Social and Economic Analysis Branch: integrating policy, social, economic, and natural science
Rudy Schuster, Katie D. Walters
2015, Fact Sheet 2014-3070
The Fort Collins Science Center's Social and Economic Analysis Branch provides unique capabilities in the U.S. Geological Survey by leading projects that integrate social, behavioral, economic, and natural science in the context of human–natural resource interactions. Our research provides scientific understanding and support for the management and conservation of our...
A summary of the benthic-invertebrate and fish-community data from streams in the Indianapolis metropolitan area, Indiana, 1981-2012
David C. Voelker, Aubrey R. Bunch, Edward G. Dobrowolski, Megan E. Shoda
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5225
Intermittently, during 1981–2012, the U.S. Geological Survey sampled sites in the White River and several tributaries in the Indianapolis metropolitan area of Indiana for benthic invertebrates and fish communities. During 1981–87, one study focused on benthic-invertebrate data collection at three sites along the White River. During 1994–96, 21 sites were...
Plant diversity predicts beta but not alpha diversity of soil microbes across grasslands worldwide
Suzanne M. Prober, Jonathan W. Leff, Scott T. Bates, Elizabeth T. Borer, Jennifer Firn, W. Stanley Harpole, Eric M. Lind, Eric W. Seabloom, Peter B. Adler, Jonathan D. Bakker, Elsa E. Cleland, Nicole DeCrappeo, Elizabeth DeLorenze, Nicole Hagenah, Yann Hautier, Kirsten S. Hofmockel, Kevin P. Kirkman, Johannes M. H. Knops, Kimberly J. La Pierre, Andrew S. MacDougall, Rebecca L. McCulley, Charles E. Mitchell, Anita C. Risch, Martin Schuetz, Carly J. Stevens, Ryan J. Williams, Noah Fierer
2015, Ecology Letters (18) 85-95
Aboveground–belowground interactions exert critical controls on the composition and function of terrestrial ecosystems, yet the fundamental relationships between plant diversity and soil microbial diversity remain elusive. Theory predicts predominantly positive associations but tests within single sites have shown variable relationships, and associations between plant and microbial diversity across broad spatial...
Landslide mobility and hazards: implications of the 2014 Oso disaster
Richard M. Iverson, David L. George, Kate E. Allstadt, Mark E. Reid, Brian D. Collins, James W. Vallance, Steve P. Schilling, Jonathan W. Godt, Charles Cannon, Christopher S. Magirl, Rex L. Baum, Jeffrey A. Coe, William H. Schulz, J. Brent Bower
2015, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (412) 197-208
Landslides reflect landscape instability that evolves over meteorological and geological timescales, and they also pose threats to people, property, and the environment. The severity of these threats depends largely on landslide speed and travel distance, which are collectively described as landslide “mobility”. To investigate causes and effects of mobility, we...
Total- and methyl-mercury concentrations and methylation rates across the freshwater to hypersaline continuum of the Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA
William P. Johnson, Neil Swanson, Brooks Black, Abigail Rudd, Gregory Carling, Diego P. Fernandez, John Luft, Jim Van Leeuwen, Mark C. Marvin-DiPasquale
2015, Science of the Total Environment (511) 489-500
We examined mercury (Hg) speciation in water and sediment of the Great Salt Lake and surrounding wetlands, a locale spanning fresh to hypersaline and oxic to anoxic conditions, in order to test the hypothesis that spatial and temporal variations in Hg concentration and methylation rates correspond to observed spatial and...
Quantifying water requirements of riparian river red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia: Implications for the management of environmental flows
Tanya M. Doody, Matthew J. Colloff, Micah Davies, Vijay Koul, Richard G. Benyon, Pamela L. Nagler
2015, Ecohydrology (8) 1471-1487
Water resource development and drought have altered river flow regimes, increasing average flood return intervals across floodplains in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia, causing health declines in riparian river red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) forests and woodlands. Environmental flow allocations helped to alleviate water stress during the recent Millennium Drought (1997–2010), however,...
Lithologic and hydrologic controls of mixed alluvial-bedrock channels in flood-prone fluvial systems: bankfull and macrochannels in the Llano River watershed, central Texas, USA
Frank T. Heitmuller, Paul F. Hudson, William H. Asquith
2015, Geomorphology (232) 1-19
The rural and unregulated Llano River watershed located in central Texas, USA, has a highly variable flow regime and a wide range of instantaneous peak flows. Abrupt transitions in surface lithology exist along the main-stem channel course. Both of these characteristics afford an opportunity to examine hydrologic, lithologic, and sedimentary...
Baseline water-quality sampling to infer nutrient and contaminant sources at Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park, Island of Hawai‘i, 2009
Charles D. Hunt Jr.
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5158
Baseline water-quality sampling was conducted for dissolved nutrients and for chemical and isotopic tracers at Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park on the Island of Hawai'i. Existing and future urbanization in the surrounding areas have the potential to affect water quality in the Park, and so the National Park Service and the...
Fluid pressure responses for a Devil's Slide-like system: problem formulation and simulation
Matthew A. Thomas, Keith Loague, Clifford I. Voss
2015, Hydrological Processes (29) 1450-1465
This study employs a hydrogeologic simulation approach to investigate subsurface fluid pressures for a landslide-prone section of the central California, USA, coast known as Devil's Slide. Understanding the relative changes in subsurface fluid pressures is important for systems, such as Devil's Slide, where slope creep can be interrupted by episodic...
Implications of the circumpolar genetic structure of polar bears for their conservation in a rapidly warming Arctic
Elizabeth L. Peacock, Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Martyn E. Obbard, Andrei N. Boltunov, Eric V. Regehr, Nikita Ovsyanikov, Jon Aars, Stephen N. Atkinson, George K. Sage, Andrew G. Hope, Eve Zeyl, Lutz Bachmann, Dorothee Ehrich, Kim T. Scribner, Steven C. Amstrup, Stanislav Belikov, Erik W. Born, Andrew E. Derocher, Ian Stirling, Mitchell K. Taylor, Øystein Wiig, David Paetkau, Sandra L. Talbot
2015, PLoS ONE (10)
We provide an expansive analysis of polar bear (Ursus maritimus) circumpolar genetic variation during the last two decades of decline in their sea-ice habitat. We sought to evaluate whether their genetic diversity and structure have changed over this period of habitat decline, how their current genetic patterns compare with past...
U.S. Geological Survey groundwater toolbox, a graphical and mapping interface for analysis of hydrologic data (version 1.0): user guide for estimation of base flow, runoff, and groundwater recharge from streamflow data
Paul M. Barlow, William L. Cunningham, Tong Zhai, Mark Gray
2015, Techniques and Methods 3-B10
This report is a user guide for the streamflow-hydrograph analysis methods provided with version 1.0 of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Groundwater Toolbox computer program. These include six hydrograph-separation methods to determine the groundwater-discharge (base-flow) and surface-runoff components of streamflow—the Base-Flow Index (BFI; Standard and Modified), HYSEP (Fixed Interval, Sliding...
Location, timing and extent of wildfire vary by cause of ignition
Alexandra D. Syphard, Jon E. Keeley
2015, International Journal of Wildland Fire (24) 37-47
The increasing extent of wildfires has prompted investigation into alternative fire management approaches to complement the traditional strategies of fire suppression and fuels manipulation. Wildfire prevention through ignition reduction is an approach with potential for success, but ignitions result from a variety of causes. If some ignition sources result in...
Organic matters: investigating the sources, transport, and fate of organic matter in Fanno Creek, Oregon
Steven Sobieszczyk, Mackenzie K. Keith, Jami H. Goldman, Stewart A. Rounds
2015, Fact Sheet 2015-3003
The term organic matter refers to the remnants of all living material. This can include fallen leaves, yard waste, animal waste, downed timber, or the remains of any other plant and animal life. Organic matter is abundant both on land and in water. Investigating organic matter is necessary for understanding...
Data regarding hydraulic fracturing distributions and treatment fluids, additives, proppants, and water volumes applied to wells drilled in the United States from 1947 through 2010
Tanya J. Gallegos, Brian A. Varela
2015, Data Series 868
Comprehensive, published, and publicly available data regarding the extent, location, and character of hydraulic fracturing in the United States are scarce. The objective of this data series is to publish data related to hydraulic fracturing in the public domain. The spreadsheets released with this data series contain derivative datasets aggregated...
Core-satellite species hypothesis and native versus exotic species in secondary succession
Kelsey A. Martinez, David J. Gibson, Beth A. Middleton
2015, Plant Ecology (216) 419-427
A number of hypotheses exist to explain species’ distributions in a landscape, but these hypotheses are not frequently utilized to explain the differences in native and exotic species distributions. The core-satellite species (CSS) hypothesis predicts species occupancy will be bimodally distributed, i.e., many species will be common and many species...
Trends in hydraulic fracturing distributions and treatment fluids, additives, proppants, and water volumes applied to wells drilled in the United States from 1947 through 2010: data analysis and comparison to the literature
Tanya J. Gallegos, Brian A. Varela
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5131
Hydraulic fracturing is presently the primary stimulation technique for oil and gas production in low-permeability, unconventional reservoirs. Comprehensive, published, and publicly available information regarding the extent, location, and character of hydraulic fracturing in the United States is scarce. This national spatial and temporal analysis of data on nearly 1 million...
Genetic analysis of invasive Asian Black Carp (Mylopharyngodon piceus) in the Mississippi River Basin: evidence for multiple introductions
Margaret E. Hunter, Leo G. Nico
2015, Biological Invasions (17) 99-114
Invasive Asian Black Carp (Mylopharyngodon piceus) have been present in USA aquaculture facilities since the 1980s and wild Black Carp have been found in the Mississippi River Basin since the early 1990s. This study characterizes the genetic diversity and relatedness of the Basin’s Black Carp and clarifies the introduction history....
Evaluating and ranking threats to the long-term persistence of polar bears
Todd C. Atwood, Bruce G. Marcot, David C. Douglas, Steven C. Amstrup, Karyn D. Rode, George M. Durner, Jeffrey F. Bromaghin
2015, Open-File Report 2014-1254
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) was listed as a globally threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2008, mostly due to the significant threat to their future population viability from rapidly declining Arctic sea ice. A core mandate of the ESA is the development of a recovery...
Predation on native sculpin by exotic brown trout exceeds that by native cutthroat trout within a mountain watershed (Logan, UT, USA)
Christy S. Meredith, Phaedra E. Budy, Gary P. Thiede
2015, Ecology of Freshwater Fish (24) 133-147
We explored potential negative effects of exotic brown trout (Salmo trutta) on native sculpin (Cottus sp.) on the Logan River, Utah, USA by (i) examining factors most strongly correlated with sculpin abundance (e.g., abiotic conditions or piscivory?), (ii) contrasting the extent of brown trout predation on sculpin with that by native...
Different fire-climate relationships on forested and non-forested landscapes in the Sierra Nevada ecoregion
Jon E. Keeley, Alexandra D. Syphard
2015, International Journal of Wildland Fire (24) 27-36
In the California Sierra Nevada region, increased fire activity over the last 50 years has only occurred in the higher-elevation forests on US Forest Service (USFS) lands, and is not characteristic of the lower-elevation grasslands, woodlands and shrublands on state responsibility lands (Cal Fire). Increased fire activity on USFS lands...
Avian malaria in Hawaiian forest birds: Infection and population impacts across species and elevations
Michael D. Samuel, Bethany L. Woodworth, Carter T. Atkinson, Patrick J. Hart, Dennis LaPointe
2015, Ecosphere (6) 1-21
Wildlife diseases can present significant threats to ecological systems and biological diversity, as well as domestic animal and human health. However, determining the dynamics of wildlife diseases and understanding the impact on host populations is a significant challenge. In Hawai‘i, there is ample circumstantial evidence that introduced avian malaria...
Geochemical evolution of groundwater in the Mud Lake area, eastern Idaho, USA
Gordon W. Rattray
2015, Environmental Earth Sciences (73) 8251-8269
Groundwater with elevated dissolved-solids concentrations—containing large concentrations of chloride, sodium, sulfate, and calcium—is present in the Mud Lake area of Eastern Idaho. The source of these solutes is unknown; however, an understanding of the geochemical sources and processes controlling their presence in groundwater in the Mud Lake area is needed...
Coastal Change Processes Project data report for observations near Fire Island, New York, January to April 2012
Brandy N. Armstrong, John C. Warner, Jeffrey H. List, Marinna A. Martini, Ellyn T. Montgomery, George Voulgaris, Peter A. Traykovski
2015, Open-File Report 2014-1159
An oceanographic field study during January through April 2012 investigated processes that control the sediment-transport dynamics near Fire Island, New York. This report describes the project background, field program, instrumentation configuration, and locations of the sensors deploymed. The data collected and supporting meteorological observations are presented as time series plots...
Erratum to: Estimates of vital rates for a declining loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) subpopulation: implications for management
Margaret M. Lamont, Ikuko Fujisaki, Raymond R. Carthy
2015, Marine Biology (162) 491-491
Erratum to: Mar Biol (2014) 161:2659–2668 DOI 10.1007/s00227-014-2537-0 The Open Robust Model methods used for analysis in this study were developed by Kendall and Bjorkland (2001) and Kendall (2010). The language used in this manuscript to describe formatting and implementation of data for these analyses was derived heavily from Phillips et...
Monitoring-well installation, slug testing, and groundwater quality for selected sites in South Park, Park County, Colorado, 2013
L. R. Arnold
2015, Open-File Report 2014-1231
During May–June, 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Park County, Colorado, drilled and installed four groundwater monitoring wells in areas identified as needing new wells to provide adequate spatial coverage for monitoring water quality in the South Park basin. Lithologic logs and well-construction reports were prepared for each...
