Use of multi-sensor active fire detections to map fires in the United States: the future of monitoring trends in burn severity
Joshua J. Picotte, Michael Coan, Stephen M. Howard
2014, Conference Paper, Proceedings: Wildland fire in the Appalachians: Discussions among managers and scientists. General Technical Report SRS-199
The effort to utilize satellite-based MODIS, AVHRR, and GOES fire detections from the Hazard Monitoring System (HMS) to identify undocumented fires in Florida and improve the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) mapping process has yielded promising results. This method was augmented using regression tree models to identify burned/not-burned pixels...
Predicting Impacts of tropical cyclones and sea-Level rise on beach mouse habitat
Q. Chen, Hongqing Wang, Lixia Wang, Robert Tawes, Drew Rollman
2014, Journal of Coastal Research (68) 12-19
Alabama beach mouse (ABM) (Peromyscus polionotus ammobates) is an important component of the coastal dune ecosystem along the Gulf of Mexico. Due to habitat loss and degradation, ABM is federally listed as an endangered species. In this study, we examined the impacts of storm surge and wind waves, which are...
Ground-motion site effects from multimethod shear-wave velocity characterization at 16 seismograph stations deployed for aftershocks of the August 2011 Mineral, Virginia earthquake
William J. Stephenson, Jackson K. Odum, Daniel E. McNamara, Robert A. Williams, Stephen J Angster
2014, GSA Special Papers (509) 47-65
We characterize shear-wave velocity versus depth (Vs profile) at 16 portable seismograph sites through the epicentral region of the 2011 Mw 5.8 Mineral (Virginia, USA) earthquake to investigate ground-motion site effects in the area. We used a multimethod acquisition and analysis approach, where active-source horizontal shear (SH) wave reflection and refraction...
Well log and 2D seismic data character of the Wilcox Group in south-central Louisiana
Catherine B. Enomoto
2014, Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions (64) 105-118
Well logs and 2D seismic data were used to interpret the depth and morphology of potential Paleocene and lower Eocene Wilcox Group slope and basin-floor reservoirs in south-central Louisiana. These may occur in a poorly explored area previously estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to contain a mean undiscovered conventional...
A geologic approach to field methods in fluvial geomorphology
Faith A. Fitzpatrick
Mary J Thornbush, Casey D Allen, Faith A. Fitzpatrick, editor(s)
2014, Book chapter, Geomorphological Fieldwork
A geologic approach to field methods in fluvial geomorphology is useful for understanding causes and consequences of past, present, and possible future perturbations in river behavior and floodplain dynamics. Field methods include characterizing river planform and morphology changes and floodplain sedimentary sequences over long periods of time along a longitudinal...
Locking horns with Hawai‘i’s non-native ungulate issues
Steve C. Hess
2014, Proceedings of the Vertebrate Pest Conference (26) 21-25
Conservation and management interests for sustained-yield hunting of non-native ungulates in Hawai‘i have conflicted with the conservation of native biota for several decades. Hawaiian ecosystems evolved in the absence of large mammals and all currently hunted animals in Hawai‘i are non-native species. The best-studied aspects of Hawai‘i’s ungulates have dealt...
Fisheries research and monitoring activities of the Lake Erie Biological Station, 2013
Richard T. Kraus, Mark W. Rogers, Patrick Kocovsky, William Edwards, Betsy L. Bodamer Scarbro, Kevin R. Keretz, Stephanie A. Berkman
2014, Report, Compiled Reports to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission of the Annual Bottom Trawl and Acoustic Surveys, 2013
In 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Lake Erie Biological Station successfully completed large vessel surveys in all three of Lake Erie’s basins. Lake Erie Biological Station’s primary vessel surveys included the Western Basin Forage Fish Assessment and East Harbor Forage Fish Assessment as well as contributing to the cooperative multi-agency...
Management and monitoring of the endangered Shenandoah salamander under climate change: Workshop report 10-12 April 2012
Evan H. Campbell Grant, John E. B. Wofford, D. R. Smith, J. Dennis, C. Hawkins-Hoffman, J. Schaberl, M. Foley, M. Bogle
2014, Natural Resource Report NPS/SHEN/NRR—2014/867
Here we report on a structured decision making (SDM) process to identify management strategies to ensure persistence of the federally endangered Shenandoah salamander (Plethodon shenandoah), given that it may be at increased extinction risk under projected climate change. The focus of this report is the second of two SDM workshops;...
Quantifying spatial scaling patterns and their local and regional correlates in headwater streams: Implications for resilience
Emma Gothe, Leonard Sandin, Craig R. Allen, David G. Angeler
2014, Ecology and Society (19)
The distribution of functional traits within and across spatiotemporal scales has been used to quantify and infer the relative resilience across ecosystems. We use explicit spatial modeling to evaluate within- and cross-scale redundancy in headwater streams, an ecosystem type with a hierarchical and dendritic network structure. We assessed the cross-scale...
Two approaches for incorporating climate change into natural resource management planning at Wind Cave National Park
Amy J. Symstad, Andrew J. Long, John Stamm, David A. King, Dominque M. Bachelet, Parker A. Norton
2014, Report
Wind Cave National Park (WICA) protects one of the world’s longest caves, has large amounts of high quality, native vegetation, and hosts a genetically important bison herd. The park’s relatively small size and unique purpose within its landscape requires hands-on management of these and other natural resources, all of which...
Characterization of deep coral and sponge communities in the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary: Rittenburg Bank, Cochrane Bank and the Farallon Escarpment.
P. Etnoyer, Guy R. Cochrane, E. Salgado, K. Graiff, J. Roletto, G.J. Williams, K. Reyna, J. Hyland
2014, Report
Benthic surveys were conducted in the Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary (GFNMS) aboard R/V Fulmar, October 3-11, 2012 using the large observation-class remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Beagle. The purpose of the surveys was to groundtruth mapping data collected in 2011, and to characterize the seafloor biota, particularly corals and...
Predicting connectivity of green turtles at Palmyra Atoll, central Pacific: a focus on mtDNA and dispersal modelling
Eugenia Naro-Maciel, Stephen J. Gaughran, Nathan Freeman Putman, George Amato, Felicity Arengo, Peter H. Dutton, Katherine W. McFadden, Erin C. Vintinner, Eleanor J. Sterling
2014, Journal of the Royal Society Interface (11)
Population connectivity and spatial distribution are fundamentally related to ecology, evolution and behaviour. Here, we combined powerful genetic analysis with simulations of particle dispersal in a high-resolution ocean circulation model to investigate the distribution of green turtles foraging at the remote Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, central Pacific. We analysed...
Efficient 3D movement-based kernel density estimator and application to wildlife ecology
Jeff Tracey-PR, James K. Sheppard, Glenn K. Lockwood, Amit Chourasia, Mahidhar Tatineni, Robert N. Fisher, Robert S. Sinkovits
2014, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 2014 Annual Conference on Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment
We describe an efficient implementation of a 3D movement-based kernel density estimator for determining animal space use from discrete GPS measurements. This new method provides more accurate results, particularly for species that make large excursions in the vertical dimension. The downside of this approach is that it is much more...
Environmental variables measured at multiple spatial scales exert uneven influence on fish assemblages of floodplain lakes
Daniel J. Dembkowski, Leandro E. Miranda
2014, Hydrobiologia (721) 129-144
We examined the interaction between environmental variables measured at three different scales (i.e., landscape, lake, and in-lake) and fish assemblage descriptors across a range of over 50 floodplain lakes in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley of Mississippi and Arkansas. Our goal was to identify important local- and landscape-level determinants of fish...
Habitat use and selection by adult pallid sturgeon in the lower Mississippi River
Jason R. Herrala, Patrick T. Kroboth, Nathan M. Kuntz, Harold L. Schramm Jr.
2014, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (143) 153-163
The Pallid Sturgeon Scaphirhynchus albus is an endangered riverine sturgeon with historical distribution restricted to the Yellowstone, Missouri, Mississippi, and Atchafalaya rivers. Although not abundant, Pallid Sturgeon in the lower Mississippi River appear to be naturally recruiting, and information about habitat use is important to conserve this species. Thirty-four adult...
Assessing distribution of migratory fishes and connectivity following complete and partial dam removals in a North Carolina River
Joshua K. Raabe, Joseph E. Hightower
2014, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (34) 955-969
Fish, especially migratory species, are assumed to benefit from dam removals that restore connectivity and access to upstream habitat, but few studies have evaluated this assumption. Therefore, we assessed the movement of migratory fishes in the springs of 2008 through 2010 and surveyed available habitat in the Little River, North...
Spawning behavior in Atlantic cod: analysis by use of data storage tags
Timothy B. Grabowski, Vilhjalmur Thorsteinsson, Gudrun Marteinsdottir
2014, Marine Ecology Progress Series (506) 279-290
Electronic data storage tags (DSTs) were implanted into Atlantic cod captured in Icelandic waters from 2002 to 2007 and the depth profiles recovered from these tags (females: n = 31, males: n = 27) were used to identify patterns consistent with published descriptions of cod courtship and spawning behavior. The individual...
Distribution and habitat associations of juvenile Common Snook in the lower Rio Grande, Texas
Caleb G. Huber, Timothy B. Grabowski, Reynaldo Patino, Kevin L. Pope
2014, Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science (6) 170-180
Common Snook Centropomus undecimalis were once abundant off the Texas coast, but these populations are now characterized by low abundance and erratic recruitment. Most research concerning Common Snook in North America has been conducted in Florida and very little is known about the specific biology and habitat needs of Common Snook in...
Delineation of Tundra Swan Cygnus c. columbianus populations in North America: geographic boundaries and interchange
Craig R. Ely, William J.L. Sladen, Heather M. Wilson, Susan E. Savage, Kristine M. Sowl, Bill Henry, Mike Schwitters, James Snowden
2014, Wildfowl (64) 132-147
North American Tundra Swans Cygnus c. columbianus are composed of two wellrecognised populations: an Eastern Population (EP) that breeds across northern Canada and north of the Brooks Range in Alaska, which migrates to the eastern seaboard of the United States, and a Western Population (WP) that breeds in coastal regions of Alaska south of the Brooks...
Backcasting the decline of a vulnerable Great Plains reproductive ecotype: identifying threats and conservation priorities
Thomas A. Worthington, Shannon K. Brewer, Timothy B. Grabowski, Julia Mueller
2014, Global Change Biology (20) 89-102
Conservation efforts for threatened or endangered species are challenging because the multi-scale factors that relate to their decline or inhibit their recovery are often unknown. To further exacerbate matters, the perceptions associated with the mechanisms of species decline are often viewed myopically rather than across the entire species range. We...
Evidence of natural reproduction by Muskellunge in middle Tennessee rivers
Lila H. Warren, Phillip William Bettoli
2014, Southeastern Naturalist (13) 506-514
Native Esox masquinongy (Muskellunge) in the Cumberland River drainage, TN, were nearly extirpated in the 1970s due to decades of over-fishing and habitat degradation from coal mining, logging, and other land-use practices. In an effort to preserve the species in that drainage, a stocking program began in 1976 in the upper Caney...
Development of a multimetric index for fish assemblages in a cold tailwater in Tennessee
Tomas J. Ivasauskas, Phillip William Bettoli
2014, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (143) 495-507
Tailwaters downstream of hypolimnetic-release hydropeaking dams exhibit a unique combination of stressors that affects the structure and function of resident fish assemblages. We developed a statistically and biologically defensible multimetric index of fish assemblages for the Caney Fork River below Center Hill Dam, Tennessee. Fish assemblages were sampled at five...
Post-breeding migration of Dutch-breeding black-tailed godwits: timing, routes, use of stopovers, and nonbreeding destinations
Jos C. E. W. Hooijmeijer, Nathan R. Senner, T. Lee Tibbitts, Robert E. Gill Jr., David C. Douglas, Leo W. Bruinzeel, Eddy Wymenga, Theunis Piersma
2014, Ardea (101) 141-152
Conservation of long-distance migratory shorebirds is complex because these species use habitats spread across continents and hemispheres, making identification of critical habitats and potential bottlenecks in the annual cycle especially difficult. The population of Black-tailed Godwits that breeds in Western Europe, Limosa limosa limosa, has declined precipitously over the past...
Seismometer Self-Noise and Measuring Methods
Adam T. Ringler, R. Sleeman, Charles R. Hutt, Lind S. Gee
2014, Book chapter, Encyclopedia of Earthquake Engineering
Seismometer self-noise is usually not considered when selecting and using seismic waveform data in scientific research as it is typically assumed that the self-noise is negligibly small compared to seismic signals. However, instrumental noise is part of the noise in any seismic record, and in particular, at frequencies below a...
Landscapes of Santa Rosa Island, Channel Islands National Park, California
R. Randall Schumann, Scott A. Minor, Daniel R. Muhs, Jeffery S. Pigati
2014, Book chapter, Monographs of the Western North American Naturalist
Santa Rosa Island (SRI) is the second-largest of the California Channel Islands. It is one of 4 east–west aligned islands forming the northern Channel Islands chain, and one of the 5 islands in Channel Islands National Park. The landforms, and collections of landforms called landscapes, of Santa Rosa Island have...
