Evaluating the importance of abiotic and biotic drivers on Bythotrephes biomass in Lakes Superior and Michigan
Kevin M. Keeler, David B. Bunnell, James S. Diana, Jean V. Adams, Justin G. Mychek-Londer, David M. Warner, Daniel Yule, Mark Vinson
2015, Journal of Great Lakes Research (41) 150-160
The ability of planktivorous fishes to exert top-down control on Bythotrephes potentially has far-reaching impacts on aquatic food-webs, given previously described effects of Bythotrephes on zooplankton communities. We estimated consumption of Bythotrephes by planktivorous and benthivorous fishes, using bioenergetics and daily ration models at nearshore (18 m), intermediate (46 m),...
Principles of effective USA federal fire management plans
Marc D. Meyer, Susan L. Roberts, Robin Wills, Matthew L. Brooks, Eric M. Winford
2015, Fire Ecology (11) 59-83
Federal fire management plans are essential implementation guides for the management of wildland fire on federal lands. Recent changes in federal fire policy implementation guidance and fire science information suggest the need for substantial changes in federal fire management plans of the United States. Federal land management agencies are also...
Growth and contribution of stocked channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus (Rafinesque, 1818): the importance of measuring post-stocking performance
David R. Stewart, James M. Long
2015, Journal of Applied Ichthyology (31) 695-703
In this study it was sought to quantify post-stocking growth, survival, and contribution of advanced size (178 mm total length [TL]) channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus fingerlings, something rarely done. Channel catfish populations were evaluated before (May 2010) and after (May to August 2011 and 2012) stocking. Relative abundance, stocking contribution, and growth were...
Water-budgets and recharge-area simulations for the Spring Creek and Nittany Creek Basins and parts of the Spruce Creek Basin, Centre and Huntingdon Counties, Pennsylvania, Water Years 2000–06
John W. Fulton, Dennis W. Risser, R. Steve Regan, John F. Walker, Randall J. Hunt, Richard G. Niswonger, Scott A. Hoffman, Steven L. Markstrom
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5073
This report describes the results of a study by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with ClearWater Conservancy and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to develop a hydrologic model to simulate a water budget and identify areas of greater than average recharge for the Spring Creek Basin in central...
Collections management plan for the U.S. Geological Survey Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center Data Library
Kelleen M. List, Brian J. Buczkowski, Linda P. McCarthy, Alice M. Orton
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1141
The U.S. Geological Survey Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center has created a Data Library to organize, preserve, and make available the field, laboratory, and modeling data collected and processed by Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center staff. This Data Library supports current research efforts by providing unique,...
Riparian vegetation, Colorado River, and climate: five decades of spatiotemporal dynamics in the Grand Canyon with river regulation
Joel B. Sankey, Barbara E. Ralston, Paul E. Grams, John C. Schmidt, Laura E. Cagney
2015, Journal of Geophysical Research (120) 1532-1547
Documentation of the interacting effects of river regulation and climate on riparian vegetation has typically been limited to small segments of rivers or focused on individual plant species. We examine spatiotemporal variability in riparian vegetation for the Colorado River in Grand Canyon relative to river regulation and climate, over the...
Trends in Rocky Mountain amphibians and the role of beaver as a keystone species
Blake R. Hossack, William R. Gould, Debra A. Patla, Erin L. Muths, Rob Daley, Kristin Legg, P. Stephen Corn
2015, Biological Conservation (187) 260-269
Despite prevalent awareness of global amphibian declines, there is still little information on trends for many widespread species. To inform land managers of trends on protected landscapes and identify potential conservation strategies, we collected occurrence data for five wetland-breeding amphibian species in four national parks in the U.S. Rocky Mountains...
Assessing threats from coral and crustose coralline algae disease on the reefs of New Caledonia
Greta S. Aeby, Aline Tribollet, Gregory Lasne, Thierry M. Work
2015, Marine and Freshwater Research (34) 393-406
The present study reports the results of the first quantitative survey of lesions on coral and crustose coralline algae (CCA) on reefs in the lagoon of New Caledonia. Surveys on inshore and offshore reefs were conducted at 13 sites in 2010, with 12 sites resurveyed in 2013. Thirty coral diseases...
Dust control products at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge, Texas: environmental safety and performance
Bethany K. Kunz, Edward E. Little
2015, Transportation Research Record 64-71
Controlling fugitive dust while protecting natural resources is a challenge faced by all managers of unpaved roads. Unfortunately, road managers choosing between dust control products often have little objective environmental information to aid their decisions. To address this information gap, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife...
The effects of body size and climate on post-weaning survival of elephant seals at Heard Island
Clive R McMahon, Leslie New, E.J. Fairley, M.A. Hindell, H.R. Burton
2015, Journal of Zoology (297) 301-308
The population size of southern elephant seals in the southern Indian and Pacific Oceans decreased precipitously between the 1950s and 1990s. To investigate the reasons behind this, we studied the population of southern elephant seals at Heard Island between 1949 and 1954, using data collected by the early Australian National...
Using 15-minute acoustic data to analyze suspended-sediment dynamics in the Rio Grande in the Big Bend Region
David J. Dean, David J. Topping, Ronald E. Griffiths, Thomas A. Sabol, John C. Schmidt, Jeffery B. Bennett
2015, Conference Paper
The Rio Grande in the Big Bend region is subject to rapid geomorphic change consisting of channel narrowing during years of low flow, and channel widening during rare, large, long duration floods. Since the 1940s, there have been large declines in mean and peak stream flow, and the channel has...
A conceptual model for site-level ecology of the giant gartersnake (Thamnophis gigas) in the Sacramento Valley, California
Brian J. Halstead, Glenn D. Wylie, Michael L. Casazza, Eric C. Hansen, Rick D. Scherer, Laura C. Patterson
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1152
Giant gartersnakes (Thamnophis gigas) comprise a species of semi-aquatic snakes precinctive to marshes in the Central Valley of California (Hansen and Brode, 1980; Rossman and others, 1996). Because more than 90 percent of their historical wetland habitat has been converted to other uses (Frayer and others, 1989; Garone, 2007), giant...
2013 volcanic activity in Alaska: summary of events and response of the Alaska Volcano Observatory
James P. Dixon, Cheryl Cameron, Robert G. McGimsey, Christina A. Neal, Chris Waythomas
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5110
The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) responded to eruptions, volcanic unrest or suspected unrest, and seismic events at 18 volcanic centers in Alaska during 2013. Beginning with the 2013 AVO Summary of Events, the annual description of the AVO seismograph network and activity, once a stand-alone publication, is now part of...
The Boulder magnetic observatory
Jeffrey J. Love, Carol A. Finn, Kolby L. Pedrie, Cletus C. Blum
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1125
The Boulder magnetic observatory has, since 1963, been operated by the Geomagnetism Program of the U.S. Geological Survey in accordance with Bureau and national priorities. Data from the observatory are used for a wide variety of scientific purposes, both pure and applied. The observatory also supports developmental projects within the...
A new temperature profiling probe for investigating groundwater-surface water interaction
Ramon C. Naranjo, Robert Turcotte
2015, Water Resources Research (51) 7790-7797
Measuring vertically nested temperatures at the streambed interface poses practical challenges that are addressed here with a new discrete subsurface temperature profiling probe. We describe a new temperature probe and its application for heat as a tracer investigations to demonstrate the probe's utility. Accuracy and response time of temperature measurements...
Spotted bass Micropterus punctulatus (Rafinesque 1819)
Timothy N. Churchill, Phillip William Bettoli
2015, American Fisheries Society Symposium 82
Three subspecies of Spotted Bass Micropterus punctulatus were historically recognized: the smaller Northern Spotted Bass M. p. punctulatus, the larger, longer-lived Alabama Spotted Bass M. p. henshalli, and the now invalidated Wichita Spotted Bass M. p. wichitae (Bailey and Hubbs 1940; Cofer 1995; Warren 2009; Rider and Maceina 2015, this...
Using oblique digital photography for alluvial sandbar monitoring and low-cost change detection
Robert B. Tusso, Daniel D. Buscombe, Paul E. Grams
2015, Conference Paper
The maintenance of alluvial sandbars is a longstanding management interest along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. Resource managers are interested in both the long-term trend in sandbar condition and the short-term response to management actions, such as intentional controlled floods released from Glen Canyon Dam. Long-term monitoring is accomplished...
Hydroacoustic signatures of Colorado Riverbed sediments in Marble and Grand Canyons using multibeam sonar
Daniel D. Buscombe, Paul E. Grams, Matthew Kaplinski, Robert B. Tusso, David M. Rubin
2015, Conference Paper
Characterizing the large-scale sedimentary make-up of heterogeneous riverbeds (Nelson et al., 2014), which consist of a patchwork of sediment types over small scales (less than one to several tens of meters) (Dietrich and Smith, 1984) requires high resolution measurements of sediment grain size. Capturing such variability with conventional physical (e.g....
Projecting changes in subalpine tree populations with warming across an elevation gradient
Matthew J. Germino, Lara Kueppers, Erin Conlisk, Cristina Castanha, Andrew Moyes, Jeremy Smith, Tom Veblen
2015, Conference Paper
A rapid approach for automated comparison of independently derived stream networks
Larry V. Stanislawski, Barbara P. Buttenfield, Ariel T. Doumbouya
2015, Cartography and Geographic Information Science 435-448
This paper presents an improved coefficient of line correspondence (CLC) metric for automatically assessing the similarity of two different sets of linear features. Elevation-derived channels at 1:24,000 scale (24K) are generated from a weighted flow-accumulation model and compared to 24K National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) flowlines. The CLC process conflates two...
Glaciers and ice caps outside Greenland
Marin Sharp, G. Wolken, D. Burgess, J.G. Cogley, L. Copland, L. Thomson, A. Arendt, B. Wouters, J. Kohler, L. M. Andreassen, Shad O’Neel, M. Pelto
2015, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (96) S135-S137
Mountain glaciers and ice caps cover an area of over 400 000 km2 in the Arctic, and are a major influence on global sea level (Gardner et al. 2011, 2013; Jacob et al. 2012). They gain mass by snow accumulation and lose mass by meltwater runoff. Where they terminate in...
Gene transcription in polar bears (Ursus maritimus) from disparate populations
Lizabeth Bowen, A. Keith Miles, Shannon C. Waters-Dynes, Randi Meyerson, Karyn D. Rode, Todd C. Atwood
2015, Polar Biology (38) 1413-1427
Polar bears in the Beaufort (SB) and Chukchi (CS) Seas experience different environments due primarily to a longer history of sea ice loss in the Beaufort Sea. Ecological differences have been identified as a possible reason for the generally poorer body condition and reproduction of Beaufort polar bears compared to...
The influence of grain size, grain color, and suspended-sediment concentration on light attenuation: why fine-grained terrestrial sediment is bad for coral reef ecosystems
Curt D. Storlazzi, Benjamin Norris, Kurt J. Rosenberger
2015, Coral Reefs (34) 967-975
Sediment has been shown to be a major stressor to coral reefs globally. Although many researchers have tested the impact of sedimentation on coral reef ecosystems in both the laboratory and the field and some have measured the impact of suspended sediment on the photosynthetic response of corals, there has...
Sensitivity of intermittent streams to climate variations in the USA
Ken Eng, David M. Wolock, Mike Dettinger
2015, River Research and Applications (32) 885-895
There is a great deal of interest in the literature on streamflow changes caused by climate change because of the potential negative effects on aquatic biota and water supplies. Most previous studies have primarily focused on perennial streams, and there have been only a few studies examining the effect of...
Survival, growth, and tag retention in age-0 Chinook Salmon implanted with 8-, 9-, and 12-mm PIT tags
Kenneth F. Tiffan, Russell W. Perry, William P. Connor, Frank L. Mullins, Craig Rabe, Doug D Nelson
2015, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (35) 845-852
The ability to represent a population of migratory juvenile fish with PIT tags becomes difficult when the minimum tagging size is larger than the average size at which fish begin to move downstream. Tags that are smaller (e.g., 8 and 9 mm) than the commonly used 12-mm PIT tags are...
