A climate for speciation: rapid spatial diversification within the Sorex cinereus complex of shrews
Andrew G. Hope, Kelly A. Speer, John R. Demboski, Sandra L. Talbot, Joseph A. Cook
2012, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution (64) 671-684
The cyclic climate regime of the late Quaternary caused dramatic environmental change at high latitudes. Although these events may have been brief in periodicity from an evolutionary standpoint, multiple episodes of allopatry and divergence have been implicated in rapid radiations of a number of organisms. Shrews of the Sorex cinereus...
Toxicity of chloride under winter low-flow conditions in an urban watershed in central Missouri, USA
Ann L. Allert, Cavelle L. Cole-Neal, James F. Fairchild
2012, Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (89) 296-301
Deicers such as sodium chloride and calcium chloride are used to treat snow and ice on road surfaces and have been identified as potential stressors on aquatic life. Hinkson Creek is an urban stream on the Missouri 303(d) list of impaired waters and is classified as impaired due to urban...
A holistic strategy for adaptive land management
Jeffrey E. Herrick, Michael C. Duniway, David A. Pyke, Brandon T. Bestelmeyer, Skye A. Wills, Joel R. Brown, Jason W. Karl, Kris M. Havstad
2012, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation (67) 105A-113A
Adaptive management is widely applied to natural resources management (Holling 1973; Walters and Holling 1990). Adaptive management can be generally defined as an iterative decision-making process that incorporates formulation of management objectives, actions designed to address these objectives, monitoring of results, and repeated adaptation of management until desired results are...
Simulation of streamflow, evapotranspiration, and groundwater recharge in the middle Nueces River watershed, south Texas, 1961-2008
Benjamin J. Dietsch, Loren L. Wehmeyer
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5136
The U.S. Geological Survey—in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District; City of Corpus Christi; Guadalupe–Blanco River Authority; San Antonio River Authority; and San Antonio Water System— configured, calibrated, and tested a watershed model for a study area consisting of about 7,726 square miles of the...
Life on the edge: corals in mangroves and climate change
Caroline S. Rogers, James J. Herlan
2012, Conference Paper, 12th International Coral Reef Symposium: Cairns, Queensland, Australia, July 9-13, 2012
Coral diseases have played a major role in the degradation of coral reefs in the Caribbean, including those in the US Virgin Islands (USVI). In 2005, bleaching affected reefs throughout the Caribbean, and was especially severe on USVI reefs. Some corals began to regain their color as water temperatures cooled,...
Turbidite event history—Methods and implications for Holocene paleoseismicity of the Cascadia subduction zone
Chris Goldfinger, C. Hans Nelson, Ann E. Morey, Joel E. Johnson, Jason R. Patton, Eugene B. Karabanov, Julia Gutierrez-Pastor, Andrew T. Eriksson, Eulalia Gracia, Gita Dunhill, Randolph J. Enkin, Audrey Dallimore, Tracy Vallier
Robert Kayen, editor(s)
2012, Professional Paper 1661-F
Turbidite systems along the continental margin of Cascadia Basin from Vancouver Island, Canada, to Cape Mendocino, California, United States, have been investigated with swath bathymetry; newly collected and archive piston, gravity, kasten, and box cores; and accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates. The purpose of this study is to test the...
Imaging with cross-hole seismoelectric tomography
A.H. Araji, A. Revil, A. Jardani, Burke J. Minsley, M. Karaoulis
2012, Geophysical Journal International (188) 1285-1302
We propose a cross-hole imaging approach based on seismoelectric conversions (SC) associated with the transmission of seismic waves from seismic sources located in a borehole to receivers (electrodes) located in a second borehole. The seismoelectric (seismic-to-electric) problem is solved using Biot theory coupled with a generalized Ohm's law with an...
Comparison of base flows to selected streamflow statistics representative of 1930-2002 in West Virginia
Jeffrey B. Wiley
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5121
Base flows were compared with published streamflow statistics to assess climate variability and to determine the published statistics that can be substituted for annual and seasonal base flows of unregulated streams in West Virginia. The comparison study was done by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the West Virginia...
Assessment of bias in US waterfowl harvest estimates
Paul I. Padding, J. Andrew Royle
2012, Wildlife Research (39) 336-342
Context. North American waterfowl managers have long suspected that waterfowl harvest estimates derived from national harvest surveys in the USA are biased high. Survey bias can be evaluated by comparing survey results with like estimates from independent sources. Aims. We used band-recovery data to assess the magnitude of apparent bias...
Taxonomic status and relationships of Sorex obscurus parvidens Jackson, 1921, from California
Neal Woodman
2012, Journal of Mammalogy (93) 826-838
The San Bernardino shrew, Sorex obscurus parvidens Jackson, 1921, is a population inhabiting the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains of southern California. For the past 9 decades, this population has been considered either a subspecies of S. obscurus Merriam, 1895, S. vagrans Baird, 1857, or S. monticola Merriam, 1890;...
General methods for sensitivity analysis of equilibrium dynamics in patch occupancy models
David A.W. Miller
2012, Ecology (93) 1204-1213
Sensitivity analysis is a useful tool for the study of ecological models that has many potential applications for patch occupancy modeling. Drawing from the rich foundation of existing methods for Markov chain models, I demonstrate new methods for sensitivity analysis of the equilibrium state dynamics of occupancy models. Estimates from...
Likelihood analysis of species occurrence probability from presence-only data for modelling species distributions
J. Andrew Royle, Richard B. Chandler, Charles Yackulic, James D. Nichols
2012, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (3) 545-554
1. Understanding the factors affecting species occurrence is a pre-eminent focus of applied ecological research. However, direct information about species occurrence is lacking for many species. Instead, researchers sometimes have to rely on so-called presence-only data (i.e. when no direct information about absences is available), which often results from opportunistic,...
An assessment of the carbon balance of arctic tundra: comparisons among observations, process models, and atmospheric inversions
A. D. McGuire, T.R. Christensen, D. Hayes, A. Heroult, E. Euskirchen, Y. Yi, J.S. Kimball, C. Koven, P. Lafleur, P.A. Miller, W. Oechel, P. Peylin, Murray Williams
2012, Biogeosciences (9) 4543-4594
Although arctic tundra has been estimated to cover only 8% of the global land surface, the large and potentially labile carbon pools currently stored in tundra soils have the potential for large emissions of carbon (C) under a warming climate. These emissions as radiatively active greenhouse gases in the form...
Binational ecological risk assessment of bigheaded carps (Hypophthalmichthys spp.) for the Great Lakes Basin.
Becky Cudmore, Nicholas E. Mandrak, John M. Dettmers, Duane Chapman, Cynthia S. Kolar
2012, DFO Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat: Research Document 2011/114
Bigheaded carps (Bighead and Silver carps) are considered a potential threat to the Great Lakes basin. A binational ecological risk assessment was conducted to provide scientifically defensible advice for managers and decision-makers in Canada and the United States. This risk assessment looked at the likelihood of arrival, survival, establishment, and...
Concentrations and annual fluxes of sediment-associated chemical constituents from conterminous US coastal rivers using bed sediment data
Arthur J. Horowitz, Verlin C. Stephens, Kent A. Elrick, James J. Smith
2012, Hydrological Processes (26) 1090-1114
Coastal rivers represent a significant pathway for the delivery of natural and anthropogenic sediment-associated chemical constituents to the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the conterminous USA. This study entails an accounting segment using published average annual suspended sediment fluxes with published sediment-associated chemical constituent concentrations for (1)...
Short- and long-term control of Vespula pensylvanica in Hawaii by fipronil baiting
Cause Hanna, David Foote, Claire Kremen
2012, Pest Management Science (68) 1026-1033
BACKGROUND: The invasive western yellowjacket wasp, Vespula pensylvanica (Saussure), has significantly impacted the ecological integrity and human welfare of Hawaii. The goals of the present study were (1) to evaluate the immediate and long-term efficacy of a 0.1% fipronil chicken bait on V. pensylvanica populations in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park,...
Index for characterizing post-fire soil environments in temperate coniferous forests
Theresa B. Jain, David S. Pilliod, Russell T. Graham, Leigh B. Lentile, Jonathan E. Sandquist
2012, Forests (3) 445-466
Many scientists and managers have an interest in describing the environment following a fire to understand the effects on soil productivity, vegetation growth, and wildlife habitat, but little research has focused on the scientific rationale for classifying the post-fire environment. We developed an empirically-grounded soil post-fire index (PFI) based on...
Potential For Denitrification near Reclaimed Water Application Sites in Orange County, Florida, 2009
Michael J. Byrne Sr., Richard L. Smith, Deborah A. Repert
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1123
The potential for denitrification was tested in water samples from four Upper Floridan aquifer wells near a reclaimed water application site, in west Orange County Florida, and two adjacent springs. Results of the study indicate that denitrifying bacteria are present in the groundwater and spring water samples, and that these...
Interactions of tissue and fertilizer nitrogen on decomposition dynamics of lignin-rich conifer litter
Steven S. Perakis, Joselin J. Matkins, David E. Hibbs
2012, Ecosphere (3)
High tissue nitrogen (N) accelerates decomposition of high-quality leaf litter in the early phases of mass loss, but the influence of initial tissue N variation on the decomposition of lignin-rich litter is less resolved. Because environmental changes such as atmospheric N deposition and elevated CO2 can alter tissue N levels...
Estimating the Cumulative Ecological Effect of Local Scale Landscape Changes in South Florida
Dianna M. Hogan, William Labiosa, Leonard Pearlstine, David Hallac, David Strong, Paul Hearn, Richard Bernknopf
2012, Environmental Management (49) 502-515
Ecosystem restoration in south Florida is a state and national priority centered on the Everglades wetlands. However, urban development pressures affect the restoration potential and remaining habitat functions of the natural undeveloped areas. Land use (LU) planning often focuses at the local level, but a better understanding of the cumulative...
An algal model for predicting attainment of tiered biological criteria of Maine's streams and rivers
Thomas J. Danielson, Cyndy Loftin, Leonidas Tsomides, Jeanne L. DiFranco, Beth Connors, David L. Courtemanch, Francis Drummond, Susan Davies
2012, Freshwater Science (31) 318-340
State water-quality professionals developing new biological assessment methods often have difficulty relating assessment results to narrative criteria in water-quality standards. An alternative to selecting index thresholds arbitrarily is to include the Biological Condition Gradient (BCG) in the development of the assessment method. The BCG describes tiers of biological community condition...
Changes in faunal and vegetation communities along a soil calcium gradient in northern hardwood forests
Colin M. Beier, Anne M. Woods, Kenneth P. Hotopp, James P. Gibbs, Myron J. Mitchell, Martin Dovciak, Donald J. Leopold, Gregory B. Lawrence, Blair D. Page
2012, Canadian Journal of Forest Research (42) 1141-1152
Depletion of Ca from forest soils due to acidic deposition has had potentially pervasive effects on forest communities, but these impacts remain largely unknown. Because snails, salamanders, and plants play essential roles in the Ca cycle of northern hardwood forests, we hypothesized that their community diversity, abundance, and structure would...
Interlaboratory comparison of three microbial source tracking quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays from fecal-source and environmental samples
Erin A. Stelzer, Kriston M. Strickler, William B. Schill
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5087
During summer and early fall 2010, 15 river samples and 6 fecal-source samples were collected in West Virginia. These samples were analyzed by three laboratories for three microbial source tracking (MST) markers: AllBac, a general fecal indicator; BacHum, a human-associated fecal indicator; and BoBac, a ruminant-associated fecal indicator. MST markers...
An environmental streamflow assessment for the Santiam River basin, Oregon
John C. Risley, J. Rose Wallick, Joseph F. Mangano, Krista L. Jones
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1133
The Santiam River is a tributary of the Willamette River in northwestern Oregon and drains an area of 1,810 square miles. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) operates four dams in the basin, which are used primarily for flood control, hydropower production, recreation, and water-quality improvement. The Detroit and...
Relative abundance and distribution of fishes and crayfish at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Nye County, Nevada, 2010-11
G.G. Scoppettone, D.M. Johnson, M.E. Hereford, Peter Rissler, Mark Fabes, Antonio Salgado, Sean Shea
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1141
Introduction Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge (AMNWR) was established by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (with the assistance of The Nature Conservancy) in 1984 to protect one of the highest concentrations of endemic flora and fauna in North America (Pister, 1985; Sada, 1990). Prior to federal acquisition, Ash Meadows had...
