Migratory patterns of hatchery and stream-reared Atlantic salmon Salmo salar smolts in the Connecticut River, U.S.A.
Stephen D. McCormick, Alexander Haro, Darren T. Lerner, Michael F. O’Dea, Amy M. Regish
2014, Journal of Fish Biology (85) 1005-1022
The timing of downstream migration and detection rates of hatchery-reared Atlantic salmon Salmo salar smolts and stream-reared smolts (stocked 2 years earlier as fry) were examined in the Connecticut River (U.S.A.) using passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags implanted into fish and then detected at a downstream fish bypass collection facility at Turners...
Spatial patterns of lacustrine fish assemblages in a catchment of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley
Caroline S. Andrews, Leandro E. Miranda, Daniel B. Goetz, Robert Kroger
2014, Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems (24) 634-644
In the alluvial valley of the lower Mississippi River, floodplain lakes form isolated aquatic fragments that retain differing degrees of connectivity to neighbouring rivers. Within these floodplain lakes it was hypothesized that fish species composition, relative abundance, and biodiversity metrics would be shaped largely by aquatic connectivity...
Chemical complexity and source of the White River Ash, Alaska and Yukon
S.J. Preece, Robert G. McGimsey, J.A. Westgate, N.J.G. Pearce, W.K. Hartmann, W.T. Perkins
2014, Geosphere (10) 1020-1042
The White River Ash, a prominent stratigraphic marker bed in Alaska (USA) and Yukon (Canada), consists of multiple compositional units belonging to two geochemical groups. The compositional units are characterized using multiple criteria, with combined glass and ilmenite compositions being the best discriminators. Two compositional units compose the northern group...
Palila restoration research, 1996−2012
Paul C. Banko, Chris Farmer, Carter T. Atkinson, Kevin W. Brinck, Richad Camp, Colleen Cole, Raymond Canner, Steve Dougill, Daniel Goltz, Elizabeth Gray, Steven C. Hess, Jennifer Higashino, Susan I. Jarvi, Luanne Johnson, Leona Laniawe, Megan Laut, Linda Miller, Christopher J. Murray, Daniel Nelson, David L. Leonard, Peter Oboyshi, Leanne Patch-Highfill, David D. Pollock, Kalei Rapozo, Marla Schwarzfeld, John Slotterback, Robert M. Stephens
Paul C. Banko, Chris Farmer, editor(s)
2014, Technical Report HCSU-046
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...
Evaluating the effects of land use on headwater wetland amphibian assemblages in coastal Alabama
Diane M. Alix, Christopher J. Anderson, J. Barry Grand, Craig Guyer
2014, Wetlands (34) 917-926
Anthropogenic land use is known to impact aquatic ecosystems in several ways, including increased frequency and intensity of floods, stream channel incision, sedimentation, and loss of microtopography. Amphibians are susceptible to changes in wetland and surrounding habitats. This study evaluated amphibian assemblages of fifteen headwater slope wetlands in coastal Alabama...
Thermal ecology of subadult and adult muskellunge in a thermally enriched reservoir
A. J. Cole, Phillip William Bettoli
2014, Fisheries Management and Ecology (21) 410-420
The movement of adult muskellunge, Esox masquinongy Mitchill, has been investigated in a variety of systems, but temperature selection by muskellunge has not been examined where well-oxygenated waters were available over a range of temperatures for much of the year. Thirty subadult and adult muskellunge tagged internally with temperature-sensing radio tags...
The destructive 1946 Unimak near-field tsunami: New evidence for a submarine slide source from reprocessed marine geophysical data
Roland E. von Huene, Stephen Kirby, John J. Miller, Peter Dartnell
2014, Geophysical Research Letters (41) 6811-6818
The Mw 8.6 earthquake in 1946 off the Pacific shore of Unimak Island at the end of the Alaska Peninsula generated a far-field tsunami that crossed the Pacific to Antarctica. Its tsunami magnitude, 9.3, is comparable to the 9.1 magnitude of the 2011 Tohoku tsunami. On Unimak Island's Pacific shore,...
Variable population exposure and distributed travel speeds in least-cost tsunami evacuation modelling
Stuart A. Fraser, Nathan J. Wood, David A. Johnston, Graham S. Leonard, Paul D. Greening, Tiziana Rossetto
2014, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (14) 2975-2991
Evacuation of the population from a tsunami hazard zone is vital to reduce life-loss due to inundation. Geospatial least-cost distance modelling provides one approach to assessing tsunami evacuation potential. Previous models have generally used two static exposure scenarios and fixed travel speeds to represent population movement. Some analyses have assumed...
Breeding site selection by coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) in relation to large wood additions and factors that influence reproductive success
Steven M. Clark, Jason B. Dunham, Jeffery R. McEnroe, Scott W. Lightcap
2014, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (71) 1498-1507
The fitness of female Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) with respect to breeding behavior can be partitioned into at least four fitness components: survival to reproduction, competition for breeding sites, success of egg incubation, and suitability of the local environment near breeding sites for early rearing of juveniles. We evaluated the relative...
Mississippi River nitrate loads from high frequency sensor measurements and regression-based load estimation
Brian A. Pellerin, Brian A. Bergamaschi, Robert J. Gilliom, Charles G. Crawford, John Franco Saraceno, C. Paul Frederick, Bryan D. Downing, Jennifer C. Murphy
2014, Environmental Science & Technology (48) 12612-12619
Accurately quantifying nitrate (NO3–) loading from the Mississippi River is important for predicting summer hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico and targeting nutrient reduction within the basin. Loads have historically been modeled with regression-based techniques, but recent advances with high frequency NO3– sensors allowed us to evaluate model performance relative to...
Transdisciplinary application of the cross-scale resilience model
Shana M. Sundstrom, David G. Angeler, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Jorge H. Garcia, Craig R. Allen
2014, Sustainability (6) 6925-6948
The cross-scale resilience model was developed in ecology to explain the emergence of resilience from the distribution of ecological functions within and across scales, and as a tool to assess resilience. We propose that the model and the underlying discontinuity hypothesis are relevant to other complex adaptive systems, and can...
Where the waters meet: sharing ideas and experiences between inland and marine realms to promote sustainable fisheries management
Steven J. Cooke, Robert Arlinghaus, Devin M. Bartley, T. Douglas Beard Jr., Ian G. Cowx, Timothy E. Essington, Olaf P. Jensen, Abigail J. Lynch, William W. Taylor, Reg Watson
2014, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (71) 1593-1601
Although inland and marine environments, their fisheries, fishery managers, and the realm-specific management approaches are often different, there are a surprising number of similarities that frequently go unrecognized. We contend that there is much to be gained by greater cross-fertilization and exchange of ideas and strategies between realms and the...
Mineral resource of the month: Vermiculite
Arnold O. Tanner
2014, Earth (October 2014)
Vermiculite comprises a group of hydrated, laminar magnesium-aluminum-iron silicate minerals resembling mica. They are secondary minerals, typically altered biotite, iron-rich phlogopite or other micas or clay-like minerals that are themselves sometimes alteration products of amphibole, chlorite, olivine and pyroxene. Vermiculite deposits are associated with volcanic ultramafic rocks rich in magnesium...
Depth gradients in food-web processes linking habitats in large lakes: Lake Superior as an exemplar ecosystem
Michael E. Sierszen, Thomas R. Hrabik, Jason D. Stockwell, Anne M Cotter, Joel C. Hoffman, Daniel L. Yule
2014, Freshwater Biology (59) 2122-2136
In large lakes around the world, depth-based changes in the abundance and distribution of invertebrate and fish species suggest that there may be concomitant changes in patterns of resource allocation. Using Lake Superior of the Laurentian Great Lakes as an example, we explored this idea through stable isotope analyses of...
A computer program for uncertainty analysis integrating regression and Bayesian methods
Dan Lu, Ming Ye, Mary C. Hill, Eileen P. Poeter, Gary Curtis
2014, Environmental Modelling and Software (60) 45-56
This work develops a new functionality in UCODE_2014 to evaluate Bayesian credible intervals using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method. The MCMC capability in UCODE_2014 is based on the FORTRAN version of the differential evolution adaptive Metropolis (DREAM) algorithm of Vrugt et al. (2009), which estimates the posterior probability density...
Downscaled climate projections for the Southeast United States: evaluation and use for ecological applications
Adrienne Wootten, Kara Smith, Ryan Boyles, Adam Terando, Lydia Stefanova, Vasru Misra, Tom Smith, David L. Blodgett, Fredrick Semazzi
2014, Open-File Report 2014-1190
Climate change is likely to have many effects on natural ecosystems in the Southeast U.S. The National Climate Assessment Southeast Technical Report (SETR) indicates that natural ecosystems in the Southeast are likely to be affected by warming temperatures, ocean acidification, sea-level rise, and changes in rainfall and evapotranspiration. To better...
Ecosystem effects in the Lower Mississippi River Basin
D. Phil Turnipseed, Yvonne C. Allen, Brady R. Couvillion, Karen L. McKee, William C. Vervaeke
2014, Professional Paper 1798-L
The 2011 Mississippi River flood in the Lower Mississippi River Basin was one of the largest flood events in recorded history, producing the largest or next to largest peak streamflow for the period of record at a number of streamgages on the lower Mississippi River. Ecosystem effects include changes to...
Watching the dark: New surveillance cameras are changing bat research
Paul M. Cryan, P. Marcos Gorresen
2014, BATS Magazine (32) 2-4
It is, according to an old proverb, “better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” And those of us trying to discover new insights into the mysterious lives of bats often do a lot of cursing in the darkness. Bats do most things under cover of night, and...
Shaking from injection-induced earthquakes in the central and eastern United States
Susan E. Hough
2014, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (104) 2619-2626
In this study I consider the ground motions generated by 11 moderate (Mw4.0-5.6) earthquakes in the central and eastern United States that are thought or suspected to be induced by fluid injection. Using spatially rich intensity data from the USGS “Did You Feel It?” system, I show that the...
Mercury deposition and methylmercury formation in Narraguinnep Reservoir, southwestern Colorado, USA
John E. Gray, Mark E. Hines, Harland L. Goldstein, Richard L. Reynolds
2014, Applied Geochemistry (50) 82-90
Narraguinnep Reservoir in southwestern Colorado is one of several water bodies in Colorado with a mercury (Hg) advisory as Hg in fish tissue exceed the 0.3 μg/g guideline to protect human health recommended by the State of Colorado. Concentrations of Hg and methyl-Hg were measured in reservoir bottom sediment and...
Effects of disturbance and climate change on ecosystem performance in the Yukon River Basin boreal forest
Bruce K. Wylie, Matthew B. Rigge, Brian Brisco, Kevin Mrnaghan, Jennifer R. Rover, Jordan Long
2014, Remote Sensing (6) 9145-9169
A warming climate influences boreal forest productivity, dynamics, and disturbance regimes. We used ecosystem models and 250 m satellite Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data averaged over the growing season (GSN) to model current, and estimate future, ecosystem performance. We modeled Expected Ecosystem Performance (EEP), or anticipated productivity, in undisturbed...
Depletion and capture: revisiting “The source of water derived from wells"
Leonard F. Konikow, Stanley A. Leake
2014, Groundwater (52) 100-111
A natural consequence of groundwater withdrawals is the removal of water from subsurface storage, but the overall rates and magnitude of groundwater depletion and capture relative to groundwater withdrawals (extraction or pumpage) have not previously been well characterized. This study assesses the partitioning of long-term cumulative withdrawal volumes into fractions...
Seismological and geodetic constraints on the 2011 Mw5.3 Trinidad, Colorado earthquake and induced deformation in the Raton Basin
William D. Barnhart, Harley M. Benz, Gavin P. Hayes, Justin L. Rubinstein, E. Bergman
2014, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (119) 7923-7933
The Raton Basin of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico is an actively produced hydrocarbon basin that has experienced increased seismicity since 2001, including the August 2011 Mw5.3 Trinidad normal faulting event. Following the 2011 earthquake, regional seismic observations were used to relocate 21 events, including the 2011 main shock,...
Characterizing recent and projecting future potential patterns of mountain pine beetle outbreaks in the Southern Rocky Mountains
Lu Liang, Todd Hawbaker, Yanlei Chen, Zhi-Liang Zhu, Peng Gong
2014, Applied Geography (55) 165-175
The recent widespread mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreak in the Southern Rocky Mountains presents an opportunity to investigate the relative influence of anthropogenic, biologic, and physical drivers that have shaped the spatiotemporal patterns of the outbreak. The aim of this study was to quantify the landscape-level drivers that explained the...
Can mercury in fish be reduced by water level management? Evaluating the effects of water level fluctuation on mercury accumulation in yellow perch (Perca flavescens)
James H. Larson, Ryan P. Maki, Brent C. Knights, Brian R. Gray
2014, Ecotoxicology (23) 1555-1563
Mercury (Hg) contamination of fisheries is a major concern for resource managers of many temperate lakes. Anthropogenic Hg contamination is largely derived from atmospheric deposition within a lake’s watershed, but its incorporation into the food web is facilitated by bacterial activity in sediments. Temporal variation in Hg content of fish...
