native fishes. We describe how trout growth rates and condition could be influencing trout population dynamics in a 130 km section of the Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam based on a large-scale mark–recapture...
In defense of Magnetite-Ilmenite Thermometry in the Bishop Tuff and its implication for gradients in silicic magma reservoirs
Bernard W Evans, Edward Hildreth, Olivier Bachmann, Bruno Scaillet
2016, American Mineralogist (101) 469-482
Despite claims to the contrary, the compositions of magnetite and ilmenite in the Bishop Tuff correctly record the changing conditions of T and fO2 in the magma reservoir. In relatively reduced (∆NNO < 1) siliceous magmas (e.g., Bishop Tuff, Taupo units), Ti behaves compatibly (DTi ≈ 2-3.5), leading to a decrease...
1DTempPro V2: new features for inferring groundwater/surface-water exchange
Franklin W. Koch, Emily B. Voytek, Frederick D. Day-Lewis, Richard W. Healy, Martin A. Briggs, John W. Lane Jr., Dale D. Werkema
2016, Groundwater Monitoring & Remediation (54) 434-439
A new version of the computer program 1DTempPro extends the original code to include new capabilities for (1) automated parameter estimation, (2) layer heterogeneity, and (3) time-varying specific discharge. The code serves as an interface to the U.S. Geological Survey model VS2DH and supports analysis of vertical one-dimensional temperature profiles...
Diagnostic and model dependent uncertainty of simulated Tibetan permafrost area
A. Wang, J.C. Moore, Xingquan Cui, D. Ji, Q. Li, N. Zhang, C. Wang, S. Zhang, D.M. Lawrence, A. D. McGuire, W. Zhang, C. Delire, C. Koven, K. Saito, A. MacDougall, E. Burke, B. Decharme
2016, Cryosphere Discussions (10) 287-306
We perform a land-surface model intercomparison to investigate how the simulation of permafrost area on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) varies among six modern stand-alone land-surface models (CLM4.5, CoLM, ISBA, JULES, LPJ-GUESS, UVic). We also examine the variability in simulated permafrost area and distribution introduced by five different methods of diagnosing...
Dramatic increase in sea otter mortality from white sharks in California
M. Tim Tinker, Brian B. Hatfield, Michael D. Harris, Jack A. Ames
2016, Marine Mammal Science (32) 309-326
Although southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) are not considered prey for white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias), sharks do nonetheless bite sea otters. We analyzed spatial and temporal trends in shark bites on sea otters in California, assessing the frequency of shark bite wounds in 1,870 carcasses collected since 1985. The...
Detecting significant change in stream benthic macroinvertebrate communities in wilderness areas
Alexander M. Milner, Andrea Woodward, Jerome E. Freilich, Robert W. Black, Vincent H. Resh
2016, Ecological Indicators (60) 524-537
A major challenge in the biological monitoring of stream ecosystems in protected wilderness areas is discerning whether temporal changes in community structure are significantly outside of a reference condition that represents natural or acceptable annual variation in population cycles. Otherwise sites could erroneously be classified as impaired. Long-term datasets...
