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...
Skeletal growth anomalies in corals
Thierry M. Work, L.T. Kaczmarsky, E. C. Peters
2015, Book chapter, Diseases of Coral
No abstract available....
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...
Dark-spots disease
Thierry M. Work, E. Weil
2015, Book chapter, Diseases of Coral
No abstract available....
Biocontainment practices for coral disease research
D. Palic, J. V. Warg, Thierry M. Work
2015, Book chapter, Diseases of Coral
No abstract available....
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...
New records of Merriam’s Shrew (Sorex merriami) from western North Dakota
M. J.Shaughnessy, Neal Woodman
2015, Check List (11) 1-4
Despite having a broad geographic distribution, Merriam's Shrew (Sorex merriami Dobson 1890) is known from a relatively few, widely-scattered localities. In North Dakota, the species was known from only a single poorly-preserved specimen collected in 1913 near Medora. We recently collected two new specimens of Merriam's Shrew from Billings and...
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...
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...
Setting the stage for a global science of atmospheric rivers
Michael D. Dettinger, F. Martin Ralph, David A. Lavers
2015, Eos, Earth and Space Science News (96)
Atmospheric rivers are important mechanisms for transporting water vapor through the atmosphere outside the tropics. These long, narrow, transient corridors occur at low altitudes just ahead of the cold front in midlatitude cyclone systems. These rivers in the sky stitch together the components of the extratropical water cycle by providing...
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...
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...
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...
Mission manzanita, queen of the elfin forest: is the species in decline?
Lee Gordon, Richard W. Halsey, Jon E. Keeley, Jon P. Rebman, Delbert Wiens, Arne Johanson
2015, Fremontia (43) 23-28
No abstract available ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Population genetic structure of moose (Alces alces) of South-central Alaska
Robert E. Wilson, John T. McDonough, Perry S. Barboza, Sandra L. Talbot, Sean D. Farley
2015, Alces (51) 71-86
The location of a population can influence its genetic structure and diversity by impacting the degree of isolation and connectivity to other populations. Populations at range margins are often thought to have less genetic variation and increased genetic structure, and a reduction in genetic diversity can have negative impacts on...
