Pranked by Audubon: Constantine S. Rafinesque's description of John James Audubon's imaginary Kentucky mammals
Neal Woodman
2016, Archives of Natural History (43) 95-108
The North American naturalist Constantine S. Rafinesque spent much of the year 1818 engaged in a solo journey down the Ohio River Valley to explore parts of what was then the western United States. Along the way, he visited a number of fellow naturalists, and he spent...
Seismic site characterization of an urban dedimentary basin, Livermore Valley, California: Site tesponse, basin-edge-induced surface waves, and 3D simulations
Stephen H. Hartzell, Alena L. Leeds, Leonardo Ramirez-Guzman, James P. Allen, Robert G. Schmitt
2016, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (103) 609-631
Thirty‐two accelerometers were deployed in the Livermore Valley, California, for approximately one year to study sedimentary basin effects. Many local and near‐regional earthquakes were recorded, including the 24 August 2014 Mw 6.0 Napa, California, earthquake. The resulting ground‐motion data set is used to quantify the seismic response of the Livermore basin, a...
NHDPlus as a geospatial framework for SPARROW modeling
John W. Brakebill, Gregory E. Schwarz
2016, Impact Assessment Bulletin (18)
Successful water-resource management requires thorough knowledge and understanding of the relations among water-quality contaminate sources and the factors that affect the transport throughout a hydrologic system. Surface-water modeling is a valuable tool that can be applied to help advance and achieve the understanding of these dynamic relations. Spatially Referenced Regressions...
Late Holocene expansion of Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) in the Central Rocky Mountains, USA
Jodi R. Norris, Julio L. Betancourt, Stephen T. Jackson
2016, Journal of Biogeography (43) 778-790
"Aim: Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) experienced one of the most extensive and rapid post-glacial plant migrations in western North America. We used plant macrofossils from woodrat (Neotoma) middens to reconstruct its spread in the Central Rocky Mountains, identify other vegetation changes coinciding with P. ponderosa expansion at the same sites,...
The power of remote sensing: Global monitoring of weather, water, and crops with satellites and data integration
Gabriel B. Senay
2016, Resource: Engineering and Technology for a Sustainable World (23) 6-9
Imagine a family of six whose livelihood is based on subsistence farming on a small, maybe one hectare, parcel of land somewhere in Africa. The seasonal rainfall varies greatly, from 500 to 800 mm per year, and the land is degraded. Thus, the parcel’s total productivity is not more than...
Evaluation of six NEHRP B/C crustal amplification models proposed for use in western North America
David Boore, Kenneth W. Campbell
2016, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (106) 673-686
We evaluate six crustal amplification models based on National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) B/C crustal profiles proposed for use in western North America (WNA) and often used in other active crustal regions where crustal properties are unknown. One of the models is based on an interpolation of generic rock...
Habitat selection by green turtles in a spatially heterogeneous benthic landscape in Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida
Ikuko Fujisaki, Kristen M. Hart, Autumn R. Sartain-Iverson
2016, Aquatic Biology (24) 185-199
We examined habitat selection by green turtles Chelonia mydas at Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida, USA. We tracked 15 turtles (6 females and 9 males) using platform transmitter terminals (PTTs); 13 of these turtles were equipped with additional acoustic transmitters. Location data by PTTs comprised periods of 40 to 226...
Scripting MODFLOW model development using Python and FloPy
Mark Bakker, Vincent E. A. Post, Christian D. Langevin, Joseph D. Hughes, Jeremy T. White, Jeffrey Starn, Michael N. Fienen
2016, Groundwater (54) 733-739
Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are commonly used to construct and postprocess numerical groundwater flow and transport models. Scripting model development with the programming language Python is presented here as an alternative approach. One advantage of Python is that there are many packages available to facilitate the model development process, including...
Salinity and temperature tolerance of an emergent alien species, the Amazon fish Astronotus ocellatus
Silvia M M Gutierrel, Pamela J. Schofield, Viviane Prodocimo
2016, Hydrobiologia (777) 21-31
Astronotus ocellatus (oscar), is native to the Amazon basin and, although it has been introduced to many countries, little is known regarding its tolerances for salinity and temperature. In this report, we provide data on the tolerance of A. ocellatus to abrupt and gradual changes in salinity, its high and...
2016 one-year seismic hazard forecast for the Central and Eastern United States from induced and natural earthquakes
Mark D. Petersen, Charles S. Mueller, Morgan P. Moschetti, Susan M. Hoover, Andrea L. Llenos, William L. Ellsworth, Andrew J. Michael, Justin L. Rubinstein, Arthur F. McGarr, Kenneth S. Rukstales
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1035
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has produced a 1-year seismic hazard forecast for 2016 for the Central and Eastern United States (CEUS) that includes contributions from both induced and natural earthquakes. The model assumes that earthquake rates calculated from several different time windows will remain relatively stationary and can be...
Groundwater exchanges near a channelized versus unmodified stream mouth discharging to a subalpine lake
James Constantz, Ramon C. Naranjo, Richard G. Niswonger, Kip K. Allander, B. Neilson, Donald O. Rosenberry, David W. Smith, C. Rosecrans, David A. Stonestrom
2016, Water Resources Research (52) 2157-2177
The terminus of a stream flowing into a larger river, pond, lake, or reservoir is referred to as the stream-mouth reach or simply the stream mouth. The terminus is often characterized by rapidly changing thermal and hydraulic conditions that result in abrupt shifts in surface water/groundwater (sw/gw) exchange patterns, creating the potential for...
Crude oil metabolites in groundwater at two spill sites
Barbara A. Bekins, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli, Melinda L. Erickson, Ross Steenson, Kevin A. Thorn
2016, Groundwater (54) 681-691
Two groundwater plumes in north central Minnesota with residual crude oil sources have 20 to 50 mg/L of nonvolatile dissolved organic carbon (NVDOC). These values are over 10 times higher than benzene and two to three times higher than Diesel Range Organics in the same wells. On the basis of...
Integrating subsistence practice and species distribution modeling: assessing invasive elodea’s potential impact on Native Alaskan subsistence of Chinook salmon and whitefish
Matthew Luizza, Paul Evangelista, Catherine S. Jarnevich, Amanda M. West, Heather Stewart
2016, Environmental Management (58) 144-163
Alaska has one of the most rapidly changing climates on earth and is experiencing an accelerated rate of human disturbance, including resource extraction and transportation infrastructure development. Combined, these factors increase the state’s vulnerability to biological invasion, which can have acute negative impacts on ecological integrity and subsistence practices. Of...
Enhancing and restoring habitat for the desert tortoise
Scott R. Abella, Kristin H. Berry
2016, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (7) 255-279
Habitat has changed unfavorably during the past 150 y for the desert tortoise Gopherus agassizii, a federally threatened species with declining populations in the Mojave Desert and western Sonoran Desert. To support recovery efforts, we synthesized published information on relationships of desert tortoises with three habitat features (cover sites, forage,...
Permissible Home Range Estimation (PHRE) in restricted habitats: A new algorithm and an evaluation for sea otters
Lily M Tarjan, M. Tim Tinker
2016, PLoS ONE (11) e0150547
Parametric and nonparametric kernel methods dominate studies of animal home ranges and space use. Most existing methods are unable to incorporate information about the underlying physical environment, leading to poor performance in excluding areas that are not used. Using radio-telemetry data from sea otters, we developed and evaluated a new...
Exploring climate niches of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Douglas ex Lawson) haplotypes in the western United States: Implications for evolutionary history and conservation
Douglas J. Shinneman, Robert E. Means, Kevin M. Potter, Valerie D. Hipkins
2016, PLoS ONE (11) e0151811
Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Douglas ex Lawson) occupies montane environments throughout western North America, where it is both an ecologically and economically important tree species. A recent study using mitochondrial DNA analysis demonstrated substantial genetic variation among ponderosa pine populations in the western U.S., identifying 10 haplotypes with unique evolutionary lineages...
Susceptibility and antibody response of Vesper Sparrows (Pooecetes gramineus) to West Nile virus: A potential amplification host in sagebrush-grassland habitat
Erik K. Hofmeister, Robert J. Dusek, Carol Fassbinder-Orth, Benjamin Owen, J. Christian Franson
2016, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (52)
West Nile virus (WNV) spread to the US western plains states in 2003, when a significant mortality event attributed to WNV occurred in Greater Sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ). The role of avian species inhabiting sagebrush in the amplification of WNV in arid and semiarid regions of the North America...
Estimating abundance in the presence of species uncertainty
Thierry A. Chambert, Blake R. Hossack, LeeAnn Fishback, Jon M. Davenport
2016, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (7) 1041-1049
1.N-mixture models have become a popular method for estimating abundance of free-ranging animals that are not marked or identified individually. These models have been used on count data for single species that can be identified with certainty. However, co-occurring species often look similar during one or more life stages,...
Metapopulation viability of an endangered shorebird depends on dispersal and human-created habitats: Piping plovers (Charadrius melodus) and prairie rivers
Daniel H. Catlin, Sara L. Zeigler, M. Bomberger Brown, Lauren R. Dinan, James D. Fraser, Kelsi L. Hunt, Joel G. Jorgensen
2016, Movement Ecology (4)
Background Many species are distributed as metapopulations in dynamic landscapes, where habitats change through space and time. Individuals locate habitat through dispersal, and the relationship between a species and landscape characteristics can have profound effects on population persistence. Despite the importance of connectivity in dynamic environments,...
Illuminating wildfire erosion and deposition patterns with repeat terrestrial lidar
Francis K. Rengers, G.E. Tucker, J. A. Moody, Brian Ebel
2016, Journal of Geophysical Research F: Earth Surface (121) 588-608
Erosion following a wildfire is much greater than background erosion in forests because of wildfire-induced changes to soil erodibility and water infiltration. While many previous studies have documented post-wildfire erosion with point and small plot-scale measurements, the spatial distribution of post-fire erosion patterns at the watershed scale remains largely unexplored....
Prioritizing avian species for their risk of population-level consequences from wind energy development
Julie A. Beston, James E. Diffendorfer, Scott Loss, Douglas H. Johnson
2016, PLoS ONE (11) Article e0150813
Recent growth in the wind energy industry has increased concerns about its impacts on wildlife populations. Direct impacts of wind energy include bird and bat collisions with turbines whereas indirect impacts include changes in wildlife habitat and behavior. Although many species may withstand these effects, species that are long-lived with...
Spatially explicit rangeland erosion monitoring using high-resolution digital aerial imagery
Jeffrey K. Gillan, Jason W. Karl, Nichole N. Barger, Ahmed Elaksher, Michael C. Duniway
2016, Rangeland Ecology and Management (69) 95-107
Nearly all of the ecosystem services supported by rangelands, including production of livestock forage, carbon sequestration, and provisioning of clean water, are negatively impacted by soil erosion. Accordingly, monitoring the severity, spatial extent, and rate of soil erosion is essential for long-term sustainable management. Traditional field-based methods of monitoring erosion...
Slow-moving and far-travelled dense pyroclastic flows during the Peach Spring super-eruption
Olivier Roche, David C. Buesch, Greg A. Valentine
2016, Nature Communications (7) 1-8
Explosive volcanic super-eruptions of several hundred cubic kilometres or more generate long run-out pyroclastic density currents the dynamics of which are poorly understood and controversial. Deposits of one such event in the southwestern USA, the 18.8 Ma Peach Spring Tuff, were formed by pyroclastic flows that travelled >170 km...
Habitat selection by juvenile Mojave Desert tortoises
Brian D Todd, Brian J. Halstead, Lindsay P. Chiquoine, J. Mark Peaden, Kurt A. Buhlmann, Tracey D. Tuberville, Aleta Nafus
2016, Journal of Wildlife Management (80) 720-728
Growing pressure to develop public lands for renewable energy production places several protected species at increased risk of habitat loss. One example is the Mojave desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), a species often at the center of conflicts over public land development. For this species and others on public lands, a...
Assessing spring direct mortality to avifauna from wind energy facilities in the Dakotas
Brianna J. Graff, Jonathan A. Jenks, Joshua D. Stafford, Kent C. Jensen, Troy W. Grovenburg
2016, Journal of Wildlife Management (80) 736-745
The Northern Great Plains (NGP) contains much of the remaining temperate grasslands, an ecosystem that is one of the most converted and least protected in the world. Within the NGP, the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) provides important habitat for >50% of North America's breeding waterfowl and many species of shorebirds,...
