Using scenario planning to evaluate the impacts of climate change on wildlife populations and communities in the Florida Everglades
Christopher P. Catano, Stephanie S. Romañach, James M. Beerens, Leonard G. Pearlstine, Laura A. Brandt, Kristen M. Hart, Frank J. Mazzotti, Joel C. Trexler
2015, Environmental Management (55) 807-823
It is uncertain how climate change will impact hydrologic drivers of wildlife population dynamics in freshwater wetlands of the Florida Everglades, or how to accommodate this uncertainty in restoration decisions. Using projections of climate scenarios for the year 2060, we evaluated how several possible futures could affect wildlife populations (wading...
Uncertainty estimates in broadband seismometer sensitivities using microseisms
Adam T. Ringler, Tyler L. Storm, Lind S. Gee, Charles R. Hutt, David C. Wilson
2015, Journal of Seismology (19) 317-327
The midband sensitivity of a seismic instrument is one of the fundamental parameters used in published station metadata. Any errors in this value can compromise amplitude estimates in otherwise high-quality data. To estimate an upper bound in the uncertainty of the midband sensitivity for modern broadband instruments, we compare daily...
Palila Restoration Research, 1996−2012. Summary and management implications
Paul C. Banko, Chris Farmer, Steve Dougill, Luanne Johnson
2015, Technical Report HCSU-046A
The Palila Restoration Project was initiated in 1996 by the U.S. Geological Survey to assist government agencies mitigate the effects of realigning Saddle Road (Highway 200) through Palila Critical Habitat (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1998, Federal Highway Administration 1999). Ecological research on the palila (Loxioides bailleui), an endangered Hawaiian...
Permafrost-associated gas hydrate: is it really approximately 1% of the global system?
Carolyn Ruppel
2015, Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data (60) 429-436
Permafrost-associated gas hydrates are often assumed to contain ∼1 % of the global gas-in-place in gas hydrates based on a study26 published over three decades ago. As knowledge of permafrost-associated gas hydrates has grown, it has become clear that many permafrost-associated gas hydrates are inextricably linked to an associated conventional...
Seasonal dynamics of zooplankton in Columbia–Snake River reservoirs,with special emphasis on the invasive copepod Pseudodiaptomus forbesi
Joshua E. Emerson, Stephen M. Bollens, Timothy D. Counihan
2015, Aquatic Invasions (10) 25-40
The Asian copepod Pseudodiaptomus forbesi has recently become established in the Columbia River. However, little is known about its ecology and effects on invaded ecosystems. We undertook a 2-year (July 2009 to June 2011) field study of the mesozooplankton in four reservoirs in the Columbia and Snake Rivers, with...
Machine learning for predicting soil classes in three semi-arid landscapes
Colby W. Brungard, Janis L. Boettinger, Michael C. Duniway, Skye A. Wills, Thomas C. Edwards Jr.
2015, Geoderma (239-240) 68-83
Mapping the spatial distribution of soil taxonomic classes is important for informing soil use and management decisions. Digital soil mapping (DSM) can quantitatively predict the spatial distribution of soil taxonomic classes. Key components of DSM are the method and the set of environmental covariates used to predict soil classes. Machine...
User guide to Exploration and Graphics for RivEr Trends (EGRET) and dataRetrieval: R packages for hydrologic data
Robert M. Hirsch, Laura A. De Cicco
2015, Techniques and Methods 4-A10
Evaluating long-term changes in river conditions (water quality and discharge) is an important use of hydrologic data. To carry out such evaluations, the hydrologist needs tools to facilitate several key steps in the process: acquiring the data records from a variety of sources, structuring it in ways that facilitate the...
Ungulate exclusion, conifer thinning and mule deer forage in northeastern New Mexico
David W. Kramer, Grant E. Sorensen, Chase A. Taylor, Robert D. Cox, Philip S. Gipson, James W. Cain III
2015, Journal of Arid Environments (113) 29-34
The southwestern United States has experienced expansion of conifer species (Juniperus spp. and Pinus ponderosa) into areas of semi-arid grassland over the past century. The expansion of conifers can limit palatable forage and reduce grass and forb communities. Conifer species are sometimes thinned through hydraulic mulching or selective cutting. We...
Development of a spatially universal framework for classifying stream assemblages with application to conservation planning for Great Lakes lotic fish communities
James E. McKenna Jr., Jeffrey S. Schaeffer, Jana S. Stewart, Michael T. Slattery
2015, Restoration Ecology (23) 167-178
Classifications are typically specific to particular issues or areas, leading to patchworks of subjectively defined spatial units. Stream conservation is hindered by the lack of a universal habitat classification system and would benefit from an independent hydrology-guided spatial framework of units encompassing all aquatic habitats at multiple spatial scales within...
Detection of Ichthyophonus by chromogenic in situ hybridization
Carla M. Conway, Maureen K. Purcell, Diane G. Elliott, Paul K. Hershberger
2015, Journal of Fish Diseases (38) 853-857
Ichthyophonus hoferi (Plehn & Mulsow 1911) is a protistan parasite in the class Mesomycetozoea that infects a large range of marine and freshwater fish (Mendoza, Taylor & Ajello 2002; McVicar 2011). The broad...
Rangewide climate vulnerability assessment for threatened Bull Trout
Jason B. Dunham
2015, Report
The bull trout, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, is well adapted to the cold waters of the Northwest. Recent changes in climate have caused winter flooding and warmer summer water temperatures in the region, reducing the cold-water habitats that bull trout depend on. The southernmost bull trout...
Threshold-dependent sample sizes for selenium assessment with stream fish tissue
Nathaniel P. Hitt, David R. Smith
2015, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (11) 143-149
Natural resource managers are developing assessments of selenium (Se) contamination in freshwater ecosystems based on fish tissue concentrations. We evaluated the effects of sample size (i.e., number of fish per site) on the probability of correctly detecting mean whole-body Se values above a range of potential management thresholds. We modeled...
Data worth and prediction uncertainty for pesticide transport and fate models in Nebraska and Maryland, United States
Bernard T. Nolan, Robert W. Malone, John E. Doherty, Jack E. Barbash, Liwang Ma, Dale L. Shaner
2015, Pest Management Science (71) 972-985
BACKGROUND Complex environmental models are frequently extrapolated to overcome data limitations in space and time, but quantifying data worth to such models is rarely attempted. The authors determined which field observations most informed the parameters of agricultural system models applied to field sites in Nebraska (NE) and...
Understanding heat and groundwater flow through continental flood basalt provinces: insights gained from alternative models of permeability/depth relationships for the Columbia Plateau, USA
Erick R. Burns, Colin F. Williams, Steven E. Ingebritsen, Clifford I. Voss, Frank A. Spane, Jacob DeAngelo
2015, Geofluids (15) 120-138
Heat-flow mapping of the western USA has identified an apparent low-heat-flow anomaly coincident with the Columbia Plateau Regional Aquifer System, a thick sequence of basalt aquifers within the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG). A heat and mass transport model (SUTRA) was used to evaluate the potential impact of groundwater flow...
Development of ten microsatellite loci in the invasive giant African land snail, Achatina (=Lissachatina) fulica Bowdich, 1822
Cheryl L. Morrison, Marcus J. Springmann, Deborah D. Iwanowicz, Christopher M. Wade
2015, Conservation Genetics Resources (7) 201-202
A suite of tetra-nucleotide microsatellite loci were developed for the invasive giant African land snail, Achatina (=Lissachatina) fulica Bowdich, 1822, from Ion Torrent next-generation sequencing data. Ten of the 96 primer sets tested amplified consistently in 30 snails from Miami, Florida, plus 12 individuals representative of their native East Africa,...
Long-term decrease in satellite vegetation indices in response to environmental variables in an iconic desert riparian ecosystem: the Upper San Pedro, Arizona, United States
Uyen Nguyen, Edward P. Glenn, Pamela L. Nagler, Russell L. Scott
2015, Ecohydrology (8) 610-625
The Upper San Pedro River is one of the few remaining undammed rivers that maintain a vibrant riparian ecosystem in the southwest United States. However, its riparian forest is threatened by diminishing groundwater and surface water inputs, due to either changes in watershed characteristics such as changes in riparian and...
Forest Ecosystem respiration estimated from eddy covariance and chamber measurements under high turbulence and substantial tree mortality from bark beetles
Heather N. Speckman, John M. Frank, John B. Bradford, Brianna L. Miles, William J. Massman, William J. Parton, Michael G. Ryan
2015, Global Change Biology (21) 708-721
Eddy covariance nighttime fluxes are uncertain due to potential measurement biases. Many studies report eddy covariance nighttime flux lower than flux from extrapolated chamber measurements, despite corrections for low turbulence. We compared eddy covariance and chamber estimates of ecosystem respiration at the GLEES Ameriflux site over seven growing seasons under...
MODFLOW-based coupled surface water routing and groundwater-flow simulation
Joseph D. Hughes, Christian D. Langevin, Jeremy T. White
2015, Groundwater (53) 452-463
In this paper, we present a flexible approach for simulating one- and two-dimensional routing of surface water using a numerical surface water routing (SWR) code implicitly coupled to the groundwater-flow process in MODFLOW. Surface water routing in SWR can be simulated using a diffusive-wave approximation of the Saint-Venant equations and/or...
How have fisheries affected parasite communities?
Chelsea L. Wood, Kevin D. Lafferty
2015, Parasitology (142) 134-144
To understand how fisheries affect parasites, we conducted a meta-analysis of studies that contrasted parasite assemblages in fished and unfished areas. Parasite diversity was lower in hosts from fished areas. Larger hosts had a greater abundance of parasites, suggesting that fishing might reduce the abundance of parasites by selectively removing...
Demography of the Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens): 1974-2006
Rebecca L. Taylor, Mark S. Udevitz
2015, Marine Mammal Science (31) 231-254
Global climate change may fundamentally alter population dynamics of many species for which baseline population parameter estimates are imprecise or lacking. Historically, the Pacific walrus is thought to have been limited by harvest, but it may become limited by global warming-induced reductions in sea ice. Loss of sea ice, on...
Processes of arroyo filling in northern New Mexico, USA
Jonathan M. Friedman, Kirk R. Vincent, Eleanor R. Griffin, Michael L. Scott, Patrick B. Shafroth, Gregor T. Auble
2015, Geological Society of America Bulletin (127) 621-640
We documented arroyo evolution at the tree, trench, and arroyo scales along the lower Rio Puerco and Chaco Wash in northern New Mexico, USA. We excavated 29 buried living woody plants and used burial signatures in their annual rings to date stratigraphy in four trenches across the arroyos. Then, we...
Dietary mercury exposure to endangered California Clapper Rails in San Francisco Bay
Michael L. Casazza, Mark A. Ricca, Cory T. Overton, John Y. Takekawa, Angela Merritt, Joshua T. Ackerman
2015, Marine Pollution Bulletin (86) 254-260
California Clapper Rails (Rallus longirostris obsoletus) are an endangered waterbird that forage in tidal-marsh habitats that pose risks from mercury exposure. We analyzed total mercury (Hg) in six macro-invertebrate and one fish species representing Clapper Rail diets from four tidal-marshes in San Francisco Bay, California. Mercury concentrations among individual taxa...
Potential future land use threats to California's protected areas
Tamara Sue Wilson, Benjamin Michael Sleeter, Adam Wilkinson Davis
2015, Regional Environmental Change (15) 1051-1064
Increasing pressures from land use coupled with future changes in climate will present unique challenges for California’s protected areas. We assessed the potential for future land use conversion on land surrounding existing protected areas in California’s twelve ecoregions, utilizing annual, spatially explicit (250 m) scenario projections of land use for...
Patterns in diurnal airspace use by migratory landbirds along an ecological barrier
Anna C. Peterson, Gerald J. Niemi, Douglas H. Johnson
2015, Ecological Applications (25) 673-684
Migratory bird populations and survival are affected by conditions experienced during migration. While many studies and conservation and management efforts focus on terrestrial stoppage and staging areas, the aerial environment through which migrants move also is subjected to anthropogenic impacts with potential consequences to migratory movement and survival. During autumn...
A century of ocean warming on Florida Keys coral reefs: historic in situ observations
Ilsa B. Kuffner, Barbara H. Lidz, J. Harold Hudson, Jeffery S. Anderson
2015, Estuaries and Coasts (38) 1085-1096
There is strong evidence that global climate change over the last several decades has caused shifts in species distributions, species extinctions, and alterations in the functioning of ecosystems. However, because of high variability on short (i.e., diurnal, seasonal, and annual) timescales as well as the recency of a comprehensive instrumental...
