Effects of roadside transect width on waterfowl and wetland estimates
Jane E. Austin, H. Thomas Sklebar, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Thomas K. Buhl
2000, Wetlands (20) 660-670
Strip transects located along roads are commonly used to estimate waterfowl populations and characterize associated wetland habitat. We used data collected in May and early June, 1995, on forty-five 40-km2 plots in North Dakota to evaluate bias of 800-m and 400-m wide roadside transects for sampling wetlands relative to a...
Methods for accurate estimation of net discharge in a tidal channel
M.R. Simpson, R. Bland
2000, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering (25) 437-445
Accurate estimates of net residual discharge in tidally affected rivers and estuaries are possible because of recently developed ultrasonic discharge measurement techniques. Previous discharge estimates using conventional mechanical current meters and methods based on stage/discharge relations or water slope measurements often yielded errors that were as great as or greater...
Exposure of delta smelt to dissolved pesticides in 1998 and 1999
G. Edward Moon, Kathryn Kuivila, Catherine A. Ruhl, David H. Schoellhamer
2000, Interagency Ecological Program Newsletter (13) 27-33
Delta smelt is a threatened species in the San Francisco Bay Estuary. Pesticide toxicity is a possible cause for the need to list this fish (Bennett and Moyle 1996; Moyle and others 1996). Numerous pesticides are transported into the estuary from area rivers (MacCoy and others 1995). However, there are...
Space use of killdeer at a Great Basin breeding area
Jonathan H. Plissner, L.W. Oring, Susan M. Haig
2000, Journal of Wildlife Management (64) 421-429
Wetland conservation efforts require knowledge of space use by a diversity of waterbirds. However, determining space use of animals requires intensive monitoring of individual organisms. Often, activity patterns during much of the annual cycle are neglected in analyses of home range and habitat use. From 1995-97, we monitored space use...
Viability of piping plover Charadrius melodus metapopulations
Jonathan H. Plissner, Susan M. Haig
2000, Biological Conservation (92) 163-173
The metapopulation viability analysis package, VORTEX, was used to examine viability and recovery objectives for piping plovers Charadrius melodus, an endangered shorebird that breeds in three distinct regions of North America. Baseline models indicate that while Atlantic Coast populations, under current management practices, are at little risk of near-term extinction, Great...
Nutrient concentrations and yields in undeveloped stream basins of the United States
G. M. Clark, D. K. Mueller, M.A. Mast
2000, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (36) 849-867
Data from 85 sites across the United States were used to estimate concentrations and yields of selected nutrients in streams draining relatively undeveloped basins. Flow-weighted concentrations during 1990-1995 were generally low with median basin concentrations of 0.020, 0.087, 0.26, 0.010, and 0.022 milligrams per liter (mg/L) for ammonia as N,...
The 1999 Southern California Seismic Network bulletin
L. A. Wald, S. Schwarz
2000, Seismological Research Letters (71) 401-413
The Pasadena office of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), together with the Caltech Seismological Laboratory, operates a network of more than 350 remote seismometers in southern California called the Southern California Seismic Network (SCSN). SCSN is part of TriNet, a cooperative project between the USGS, Caltech, and the California Division of Mines and Geology...
Analyzing slug tests in wells screened across the watertable: A field assessment
K.L. Stanford, C.D. McElwee
2000, Natural Resources Research (9) 111-124
The slug test is the most widely used technique for the in situ estimation of hydraulic conductivity in confined and unconfined formations. Currently, there are no generally accepted methods in the groundwater literature for the analysis of response data from slug tests performed in wells screened across the watertable. A...
Characteristic length scale of input data in distributed models: implications for modeling grain size
Guleid A. Artan, C. M. U. Neale, D. G. Tarboton
2000, Journal of Hydrology (227) 128-139
The appropriate spatial scale for a distributed energy balance model was investigated by: (a) determining the scale of variability associated with the remotely sensed and GIS-generated model input data; and (b) examining the effects of input data spatial aggregation on model response. The semi-variogram and the characteristic length calculated from...
Ecology and biology of paddlefish in North America: historical perspectives, management approaches, and research priorities
Cecil A. Jennings, Stephen J. Zigler
2000, Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries (10) 167-181
Paddlefish (Polyodon spathula, Polyodontidae)are large, mostly-riverine fish that once were abundant in medium- to large-sized river systems throughout much of the central United States. Concern for paddlefish populations has grown from a regional fisheries issue to one of national importance for the United States. In 1989, the U.S. Fish and...
The National Biological Information Infrastructure: Coming of age
Gladys Cotter, Mike Frame, Ron Sepic, Lisa Zolly
2000, Online and CDROM Review (24) 429-438
Coordinated by the US Geological Survey, the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) is a Web-based system that provides increased access to data and information on the nation's biological resources. The NBII can be viewed from a variety of perspectives. This article - an individual case study and not a broad...
Activity patterns of marbled murrelets in Douglas-fir old-growth forests of the Oregon Coast Range
Patrick G.R. Jodice, Michael W. Collopy
2000, The Condor (102) 275-285
We monitored activity patterns of Marbled Murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratus) on a near-daily basis using audio-visual surveys during three breeding seasons at five forest stands in the Oregon Coast Range. Three measures of activity were recorded: number of daily detections, number of daily vocalizations, and duration of daily activity. Each...
Middle- and late-Wisconsin paleobotanic and paleoclimatic records from the southern Colorado Plateau, USA
R. Scott Anderson, J.L. Betancourt, J.I. Mead, R.H. Hevly, D.P. Adam
2000, Conference Paper, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
The Colorado Plateau is a distinct physiographic province in western North America, which presently straddles the transition between summer-wet and summer-dry climatic regimes to the south and northwest, respectively. In addition to climate, the diversity of environments and plant communities on the Colorado Plateau has resulted from extreme topographic diversity....
Phreatophyte influence on reductive dechlorination in a shallow aquifer contaminated with trichloroethene (TCE)
R. W. Lee, S.A. Jones, E. L. Kuniansky, G. Harvey, B.S. Lollar, G.F. Slater
2000, International Journal of Phytoremediation (2) 193-211
Phytoremediation uses the natural ability of plants to degrade contaminants in groundwater. A field demonstration designed to remediate aerobic shallow groundwater contaminated with trichloroethene began in April 1996 with the planting of cottonwood trees, a short-rotation woody crop, over an approximately 0.2-ha area at the Naval Air Station, Fort Worth,...
Landscape correlates of breeding bird richness across the United States mid-Atlantic region
K. Bruce Jones, Anne Neale, Nash Maliha, Kurt H. Riitters, James D. Wickham, Robert V. O’Neill, Rick D. van Remortel
2000, Conference Paper, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment
Using a new set of landscape indicator data generated by the U.S.EPA, and a comprehensive breeding bird database from the National Breeding Bird Survey, we evaluated associations between breeding bird richness and landscape characteristics across the entire mid-Atlantic region of the United States. We evaluated how these relationships varied among...
Apparent inferiority of first-time breeders in the kittiwake: The role of heterogeneity among age classes
E. Cam, J. #NAME? Monnat
2000, Journal of Animal Ecology (69) 380-394
1. Many studies have provided evidence that first-time breeders have a lower survival, a lower probability of success, or of breeding, in the following year. Hypotheses based on reproductive costs have often been proposed to explain this. However, because of the intrinsic relationship between age and experience, the apparent inferiority...
The thermal inertia of Mars from the Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer
Bruce M. Jakosky, Michael T. Mellon, Hugh H. Kieffer, Phillip R. Christensen, E. Stacy Varnes, Steven W. Lee
2000, Journal of Geophysical Research E: Planets (105) 9643-9652
We have used Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Thermal Emission Spectrometer thermal emission measurements to derive the thermal inertia of the Martian surface at the ∼100-km spatial scale. We have validated the use of nighttime-only measurements to derive thermal inertia as well as the use of a single wavelength band versus...
Dating of major normal fault systems using thermochronology: An example from the Raft River detachment, Basin and Range, western United States
M.L. Wells, L.W. Snee, A.E. Blythe
2000, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (105) 16303-16327
Application of thermochronological techniques to major normal fault systems can resolve the timing of initiation and duration of extension, rates of motion on detachment faults, timing of ductile mylonite formation and passage of rocks through the crystal-plastic to brittle transition, and multiple events of extensional unroofing. Here we determine the...
The use of waveform shapes to automatically determine earthquake focal depth
S.A. Sipkin
2000, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (90) 248-254
Earthquake focal depth is an important parameter for rapidly determining probable damage caused by a large earthquake. In addition, it is significant both for discriminating between natural events and explosions and for discriminating between tsunamigenic and nontsunamigenic earthquakes. For the purpose of notifying emergency management and disaster relief organizations as...
The enigma of the Arthur's Pass, New Zealand, earthquake: 1. Reconciling a variety of data for an unusual earthquake sequence
R.E. Abercrombie, T.H. Webb, R. Robinson, P.J. McGinty, J.J. Mori, R.J. Beavan
2000, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (105) 16119-16137
The 1994 Arthur's Pass earthquake (MW6.7) is the largest in a recent sequence of earthquakes in the central South Island, New Zealand. No surface rupture was observed, the aftershock distribution was complex, and routine methods of obtaining the faulting orientation of this earthquake proved contradictory. We use a range of...
Chlorofluorocarbon dating of herbicide-containing well waters in Fresno and Tulare counties, California
F. Spurlock, K. Burow, N. Dubrovsky
2000, Journal of Environmental Quality (29) 474-483
Simazine, diuron, and bromacil are the most frequently detected currently registered pesticides in California groundwater. These herbicides have been used for several decades in Fresno and Tulare counties, California; however, previous data are inadequate to determine whether the detections are a result of recent or historical applications (i.e., within the...
Sequential dome-collapse nuées ardentes analyzed from broadband seismic data, Merapi Volcano, Indonesia
A. Brodscholl, S.B. Kirbani, B. Voight
2000, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (100) 363-369
During the sequential dome collapse of Merapi Volcano on 22 November 1994, a broadband seismic station on the western slope was the only operational seismic equipment that provided continuous on-scale recording of the event. According to visual and seismic observations, the collapse activity lasted about 10 h. We divide the...
Precipitation areal-reduction factor estimation using an annual-maxima centered approach
W.H. Asquith, J.S. Famiglietti
2000, Journal of Hydrology (230) 55-69
The adjustment of precipitation depth of a point storm to an effective (mean) depth over a watershed is important for characterizing rainfall-runoff relations and for cost-effective designs of hydraulic structures when design storms are considered. A design storm is the precipitation point depth having a specified duration and frequency (recurrence...
Winter survival of adult female harlequin ducks in relation to history of contamination by the Exxon Valdez oil spill
Daniel Esler, Joel A. Schmutz, R. L. Jarvis, D.M. Mulcahy
2000, Journal of Wildlife Management (64) 839-847
Harlequin duck (Histrionicus histrionicus) life-history characteristics make their populations particularly vulnerable to perturbations during nonbreeding periods. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill was a major perturbation to nonbreeding habitats of harlequin ducks in Prince William Sound, Alaska, which resulted in population injury. To assess the status of population recovery from...
Application of GPS and GIS to map channel features in Walnut Creek, Iowa
K. E. Schilling, C.F. Wolter
2000, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (36) 1423-1434
A 12-km reach of Walnut Creek was mapped at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge in Jasper County, Iowa to identify and prioritize areas of the stream channel in need of further investigation or restoration. Channel features, including streambank conditions, bottom sediment materials and thickness, channel cross-sections, debris dams, tile...
