Climate tolerances and habitat requirements jointly shape the elevational distribution of the American Pika (Ochotona princeps), with implications for climate change effects
Leah H. Yandow, Anna D. Chalfoun, Daniel F. Doak
2015, PLoS ONE (10) 1-21
Some of the most compelling examples of ecological responses to climate change are elevational range shifts of individual species, which have been observed throughout the world. A growing body of evidence, however, suggests substantial mediation of simple range shifts due to climate change by other limiting factors. Understanding limiting factors...
Kinematics of shallow backthrusts in the Seattle fault zone, Washington State
Thomas L. Pratt, K.G. Troost, Jackson K. Odum, William J. Stephenson
2015, Geosphere (11) 1948-1974
Near-surface thrust fault splays and antithetic backthrusts at the tips of major thrust fault systems can distribute slip across multiple shallow fault strands, complicating earthquake hazard analyses based on studies of surface faulting. The shallow expression of the fault strands forming the Seattle fault zone of Washington State shows the...
High-speed limnology: Using advanced sensors to investigate spatial variability in biogeochemistry and hydrology
John T. Crawford, Luke C. Loken, Nora J. Casson, Colin Smith, Amanda G. Stone, Luke A. Winslow
2015, Environmental Science & Technology (49) 442-450
Advanced sensor technology is widely used in aquatic monitoring and research. Most applications focus on temporal variability, whereas spatial variability has been challenging to document. We assess the capability of water chemistry sensors embedded in a high-speed water intake system to document spatial variability. This new sensor platform continuously samples...
Estimating sturgeon abundance in the Carolinas using side-scan sonar
H. Jared Flowers, Joseph E. Hightower
2015, Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science (7) 1-9
Sturgeons (Acipenseridae) are one of the most threatened taxa worldwide, including species in North Carolina and South Carolina. Populations of Atlantic Sturgeon Acipenser oxyrinchus in the Carolinas have been significantly reduced from historical levels by a combination of intense fishing and habitat loss. There is a need for estimates of...
Continuous monitoring of meteorological conditions and movement of a deep-seated, persistently moving rockslide along Interstate Route 79 near Pittsburgh
Francis Ashland, Helen L. Delano
2015, Pennsylvania Geology (45) 22-26
A large inventory of landslides exists for Allegheny County, Pa., and historical movement of manyof these has resulted in considerable damage to property, roads, and infrastructure. Along InterstateRoute 79, a subset of the landslide inventory includes deep-seated rockslides, two of which reactivatedduring construction of the highway in the late 1960s...
Evidence for slip partitioning and bimodal slip behavior on a single fault: Surface slip characteristics of the 2013 Mw7.7 Balochistan, Pakistan earthquake
William D. Barnhart, Richard W. Briggs, Nadine G. Reitman, Ryan D. Gold, Gavin P. Hayes
2015, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (420) 1-11
Deformation is commonly accommodated by strain partitioning on multiple, independent strike-slip and dip-slip faults in continental settings of oblique plate convergence. As a corollary, individual faults tend to exhibit one sense of slip – normal, reverse, or strike-slip – until whole-scale changes in boundary conditions reactivate preexisting faults in a...
Composite Sunrise Butte pluton: Insights into Jurassic–Cretaceous collisional tectonics and magmatism in the Blue Mountains Province, northeastern Oregon
Kenneth H. Johnson, J.J. Schwartz, Jiri Zak, Krystof Verner, Calvin G. Barnes, Clay Walton, Joseph L. Wooden, James E. Wright, Ronald W. Kistler
2015, GSA Special Papers (513) 377-398
The composite Sunrise Butte pluton, in the central part of the Blue Mountains Province, northeastern Oregon, preserves a record of subduction-related magmatism, arc-arc collision, crustal thickening, and deep-crustal anatexis. The earliest phase of the pluton (Desolation Creek unit) was generated in a subduction zone environment, as the oceanic lithosphere between the...
Shortnose sturgeon in the Gulf of Maine: Use of spawning habitat in the Kennebec System and response to dam removal
Gail S. Wippelhauser, Gayle B. Zydlewski, Micah Kieffer, James Sulikowski, Michael T. Kinnison
2015, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (144) 742-752
Evidence has become available in this century indicating that populations of the endangered Shortnose Sturgeon Acipenser brevirostrum migrate outside their natal river systems, but the full extent and functional basis of these migrations are not well understood. Between 2007 and 2013, 40 Shortnose Sturgeon captured and tagged in four Gulf of Maine...
Arsenic and antimony geochemistry of mine wastes, associated waters and sediments at the Giant Mine, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada
Skya E. Fawcett, Heather E. Jamieson, D. Kirk Nordstrom, R. Blaine McCleskey
2015, Applied Geochemistry (62) 3-17
Elevated levels of arsenic (As) and antimony (Sb) in water and sediments are legacy residues found downstream from gold-mining activities at the Giant Mine in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada. To track the transport and fate of As and Sb, samples of mine-waste from the mill, and surface water, sediment,...
Field trip guidebook for the post-meeting field trip: The Central Appalachians
John F. Taylor, James D. Loch, G. Robert Ganis, John E. Repetski, Charles E. Mitchell, Gale C. Blackmer, David K. Brezinski, Daniel Goldman, Randall C. Orndorff, Bryan K. Sell
2015, Stratigraphy (12) 297-413
The lower Paleozoic rocks to be examined on this trip through the central Appalachians represent an extreme range of depositional environments. The lithofacies we will examine range from pelagic radiolarian chert and interbedded mudstone that originated on the deep floor of the Iapetus Ocean, through mud cracked supratidal dolomitic laminites...
Estimating bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) abundance using noninvasive sampling at a mineral lick within a National Park Wilderness Area
Kathryn A. Schoenecker, Mary Kay Watry, Laura E. Ellison, Michael A. Schwarz, Gordon Luikart
2015, Western North American Naturalist (75) 181-191
Conservation of species requires accurate population estimates. We used genetic markers from feces to determine bighorn sheep abundance for a herd that was hypothesized to be declining and in need of population status monitoring. We sampled from a small but accessible portion of the population's range where animals naturally congregate...
Accounting for imperfect detection in Hill numbers for biodiversity studies
Kristin M. Broms, Mevin Hooten, Ryan M. Fitzpatrick
2015, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (6) 99-108
Hill numbers unify biodiversity metrics by combining several into one expression. For example, species richness, Shannon's diversity index and the Gini–Simpson index are a few of the most used diversity measures, and they can be expressed as Hill numbers. Traditionally, Hill numbers have been calculated from relative...
Evidence for intercontinental parasite exchange through molecular detection and characterization of haematozoa in northern pintails (Anas acuta) sampled throughout the North Pacific Basin
Andrew M. Ramey, Joel A. Schmutz, John A. Reed, Go Fujita, Bradley D. Scotton, Bruce Casler, Joseph P. Fleskes, Kan Konishi, Kiyoshi Uchida, Michael J. Yabsley
2015, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife (4) 11-21
Empirical evidence supports wild birds as playing a role in the interhemispheric exchange of bacteria and viruses; however, data supporting the redistribution of parasites among continents are limited. In this study, the hypothesis that migratory birds contribute to the redistribution of parasites between continents was tested by sampling northern pintails...
Book review: Field guide to the common grasses of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska
Amy J. Symstad
2015, Prairie Naturalist (47) 53
Grass identification is not for the faint of heart, especially when one has to rely on dichotomous keys using terms like “glume” and “flexuous pedicels.” A good, illustrated field guide that avoids such specialized terms is invaluable for ranchers, amateur naturalists, landscapers, and a variety of grassland professionals that aren’t...
Status of the Topeka shiner in west-central Iowa
Clay Pierce, Bryan D. Bakevich, Michael C. Quist
2015, American Midland Naturalist (174) 350-358
The Topeka shiner Notropis topeka is a federally endangered fish species that is estimated to occupy only 20% of its historic range. In Iowa Topeka shiners have been in decline for decades. Our goal was to determine the present distribution of Topeka shiners in the west-central portion of their range in Iowa...
Land use structures fish assemblages in reservoirs of the Tennessee River
Leandro E. Miranda, J. M. Bies, D. A. Hann
2015, Marine and Freshwater Research (66) 526-534
Inputs of nutrients, sediments and detritus from catchments can promote selected components of reservoir fish assemblages, while hindering others. However, investigations linking these catchment subsidies to fish assemblages have generally focussed on one or a handful of species. Considering this paucity of community-level awareness, we sought to explore the association...
Correspondence of biological condition models of California streams at statewide and regional scales
Jason T. May, Larry R. Brown, Andrew C. Rehn, Ian R. Waite, Peter R Ode, Raphael D Mazor, Kenneth C Schiff
2015, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (187)
We used boosted regression trees (BRT) to model stream biological condition as measured by benthic macroinvertebrate taxonomic completeness, the ratio of observed to expected (O/E) taxa. Models were developed with and without exclusion of rare taxa at a site. BRT models are robust, requiring few assumptions compared with traditional modeling...
Evaluating nurse plants for restoring native woody species to degraded subtropical woodlands
Stephanie G. Yelenik, Nicole DiManno, Carla M. D’Antonio
2015, Ecology and Evolution (5) 300-313
Harsh habitats dominated by invasive species are difficult to restore. Invasive grasses in arid environments slow succession toward more desired composition, yet grass removal exacerbates high light and temperature, making the use of “nurse plants” an appealing strategy. In this study of degraded subtropical woodlands dominated by alien grasses in...
Monitoring Eastern Spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrookii) response to weather with the use of a passive integrated transponder (PIT) system
Kevin J. Ryan, Aram J.K. Calhoun, Brad C. Timm, Joseph D. Zydlewski
2015, Journal of Herpetology (49) 257-263
Eastern Spadefoots (Scaphiopus holbrookii) are probably one of the least-understood amphibian species in the United States. In New England, populations are localized and it is likely that some populations go undocumented because of the species' cryptic habits. We used passive integrated transponders (PIT tags) to monitor burrow emergence with the...
Angler satisfaction in South Dakota
Kjetil R. Henderson, Larry M. Gigliotti
2015, Proceedings of the South Dakota Academy of Science (94) 171-186
Many industries use satisfaction measures to evaluate performance. The South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks identified satisfaction as one of their performance measures for evaluating fishing in South Dakota. In fisheries management, the perspectives’ of license buyers are valuable to determine if management activities are providing the benefits...
Ground-based thermal imaging of stream surface temperatures: Technique and evaluation
Scott A. Bonar, Sally J. Petre
2015, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (35) 1209-1218
We evaluated a ground-based handheld thermal imaging system for measuring water temperatures using data from eight southwestern USA streams and rivers. We found handheld thermal imagers could provide considerably more spatial information on water temperature (for our unit one image = 19,600 individual temperature measurements) than traditional methods could supply...
Paleoseismic evidence for late Holocene tectonic deformation along the Saddle mountain fault zone, Southeastern Olympic Peninsula, Washington
Elizabeth Barnett, Brian L. Sherrod, Jonathan F. Hughes, Harvey M. Kelsey, Jessica L. Czajkowski, Timothy J. Walsh, Trevor A. Contreras, Elizabeth R. Schermer, Robert J. Carson
2015, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (105) 38-71
Trench and wetland coring studies show that northeast‐striking strands of the Saddle Mountain fault zone ruptured the ground about 1000 years ago, generating prominent scarps. Three conspicuous subparallel fault scarps can be traced for 15 km on Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) imagery, traversing the foothills of the southeast Olympic Mountains:...
One carp, two carp: are there more carp in the Wailoa River?
Bruce C Mundy, Leo Nico, Annette Tagawa
2015, Hawaii Fishing News (40) 18-19
The February, 2015 issue of Hawaii Fishing News included the annual list of Hawai`i records for the largest fish of various species caught in the state. Among the new records was one for a 15-pound grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) caught by Avery Berido in the Wailoa River at Hilo on...
Stratigraphic and microfossil evidence for a 4500-year history of Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes and tsunamis at Yaquina River estuary, Oregon, USA
Nicholas A Graehl, Harvey M. Kelsey, Robert C. Witter, Eileen Hemphill-Haley, Simon E. Engelhart
2015, GSA Bulletin (127) 211-226
The Sallys Bend swamp and marsh area on the central Oregon coast onshore of the Cascadia subduction zone contains a sequence of buried coastal wetland soils that extends back ∼4500 yr B.P. The upper 10 of the 12 soils are represented in multiple cores. Each soil is abruptly overlain...
Predicted changes in climatic niche and climate refugia of conservation priority salamander species in the northeastern United States
William B. Sutton, Kyle Barrett, Allison T. Moody, Cynthia S. Loftin, Phillip G. deMaynadier, Priya Nanjappa
2015, Forests (6) 1-26
Global climate change represents one of the most extensive and pervasive threats to wildlife populations. Amphibians, specifically salamanders, are particularly susceptible to the effects of changing climates due to their restrictive physiological requirements and low vagility; however, little is known about which landscapes and species are vulnerable to climate change....
