Holocene climate variability in Texas, USA: An integration of existing paleoclimate data and modeling with a new, high-resolution speleothem record
Corinne I. Wong, Jay L. Banner, MaryLynn Musgrove
2015, Quaternary Science Reviews (127) 155-173
Delineating the climate processes governing precipitation variability in drought-prone Texas is critical for predicting and mitigating climate change effects, and requires the reconstruction of past climate beyond the instrumental record. We synthesize existing paleoclimate proxy data and climate simulations to provide an overview of climate variability in Texas during the...
Statistical guidelines for assessing marine avian hotspots and coldspots: A case study on wind energy development in the U.S. Atlantic Ocean
Elise F. Zipkin, Brian P. Kinlan, Allison Sussman, Diana Rypkema, Mark Wimer, Allan F. O’Connell
2015, Biological Conservation (191) 216-223
Estimating patterns of habitat use is challenging for marine avian species because seabirds tend to aggregate in large groups and it can be difficult to locate both individuals and groups in vast marine environments. We developed an approach to estimate the statistical power of discrete survey events to identify species-specific...
Renewed inflation of Long Valley Caldera, California (2011 to 2014)
Emily Montgomery-Brown, Charles W. Wicks Jr., Peter F. Cervelli, John O. Langbein, Jerry L. Svarc, David R. Shelly, David P. Hill, Michael Lisowski
2015, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 5250-5257
Slow inflation began at Long Valley Caldera in late 2011, coinciding with renewed swarm seismicity. Ongoing deformation is concentrated within the caldera. We analyze this deformation using a combination of GPS and InSAR (TerraSAR-X) data processed with a persistent scatterer technique. The extension rate of the dome-crossing baseline during this...
Didymosphenia geminata in the Upper Esopus Creek: current status, variability, and controlling factors
Scott D. George, Barry P. Baldigo
2015, PLoS ONE (10) 1-20
In May of 2009, the bloom-forming diatom Didymosphenia geminata was first identified in the Upper Esopus Creek, a key tributary to the New York City water-supply and a popular recreational stream. The Upper Esopus receives supplemental flows from the Shandaken Portal, an underground aqueduct delivering waters from a nearby basin. The presence...
An evaluation of fish behavior upstream of the water temperature control tower at Cougar Dam, Oregon, using acoustic cameras, 2013
Noah S. Adams, Collin Smith, John M. Plumb, Gabriel S. Hansen, John W. Beeman
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1124
This report describes the initial year of a 2-year study to determine the feasibility of using acoustic cameras to monitor fish movements to help inform decisions about fish passage at Cougar Dam near Springfield, Oregon. Specifically, we used acoustic cameras to measure fish presence, travel speed, and direction adjacent to...
Potamochoerus porcus (Artiodactyla: Suidae)
David M. Leslie Jr., Brent A. Huffman
2015, Mammalian Species (47) 15-31
Potamochoerus porcus (Linnaeus, 1758) is a monotypic suid commonly known as the red river hog. It is 1 of 2 species in the genus Potamochoerus and among the smallest and most plesiomorphic (ancestral) of the 8 African suids. This is the brightest colored wild pig species and is identified by...
Installation of a groundwater monitoring-well network on the east side of the Uncompahgre River in the Lower Gunnison River Basin, Colorado, 2012
Judith C. Thomas, L. R. Arnold
2015, Data Series 923
The east side of the Uncompahgre River Basin has been a known contributor of dissolved selenium to recipient streams. Discharge of groundwater containing dissolved selenium contributes to surface-water selenium concentrations and loads; however, the groundwater system on the east side of the Uncompahgre River Basin is not well characterized. The...
Depth-to-basement, sediment-thickness, and bathymetry data for the deep-sea basins offshore of Washington, Oregon, and California
Florence L. Wong, Muriel S. Grim
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1118
Contours and derivative raster files of depth-to-basement, sediment-thickness, and bathymetry data for the area offshore of Washington, Oregon, and California are provided here as GIS-ready shapefiles and GeoTIFF files. The data were used to generate paper maps in 1992 and 1993 from 1984 surveys of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone...
Alteration, slope-classified alteration, and potential lahar inundation maps of volcanoes for the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Volcano Archive
John C. Mars, Bernard E. Hubbard, David Pieri, Justin Linick
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5035
This study identifies areas prone to lahars from hydrothermally altered volcanic edifices on a global scale, using visible and near infrared (VNIR) and short wavelength infrared (SWIR) reflectance data from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) and digital elevation data from the ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model...
Groundwater quality in Geauga County, Ohio: status, including detection frequency of methane in water wells, 2009, and changes during 1978-2009
Martha L. Jagucki, Stephanie P. Kula, Brian E. Mailot
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5032
Domestic wells that are not safeguarded by regular water-quality testing provide drinking water for 79 percent of the residents of Geauga County, in northeastern Ohio. Since 1978, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has worked cooperatively with the Board of Commissioners and Geauga County Planning Commission to monitor the quality of...
Human harvest, climate change and their synergistic effects drove the Chinese Crested Tern to the brink of extinction
Shuihua Chen, Zhongyong Fan, Daniel D. Roby, Yiwei Lu, Gangsong Chen, Qin Huang, Lijing Cheng, Jiang Zhu
2015, Global Ecology and Conservation (4) 137-145
Synergistic effect refers to simultaneous actions of separate factors which have a greater total effect than the sum of the individual factor effects. However, there has been a limited knowledge on how synergistic effects occur and individual roles of different drivers are not often considered. Therefore, it becomes quite challenging...
Primative components, crustal assimilation, and magmatic degassing of the 2008 Kilauea summit eruption
Michael C. Rowe, Carl R. Thornber, Tim R. Orr
2015, Book chapter, Hawaiian volcanoes, from source to surface
Simultaneous summit and rift zone eruptions at Kīlauea starting in 2008 reflect a shallow eruptive plumbing system inundated by a bourgeoning supply of new magma from depth. Olivine-hosted melt inclusions, host glass, and bulk lava compositions of magma erupted at both the summit and east rift zone demonstrate chemical continuity...
A collision risk model to predict avian fatalities at wind facilities: an example using golden eagles, Aquila chrysaetos
Leslie New, Emily Bjerre, Brian A. Millsap, Mark C. Otto, Michael C. Runge
2015, PLoS ONE (10) 1-12
Wind power is a major candidate in the search for clean, renewable energy. Beyond the technical and economic challenges of wind energy development are environmental issues that may restrict its growth. Avian fatalities due to collisions with rotating turbine blades are a leading concern and there is considerable uncertainty surrounding...
Testing the thermal-niche oxygen-squeeze hypothesis for estuarine striped bass
Richard T. Kraus, D.H. Secor, Rebecca L. Wingate
2015, Environmental Biology of Fishes (98) 2083-2092
In many stratified coastal ecosystems, conceptual and bioenergetics models predict seasonal reduction in quality and quantity of fish habitat due to high temperatures and hypoxia. We tested these predictions using acoustic telemetry of 2 to 4 kg striped bass (Morone saxatilis Walbaum) and high-resolution spatial water quality sampling in the...
Sea otter health: challenging a pet hypothesis
Kevin D. Lafferty
2015, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife (4) 291-294
A recent series of studies on tagged sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) challenges the hypothesis that sea otters are sentinels of a dirty ocean, in particular, that pet cats are the main source of exposure to Toxoplasma gondii in central California. Counter to expectations, sea otters from unpopulated stretches of...
Social living mitigates the costs of a chronic illness in a cooperative carnivore
Emily S. Almberg, Paul C. Cross, Andrew P. Dobson, Douglas W. Smith, Matthew C Metz, Daniel R. Stahler, Peter J. Hudson
2015, Ecology Letters (18) 660-667
Infection risk is assumed to increase with social group size, and thus be a cost of group living. We assess infection risk and costs with respect to group size using data from an epidemic of sarcoptic mange (Sarcoptes scabiei) among grey wolves (Canis lupus). We demonstrate that group size does...
Southern San Andreas Fault seismicity is consistent with the Gutenberg-Richter magnitude-frequency distribution
Morgan T. Page, Karen Felzer
2015, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (105) 2070-2080
The magnitudes of any collection of earthquakes nucleating in a region are generally observed to follow the Gutenberg-Richter (G-R) distribution. On some major faults, however, paleoseismic rates are higher than a G-R extrapolation from the modern rate of small earthquakes would predict. This, along with other observations, led to formulation...
MMI: Multimodel inference or models with management implications?
J. Fieberg, Douglas H. Johnson
2015, Journal of Wildlife Management (79) 708-718
We consider a variety of regression modeling strategies for analyzing observational data associated with typical wildlife studies, including all subsets and stepwise regression, a single full model, and Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC)-based multimodel inference. Although there are advantages and disadvantages to each approach, we suggest that there is no unique...
Monitoring population status of sea otters (Enhydra lutris) in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska: options and considerations
George G. Esslinger, Daniel Esler, S. Howlin, L.A. Starcevich
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1119
After many decades of absence from southeast Alaska, sea otters (Enhydra lutris) are recolonizing parts of their former range, including Glacier Bay, Alaska. Sea otters are well known for structuring nearshore ecosystems and causing community-level changes such as increases in kelp abundance and changes in the size and number of...
Training conservation practitioners to be better decision makers
Fred A. Johnson, Mitchell J. Eaton, James H. Williams, Gitte H. Jensen, Jesper Madsen
2015, Sustainability (7) 8354-8373
Traditional conservation curricula and training typically emphasizes only one part of systematic decision making (i.e., the science), at the expense of preparing conservation practitioners with critical skills in values-setting, working with decision makers and stakeholders, and effective problem framing. In this article we describe how the application of decision science...
Age-specific vibrissae growth rates: a tool for determining the timing of ecologically important events in Steller sea lions
L.D. Rea, A.M. Christ, A.B. Hayden, V.K. Stegall, S.D. Farley, Craig A. Stricker, J.E. Mellish, John M. Maniscalco, J.N. Waite, V.N. Burkanov, K.W. Pitcher
2015, Marine Mammal Science (31) 1213-1233
Steller sea lions (SSL; Eumetopias jubatus) grow their vibrissae continually, providing a multiyear record suitable for ecological and physiological studies based on stable isotopes. An accurate age-specific vibrissae growth rate is essential for registering a chronology along the length of the record, and for interpreting the timing of ecologically important events....
Scale dependence of disease impacts on quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) mortality in the southwestern United States
David M. Bell, John B. Bradford, William K. Lauenroth
2015, Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics (96) 1835-1845
Depending on how disease impacts tree exposure to risk, both the prevalence of disease and disease effects on survival may contribute to patterns of mortality risk across a species' range. Disease may accelerate tree species' declines in response to global change factors, such as drought, biotic interactions, such as...
Summer declines in activity and body temperature offer polar bears limited energy savings
J.P. Whiteman, H.J. Harlow, George M. Durner, R. Anderson-Sprecher, Shannon E. Albeke, Eric V. Regehr, Steven C. Amstrup, M. Ben-David
2015, Science (349) 295-298
Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) summer on the sea ice or, where it melts, on shore. Although the physiology of “ice” bears in summer is unknown, “shore” bears purportedly minimize energy losses by entering a hibernation-like state when deprived of food. Such a strategy could partially compensate for the loss of...
Marine foraging ecology influences mercury bioaccumulation in deep-diving northern elephant seals
Sarah H. Peterson, Joshua T. Ackerman, Daniel P. Costa
2015, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (282)
Mercury contamination of oceans is prevalent worldwide and methylmercury concentrations in the mesopelagic zone (200–1000 m) are increasing more rapidly than in surface waters. Yet mercury bioaccumulation in mesopelagic predators has been understudied. Northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) biannually travel thousands of kilometres to forage within coastal and open-ocean regions...
Self-similar rupture implied by scaling properties of volcanic earthquakes occurring during the 2004-2008 eruption of Mount St. Helens, Washington
Rebecca M. Harrington, Grzegorz Kwiatek, Seth C. Moran
2015, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (120) 1966-1982
We analyze a group of 6073 low-frequency earthquakes recorded during a week-long temporary deployment of broadband seismometers at distances of less than 3 km from the crater at Mount St. Helens in September of 2006. We estimate the seismic moment (M0) and spectral corner frequency (f0) using a spectral ratio approach...
