Search Results

We used two datasets to investigate the reliability of plumage for sexing adult Ruddy Turnstones Arenaria interpres of the morinella subspecies during May and early June in Delaware Bay, on the Mid-Atlantic Coast of the United States (39.1202°N, 75.2479°W). We first examined 23 years of data on the capture and recapture of 1,818 individual...

Coral disease has progressively become one of the most pressing issues affecting coral reef survival. In the last 50 years, several reefs throughout the Caribbean have been severely impacted by increased frequency and intensity of disease outbreaks leading to coral death. A recent example of this is stony coral tissue...

Discovery of hidden geothermal resources is challenging. It requires the mining of large datasets with diverse data attributes representing subsurface hydrogeological and geothermal conditions. The commonly used play fairway analysis approach typically incorporates subject-matter expertise to analyze regional data to estimate geothermal characteristics and favorability. We demonstrate an alternative approach...

Development of wind energy facilities results in interactions between wildlife and wind turbines. Raptors, including bald and golden eagles, are among the species known to incur mortality from these interactions. Several alerting technologies have been proposed to mitigate this mortality by increasing eagle avoidance of wind energy facilities. However, there...

This chapter focuses on meeting the need to produce neural network outputs that are physically consistent and also express uncertainties, a rare combination to date. It explains the effectiveness of physics-guided architecture - long-short-term-memory (PGA-LSTM) in achieving better generalizability and physical consistency over data collected from Lake Mendota in Wisconsin...

This article gives an overview of the heat fluxes between lakes and their environment. The heat budget of most lakes is dominated by heat fluxes at the lake surface, especially shortwave radiation, incoming and outgoing longwave radiation, and the latent heat flux. The seasonality of these fluxes is the most...

This chapter introduces a framework for combining scientific knowledge of physics-based models with neural networks to advance scientific discovery. It explains termed physics-guided neural networks (PGNN), leverages the output of physics-based model simulations along with observational features in a hybrid modeling setup to generate predictions using a neural network architecture....

This chapter presents a physics-guided recurrent neural network model (PGRNN) for predicting water temperature in lake systems. Standard machine learning (ML) methods, especially deep learning models, often require a large amount of labeled training samples, which are often not available in scientific problems due to the substantial human labor and...

We examine three distinctive biostratigraphic signatures associated with: hunting and gathering, landscape domestication, and globalisation. All three signatures have significant fossil records of regional importance that can be correlated inter-regionally and help describe the developing pattern of human expansion and appropriation of resources. While none have individual first or last...

The dataset described here includes estimates of historical (1980–2020) daily surface water temperature, lake metadata, and daily weather conditions for lakes bigger than 4 ha in the conterminous United States (n = 185,549), and also in situ temperature observations for a subset of lakes (n = 12,227). Estimates were generated using a long short-term memory...

Elevated concentrations and loads of nutrients in the South Platte River and Cherry Creek in Denver, Colorado, may have adverse effects on those streams and downstream water bodies, including increased production of algae, eutrophication, and decreased recreational opportunities. This article describes streamflow and concentrations and loads of nutrients for the...

Disturbances to aquatic habitats are not uniformly distributed within the Great Lakes and acute effects can be strongest in nearshore areas where both landscape and within lake effects can have strong influence. Furthermore, different fish species respond to disturbances in different ways. A means to identify...

Neonicotinoid insecticide use has increased over the last decade, including as agricultural seed treatments (application of chemical in a coating to the seed prior to planting). In California, multiple crops, including lettuce, can be grown using neonicotinoid treated seeds or receive a direct neonicotinoid soil application (drenching) at planting. Using...

The phylogeography of the American black bear (Ursus americanus) is characterized by isolation into glacial refugia, followed by population expansion and genetic admixture. Anthropogenic activities, including overharvest, habitat loss, and transportation infrastructure, have also influenced their landscape genetic structure. We describe the genetic structure...

Accurate evaluations of habitat preference are key to understanding optimal conditions for wildlife survival and reproduction. Habitat selection, however, usually is evaluated using a single index of preference, and congruence among multiple, relevant indices of preference is examined rarely.We assessed the concordance between...

Wave breaking on the steep fore-reef slopes of shallow fringing reefs is effective at dissipating incident sea-swell waves prior to reaching reef shorelines. However, wave setup and free infragravity waves generated during the sea-swell breaking process are often the largest contributors to wave-driven water levels at the shoreline. Laboratory flume...

Invasive species can have negative effects on native biodiversity and ecosystem function, and suppression is often required to minimize the effects. However, management actions to suppress invasive species may cause negative, unintended effects on non-target taxa. Across the United States, lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) are invasive in many freshwater ecosystems,...

Offshore geological sequestration of CO2 offers a viable approach for reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. Strategies include injection of CO2 into the deep-ocean or ocean-floor sediments, whereby depending on pressure–temperature conditions, CO2 can be trapped physically, gravitationally, or converted to CO2 hydrate. Energy-driven research continues to also advance CO2-for-CH4 replacement strategies in the...

Bathymetric and topographic data were collected from May 2013 to February 2016 along the 15.84-mile reach of the Colorado River spanning from Glen Canyon Dam to Lees Ferry in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Arizona. Channel bathymetry was mapped using multibeam and singlebeam echo sounders; subaerial topography was mapped using...

Ecosystem modeling is a critical process for understanding complex systems at spatiotemporal scales needed to conserve, manage, and restore ecosystem services (ESs). Although mangrove wetlands are sources of ESs worth billions of dollars, there is a lack of modeling tools. This is reflected in our lack of understanding of mangroves’...

Habitat loss, flood control infrastructure, and drought have left most of southern California and northern Baja California's native freshwater fish near extinction, including the endangered unarmoured threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus williamsoni). This subspecies, an unusual morph lacking the typical lateral bony plates of the G. aculeatus complex, occurs at arid southern latitudes...

Biological communities in freshwater streams are often impaired by multiple stressors (e.g., flow or water quality) originating from anthropogenic activities such as urbanization, agriculture, or energy extraction. Restoration efforts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, USA seek to improve biological conditions in 10% of freshwater tributaries and...

The ability to freely move across the landscape to track the emergence of nutritious spring green-up (termed ‘green-wave surfing’) is key to the foraging strategy of migratory ungulates. Across the vast landscapes traversed by many migratory herds, habitats are being altered by development with unknown consequences for surfing. Using a...

A preliminary vaccination trial against the emergent pathogen, SARS-CoV-2, was completed in captive black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes; BFF) to assess safety, immunogenicity, and anti-viral efficacy. Vaccination and boosting of 15 BFF with purified SARS-CoV-2 S1 subunit protein produced a nearly 150-fold increase in mean antibody titers compared to pre-vaccination titers....

The accuracy assessment of airborne lidar point cloud typically estimates vertical accuracy by computing RMSEz (root mean square error of the z coordinate) from ground check points (GCPs). Due to the low point density of the airborne lidar point cloud, there is often not enough accurate semantic context to find...