Detecting the influence of rare stressors on rare species in Yosemite National Park using a novel stratified permutation test
John R. Matchett, Philip B. Stark, Steven M. Ostoja, Roland A. Knapp, Heather C. McKenny, Matthew L. Brooks, William T. Langford, Lucas N. Joppa, Eric L. Berlow
2015, Scientific Reports (5)
Statistical models often use observational data to predict phenomena; however, interpreting model terms to understand their influence can be problematic. This issue poses a challenge in species conservation where setting priorities requires estimating influences of potential stressors using observational data. We present a novel approach for inferring influence of a...
Real-time, continuous water-quality monitoring in Indiana and Kentucky
Megan E. Shoda, Timothy R. Lathrop, Martin R. Risch
2015, Fact Sheet 2015-3041
Water-quality “super” gages (also known as “sentry” gages) provide real-time, continuous measurements of the physical and chemical characteristics of stream water at or near selected U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) streamgages in Indiana and Kentucky. A super gage includes streamflow and water-quality instrumentation and representative stream sample collection for laboratory analysis....
Dynamic rupture models of earthquakes on the Bartlett Springs Fault, Northern California
Julian C. Lozos, Ruth A. Harris, Jessica R. Murray, James J. Lienkaemper
2015, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 4343-4349
The Bartlett Springs Fault (BSF), the easternmost branch of the northern San Andreas Fault system, creeps along much of its length. Geodetic data for the BSF are sparse, and surface creep rates are generally poorly constrained. The two existing geodetic slip rate inversions resolve at least one locked patch within...
Microbial infections are associated with embryo mortality in Arctic-nesting geese.
Cristina M. Hansen, Brandt W. Meixell, Caroline R. Van Hemert, Rebekah F. Hare, Karsten Hueffer
2015, Applied and Environmental Microbiology (81) 5583-5592
To address the role of bacterial infection in hatching failure of wild geese, we monitored embryo development in a breeding population of Greater white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons) on the Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska. During 2013, we observed mortality of normally developing embryos and collected 36 addled eggs for analysis....
Leaf-on canopy closure in broadleaf deciduous forests predicted during winter
Daniel J. Twedt, Andrea J. Ayala, Madeline R. Shickel
2015, Forest Science (61) 926-931
Forest canopy influences light transmittance, which in turn affects tree regeneration and survival, thereby having an impact on forest composition and habitat conditions for wildlife. Because leaf area is the primary impediment to light penetration, quantitative estimates of canopy closure are normally made during summer. Studies of forest structure and...
Effects of ungulate disturbance and weather variation on Pediocactus winkleri: Insights from long-term monitoring
Deborah J. Clark, Thomas O. Clark, Michael C. Duniway, Cody B. Flagg
2015, Western North American Naturalist (75) 88-101
Population dynamics and effects of large ungulate disturbances on Winkler cactus (Pediocactus winkleri K.D. Heil) were documented annually over a 20-year time span at one plot within Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. This cactus species was federally listed as threatened in 1998. The study began in 1995 to gain a better...
Accounting for groundwater in stream fish thermal habitat responses to climate change
Craig D. Snyder, Nathaniel P. Hitt, John A. Young
2015, Ecological Applications (25) 1397-1419
Forecasting climate change effects on aquatic fauna and their habitat requires an understanding of how water temperature responds to changing air temperature (i.e., thermal sensitivity). Previous efforts to forecast climate effects on brook trout habitat have generally assumed uniform air-water temperature relationships over large areas that cannot account for groundwater...
Assessment of unconvential (tight) gas resources in Upper Cook Inlet Basin, South-central Alaska
Christopher J. Schenk, Philip H. Nelson, Timothy R. Klett, Phuong A. Le, Christopher P. Anderson
2015, Data Series 69-AA
A geologic model was developed for the assessment of potential Mesozoic tight-gas resources in the deep, central part of upper Cook Inlet Basin, south-central Alaska. The basic premise of the geologic model is that organic-bearing marine shales of the Middle Jurassic Tuxedni Group achieved adequate thermal maturity for oil and...
SHRIMP U–Pb and REE data pertaining to the origins of xenotime in Belt Supergroup rocks: evidence for ages of deposition, hydrothermal alteration, and metamorphism
John N. Aleinikoff, Karen Lund, C. Mark Fanning
2015, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (52) 722-745
The Belt–Purcell Supergroup, northern Idaho, western Montana, and southern British Columbia, is a thick succession of Mesoproterozoic sedimentary rocks with an age range of about 1470–1400 Ma. Stratigraphic layers within several sedimentary units were sampled to apply the new technique of U–Pb dating of xenotime that sometimes forms as rims...
The U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Collections Management System (GCMS)—A master catalog and collections management plan for U.S. Geological Survey geologic samples and sample collections
Geologic Materials Repository Working Group
2015, Circular 1410
**Updated guidance is available in USGS Instructional Memorandum CSS 2019-01.**AbstractThe U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is widely recognized in the earth science community as possessing extensive collections of earth materials collected by research personnel over the course of its history. In 2006, a Geologic Collections Inventory was...
Flood recovery maps for the White River in Bethel, Stockbridge, and Rochester, Vermont, and the Tweed River in Stockbridge and Pittsfield, Vermont, 2014
Scott A. Olson
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5056
From August 28 to 29, 2011, Tropical Storm Irene delivered rainfall ranging from about 4 inches to more than 7 inches in the White River Basin. The rainfall resulted in severe flooding throughout the basin and significant damage along the White River and Tweed River. In response to the flooding,...
Turbidity alters pre-mating social interactions between native and invasive stream fishes
Gregory J. Glotzbecker, Jessica L. Ward, David M. Walters, Michael J. Blum
2015, Freshwater Biology (60) 1784-1793
Environmental degradation can result in the loss of aquatic biodiversity if impairment promotes hybridisation between non-native and native species. Although aquatic biological invasions involving hybridisation have been attributed to elevated water turbidity, the extent to which impaired clarity influences reproductive isolation among non-native and native species is poorly...
Building sandbars in the Grand Canyon
Paul E. Grams, John C. Schmidt, Scott Wright, David J. Topping, Theodore S. Melis, David M. Rubin
2015, Eos, Earth and Space Science News (96) 1-11
In 1963, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation finished building Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona, 25 kilometers upstream from Grand Canyon National Park. The dam impounded 300 kilometers of the Colorado River, creating Lake Powell, the nation’s second largest reservoir. By 1974, scientists...
Streamflow, water quality, and constituent loads and yields, Scituate Reservoir drainage area, Rhode Island, water year 2013
Kirk P. Smith
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1082
Streamflow and concentrations of sodium and chloride estimated from records of specific conductance were used to calculate loads of sodium and chloride during water year (WY) 2013 (October 1, 2012, through September 30, 2013) for tributaries to the Scituate Reservoir, Rhode Island. Streamflow and water-quality data used in the study...
Application of U-Th-Pb phosphate geochronology to young orogenic gold deposits: New age constraints on the formation of the Grass Valley gold district, Sierra Foothills province, California
Ryan D. Taylor, Richard J. Goldfarb, Thomas Monecke, Ian R. Fletcher, Michael A. Cosca, Nigel M. Kelly
2015, Economic Geology (110) 1313-1337
The Grass Valley orogenic gold district in the Sierra Nevada foothills province, central California, the largest historic gold producer of the North American Cordillera, comprises both steeply dipping east-west (E-W) veins located along lithologic contacts in accreted ca. 300 and 200 Ma oceanic rocks and shallowly dipping north-south (N-S) veins...
Southern Salish Sea Habitat Map Series: Admiralty Inlet
Guy R. Cochrane, Megan N. Dethier, Timothy O. Hodson, Kristine K. Kull, Nadine E. Golden, Andrew C. Ritchie, Crescent Moegling, Robert E. Pacunski
Guy R. Cochrane, editor(s)
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1073
In 2010 the Environmental Protection Agency, Region 10 initiated the Puget Sound Scientific Studies and Technical Investigations Assistance Program, designed to support research in support of implementing the Puget Sound Action Agenda. The Action Agenda was created in response to Puget Sound having been designated as one of 28 estuaries...
Southern Salish Sea Habitat Map Series data catalog
2015, Data Series 935
In 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 10 initiated the Puget Sound Scientific Studies and Technical Investigations Assistance Program, which was designed to support research for implementing the Puget Sound Action Agenda. The Action Agenda was created because Puget Sound was designated as one of 28 estuaries of National...
A plan for the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat)
Susan C. Loeb, Thomas J. Rodhouse, Laura E. Ellison, Cori L. Lausen, Jonathan D. Reichard, Kathryn M. Irvine, Thomas E. Ingersoll, Jeremy T. H. Coleman, Wayne E. Thogmartin, John R. Sauer, Charles M. Francis, Mylea L. Bayless, Thomas R. Stanley, Douglas H. Johnson
2015, Report
The purpose of the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) is to create a continent-wide program to monitor bats at local to rangewide scales that will provide reliable data to promote effective conservation decisionmaking and the long-term viability of bat populations across the continent. This is an international, multiagency program....
Lunar periodicity in the shell flux of planktonic foraminifera in the Gulf of Mexico
Lukas Jonkers, Caitlin E. Reynolds, Julie N. Richey, Ian R. Hall
2015, Biogeosciences (12) 3061-3070
Synchronised reproduction offers clear benefits to planktonic foraminifera – an important group of marine calcifiers – as it increases the chances of successful gamete fusion. Such synchrony requires tuning to an internal or external clock. Evidence exists for lunar reproductive cycles in some species, but its recognition in shell flux...
Publications of the Volcano Hazards Program 2013
Manuel Nathenson
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1109
The Volcano Hazards Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is part of the Natural Hazards activity, as funded by Congressional appropriation. Investigations are carried out by the USGS and with cooperators at the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, University of Hawaiʻi...
Evaluating potential overlap between pack stock and Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis sierrae) in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, California
Robert C. Klinger, Alexandra P. Few, Kathleen A. Knox, Brian E. Hatfield, Jonathan Clark, David W. German, Thomas R. Stephenson
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1102
Pack stock (horses, mules, burros, llamas, and goats) are frequently assumed to have negative effects on public lands, but there is a general lack of data to be able to quantify the degree to which this is actually the case. Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks have received complaints that...
Little Galloo Island, Lake Ontario: Two decades of studies on the diet, fish consumption, and management of double-crested cormorants
James H. Johnson, Russell D. McCullough, James F. Farquhar, Irene Mazzocchi
2015, Journal of Great Lakes Research (41) 652-658
The double-crested cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) colony at Little Galloo Island, Lake Ontario has been a Great Lakes focal point of controversy regarding cormorant–fish interactions for over two decades. We examined cormorant diet and fish consumption at the colony from 1992 to 2013. During this time period, two events, management actions...
Potential impact of Chironomus plumosus larvae on hypolimnetic oxygen in the central basin of Lake Erie
Frederick M. Soster, Gerald Matisoff, Donald W. Schloesser, William J. Edwards
2015, Journal of Great Lakes Research (41) 348-357
Previous studies have indicated that burrow-irrigating infauna can increase sediment oxygen demand (SOD) and impact hypolimnetic oxygen in stratified lakes. We conducted laboratory microcosm experiments and computer simulations with larvae of the burrowing benthic midge Chironomus plumosus to quantify burrow oxygen uptake rates and subsequent contribution to sediment oxygen demand...
A spatial classification and database for management, research, and policy making: The Great Lakes aquatic habitat framework
Lizhu Wang, Catherine M. Riseng, Lacey Mason, Kevin Werhrly, Edward Rutherford, James E. McKenna Jr., Chris Castiglione, Lucinda B. Johnson, Dana M. Infante, Scott P. Sowa, Mike Robertson, Jeff Schaeffer, Mary Khoury, John Gaiot, Tom Hollenhurst, Colin N. Brooks, Mark Coscarelli
2015, Journal of Great Lakes Research (41) 584-596
Managing the world's largest and most complex freshwater ecosystem, the Laurentian Great Lakes, requires a spatially hierarchical basin-wide database of ecological and socioeconomic information that is comparable across the region. To meet such a need, we developed a spatial classification framework and database — Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework (GLAHF)....
Efficacy of an extract from garlic, Allium sativum, against infection with the furunculosis bacterium, Aeromonas salmonicida, in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss
Kate E. Breyer, Rodman G. Getchell, Emily R. Cornwell, Gregory A. Wooster, H. George Ketola, Paul R. Bowser
2015, Journal of the World Aquaculture Society (46) 273-282
Juvenile rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, were fed diets containing 0, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0% of a garlic extract, challenged with a modified 50% lethal dose of Aeromonas salmonicida and monitored for 28 d. There were significant increases in survival of trout fed 0.5 and 1.0% garlic extract as compared to...
