Experimental evidence of spatial memory and home range affinity in White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
Michael E. Nelson
2015, Canadian Field-Naturalist (129) 1-7
The role of spatial memory in the movement of animals through landscapes remains elusive. To examine spatial memory and home range affinity of White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in northeastern Minnesota during 1995–2007, I translocated 17 adult does with known home ranges to unfamiliar sites and radio-tracked them after their release....
Effects of regulated river flows on habitat suitability for the robust redhorse
J. M. Fisk III, Thomas J. Kwak, R. J. Heise
2015, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (144) 792-806
The Robust Redhorse Moxostoma robustum is a rare and imperiled fish, with wild populations occurring in three drainages from North Carolina to Georgia. Hydroelectric dams have altered the species’ habitat and restricted its range. An augmented minimum-flow regime that will affect Robust Redhorse habitat was recently prescribed for Blewett Falls...
Avian cholera causes marine bird mortality in the Bering Sea of Alaska
Barbara L. Bodenstein, Kimberlee B. Beckmen, Gay Sheffield, Kathy Kuletz, Caroline R. Van Hemert, Brenda M. Berlowski-Zier, Valerie I. Shearn-Bochsler
2015, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (51) 934-937
The first known avian cholera outbreak among wild birds in Alaska occurred during November 2013. Liver, intestinal, and splenic necrosis consistent with avian cholera was noted, and Pasteurella multocida serotype 1 was isolated from liver and lung or spleen in Crested Auklets (Aethia cristatella), Thick-billed Murres (Uria lomvia), Common Eider (Somateria mollissima),...
Biotic and abiotic influences on abundance and distribution of nonnative Chinook salmon and native ESA-listed steelhead in the Wind River, Washington
Ian G. Jezorek, Patrick J. Connolly
2015, Northwest Science (89) 58-74
Biotic and abiotic factors influence fish populations and distributions. Concerns have been raised about the influence of hatchery fish on wild populations. Carson National Fish Hatchery produces spring Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha in the Wind River, Washington, and some spawn in the river. Managers were concerned that Chinook salmon could...
Fifty-sixth supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union: Check-list of North American Birds
R. Terry Chesser, Richard C. Banks, Kevin J Burns, Carla Cicero, Jon L. Dunn, Andrew W. Kratter, Irby J. Lovette, Adolfo G. Navarro-Siguenza, Pamela C. Rasmussen, J V Remsen, James D. Rising, Douglas F. Stotz, Kevin Winker
2015, The Auk (132) 748-764
This is the 15th supplement since publication of the 7th edition of the Check-list of North American Birds (American Ornithologists' Union [AOU] 1998). It summarizes decisions made between May 15, 2014, and April 15, 2015, by the AOU's Committee on Classification and Nomenclature - North and Middle America. The Committee...
Energy flow and the “grassification” of desert shrublands
Julio L. Betancourt
2015, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (112) 9504-9505
In our directionally and continuously changing world, history still matters, and it does so in increasingly novel and important ways. Human adaptation to global change will rely heavily on robust baselines of historic environmental variability and detailed understanding of how both past and modern ecosystems have responded to both individual...
Effect of mastication and other mechanical treatments on fuel structure in chaparral
Teresa J. Brennan, Jon E. Keeley
2015, International Journal of Wildland Fire (24) 949-963
Mechanical fuel treatments are a common pre-fire strategy for reducing wildfire hazard that alters fuel structure by converting live canopy fuels to a compacted layer of dead surface fuels. Current knowledge concerning their effectiveness, however, comes primarily from forest-dominated ecosystems. Our objectives were to quantify and compare changes in shrub-dominated...
Response of the Miliolid Archaias angulatus to simulated ocean acidification
Paul O. Knorr, Lisa L. Robbins, Peter J. Harries, Pamela Hallock, Jonathan Wynn
2015, Journal of Foraminiferal Research (45) 109-127
A common, but not universal, effect of ocean acidification on benthic foraminifera is a reduction in the growth rate. The miliolid Archaias angulatus is a high-Mg (>4 mole% MgCO3), symbiont-bearing, soritid benthic foraminifer that contributes to Caribbean reef carbonate sediments. A laboratory culture study assessed the effects of reduced pH...
Detailed description of oil shale organic and mineralogical heterogeneity via fourier transform infrared mircoscopy
Kathryn E. Washburn, Justin E. Birdwell, Michael Foster, Fernando Gutierrez
2015, Energy & Fuels (29) 4264-4271
Mineralogical and geochemical information on reservoir and source rocks is necessary to assess and produce from petroleum systems. The standard methods in the petroleum industry for obtaining these properties are bulk measurements on homogenized, generally crushed, and pulverized rock samples and can take from hours to days to perform. New...
Closing the loop of the soil water retention curve
Ning Lu, N Alsherif, Alexandra Wayllace, Jonathan W. Godt
2015, Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering (141)
The authors, to their knowledge for the first time, produced two complete principal soil water retention curves (SWRCs) under both positive and negative matric suction regimes. An innovative testing technique combining the transient water release and imbibition method (TRIM) and constant flow method (CFM) was used to identify the principal...
A case study of assigning conservation value to dispersed habitat units for conservation planning
Jason J. Rohweder, Sara C. Vacek, Shawn M. Crimmins, Wayne E. Thogmartin
2015, Journal of Conservation Planning (11) 13-27
Resource managers are increasingly tasked with developing habitat conservation plans in the face of numerous, sometimes competing, objectives. These plans must often be implemented across dispersed habitat conservation units that may contribute unequally to overall conservation objectives. Using U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service waterfowl production areas (WPA) in western Minnesota...
A global satellite assisted precipitation climatology
Christopher C. Funk, Andrew P. Verdin, Joel C. Michaelsen, Diego Pedreros, Gregory J. Husak, P. Peterson
2015, Earth System Science Data (8) 401-425
Accurate representations of mean climate conditions, especially in areas of complex terrain, are an important part of environmental monitoring systems. As high-resolution satellite monitoring information accumulates with the passage of time, it can be increasingly useful in efforts to better characterize the earth's mean climatology. Current state-of-the-science products rely on...
Global change and conservation triage on National Wildlife Refuges
Fred A. Johnson, Mitchell J. Eaton, Gerard McMahon, Raye Nilius, Mike Bryant, Dave Case, Julien Martin, Nathan J. Wood, Laura Taylor
2015, Ecology and Society (20) 1-8
National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) in the United States play an important role in the adaptation of social-ecological systems to climate change, land-use change, and other global-change processes. Coastal refuges are already experiencing threats from sea-level rise and other change processes that are largely beyond their ability to influence, while...
Ceres: predictions for near-surface water ice stability and implications for plume generating processes
Timothy N. Titus
2015, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 2130-2136
This paper will constrain the possible sources and processes for the formation of recently observed H2O vapor plumes above the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres. Two hypotheses have been proposed: (1) cryovolcanism where the water source is the mantle and the heating source is still unknown or (2) comet-like...
Simulations of potential future conditions in the cache critical groundwater area, Arkansas
Haveen M. Rashid, Brian R. Clark, Hanan H. Mahdi, Hanadi S. Rifai, Haydar J. Al-Shukri
2015, Environmental & Engineering Geoscience (21) 1-19
A three-dimensional finite-difference model for part of the Mississippi River Valley alluvial aquifer in the Cache Critical Groundwater Area of eastern Arkansas was constructed to simulate potential future conditions of groundwater flow. The objectives of this study were to test different pilot point distributions to find reasonable estimates of aquifer...
Drought-caused delay in nesting of Sonoran Desert birds and its facilitation of parasite- and predator-mediated variation in reproductive success
Chris McCreedy, Charles van Riper III
2015, The Auk (132) 235-247
As our understanding of climate change has increased, so has our awareness of the impacts of these changes on biotic systems. Climate models are nearly unanimous in their predictions for increased drought frequency in southwestern North America, and delays in nest initiation due to drought may influence nesting success and...
Projected carbon stocks in the conterminous USA with land use and variable fire regimes
Dominique Bachelet, Ken Ferschweiler, Timothy J. Sheehan, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Zhiliang Zhu
2015, Global Change Biology (21) 4548-4560
The dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM) MC2 was run over the conterminous USA at 30 arc sec (~800 m) to simulate the impacts of nine climate futures generated by 3GCMs (CSIRO, MIROC and CGCM3) using 3 emission scenarios (A2, A1B and B1) in the context of the LandCarbon national carbon sequestration...
Thermal onset of cellular and endocrine stress responses correspond to ecological limits in brook trout, an iconic cold-water fish
Joseph G Chadwick, Kieth H Nislow, Stephen D. McCormick
2015, Conservation Physiology (3) 1-12
Climate change is predicted to change the distribution and abundance of species, yet underlying physiological mechanisms are complex and methods for detecting populations at risk from rising temperature are poorly developed. There is increasing interest in using physiological mediators of the stress response as indicators of individual and population-level response...
Preface to the focus section on injection-induced seismicity
David Eaton, Justin L. Rubinstein
2015, Seismological Research Letters (86) 1058-1059
The ongoing, dramatic increase in seismicity in the central United States that began in 2009 is believed to be the result of injection‐induced seismicity (Ellsworth, 2013). Although the basic mechanism for activation of slip on a fault by subsurface fluid injection is well established (Healy et al., 1968; Raleighet al., 1976; <span...
Microsatellite variation and rare alleles in a bottlenecked Hawaiian Islands endemic: implications for reintroductions
Michelle H. Reynolds, John M. Pearce, Philip Lavretsky, Pedro P. Seixas, Karen Courtot
2015, Endangered Species Research (28) 117-122
Conservation of genetic biodiversity in endangered wildlife populations is an important challenge to address since the loss of alleles and genetic drift may influence future adaptability. Reintroduction aims to re-establish species to restored or protected ecosystems; however, moving a subset of individuals may result in loss of gene variants during...
Multiscale hydrogeomorphic influences on bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) spawning habitat
Jared R Bean, Andrew C. Wilcox, William W. Woessner, Clint C. Muhlfeld
2015, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (72) 514-526
We investigated multiscale hydrogeomorphic influences on the distribution and abundance of bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) spawning in snowmelt-dominated streams of the upper Flathead River basin, northwestern Montana. Within our study reaches, bull trout tended to spawn in the finest available gravel substrates. Analysis of the mobility of these substrates, based...
Achieving high survival of tournament-caught black bass: past efforts and future needs and opportunities
Harold Schramm Jr., Gene Gilliland
2015, Journal of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (2) 50-56
Rapid growth of black bass (Micropterus spp.) tournaments in the 1960s and 1970s caused concern among fisheries managers and anglers about the impacts of tournament-caused mortality on bass populations. Tournament organizers voluntarily implemented live-release events in the early 1980s. As catch-and-release practices became more common, procedures to improve the survival...
El Niño–Southern Oscillation diversity and Southern Africa teleconnections during Austral Summer
Andrew Hoell, Christopher C. Funk, Tamuka Magadzire, Jens Zinke, Gregory J. Husak
2015, Climate Dynamics (45) 1583-1599
A wide range of sea surface temperature (SST) expressions have been observed during the El Niño–Southern Oscillation events of 1950–2010, which have occurred simultaneously with different global atmospheric circulations. This study examines the atmospheric circulation and precipitation during December–March 1950–2010 over the African Continent south of 15°<span...
Dynamics of an open basaltic magma system: The 2008 activity of the Halema‘uma‘u Overlook vent, Kīlauea Caldera
Julia Eychenne, Bruce F. Houghton, Don Swanson, Rebecca Carey, Lauren Swavely
2015, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (409) 49-60
On March 19, 2008 a small explosive event accompanied the opening of a 35-m-wide vent (Overlook vent) on the southeast wall of Halema‘uma‘u Crater in Kīlauea Caldera, initiating an eruptive period that extends to the time of writing. The peak of activity, in 2008, consisted of alternating background open-system outgassing...
Faunal responses to fire in chaparral and sage scrub in California, USA
Elizabeth van Mantgem, Jon E. Keeley, Marti Witter
2015, Fire Ecology (11) 128-148
Impact of fire on California shrublands has been well studied but nearly all of this work has focused on plant communities. Impact on and recovery of the chaparral fauna has received only scattered attention; this paper synthesizes what is known in this regard for the diversity of animal taxa associated...
