Density estimation in tiger populations: combining information for strong inference
Arjun M. Gopalaswamy, J. Andrew Royle, Mohan Delampady, James D. Nichols, K. Ullas Karanth, David W. Macdonald
2012, Ecology (93) 1741-1751
A productive way forward in studies of animal populations is to efficiently make use of all the information available, either as raw data or as published sources, on critical parameters of interest. In this study, we demonstrate two approaches to the use of multiple sources of information on a parameter...
Mars global digital dune database: MC-30
R.K. Hayward, L.K. Fenton, T.N. Titus, A. Colaprete, P. R. Christensen
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1259
The Mars Global Digital Dune Database (MGD3) provides data and describes the methodology used in creating the global database of moderate- to large-size dune fields on Mars. The database is being released in a series of U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Reports. The first report (Hayward and others, 2007) included dune...
Balancing precision and risk: should multiple detection methods be analyzed separately in N-mixture models?
Tabitha A. Graves, J. Andrew Royle, Katherine C. Kendall, Paul Beier, Jeffrey B. Stetz, Amy C. Macleod
2012, PLoS ONE (7)
Using multiple detection methods can increase the number, kind, and distribution of individuals sampled, which may increase accuracy and precision and reduce cost of population abundance estimates. However, when variables influencing abundance are of interest, if individuals detected via different methods are influenced by the landscape differently, separate analysis of...
Interbasin water transfer, riverine connectivity, and spatial controls on fish biodiversity
Evan H. Campbell Grant, Heather J. Lynch, Rachata Muneepeerakul, Arunachalam Muthukumarasamy, Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe, William F. Fagan
2012, PLoS ONE (7)
Background Large-scale inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) projects are commonly proposed as solutions to water distribution and supply problems. These problems are likely to intensify under future population growth and climate change scenarios. Scarce data on the distribution of freshwater fishes frequently limits the ability to assess the potential implications of...
Advanced earthquake monitoring system for U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical buildings--instrumentation
Erol Kalkan, Krishna Banga, Hasan S. Ulusoy, Jon Peter B. Fletcher, William S. Leith, Shahneam Reza, Timothy Cheng
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1241
In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the National Strong Motion Project (NSMP; http://nsmp.wr.usgs.gov/) of the U.S. Geological Survey has been installing sophisticated seismic systems that will monitor the structural integrity of 28 VA hospital buildings located in seismically active regions of the conterminous United...
Species, functional groups, and thresholds in ecological resilience
Shana M. Sundstrom, Craig R. Allen, Chris Barichievy
2012, Conservation Biology (26) 305-314
The cross-scale resilience model states that ecological resilience is generated in part from the distribution of functions within and across scales in a system. Resilience is a measure of a system's ability to remain organized around a particular set of mutually reinforcing processes and structures, known as a regime. We...
Building on previous OSL dating techniques for gypsum: a case study from Salt Basin playa, New Mexico and Texas
Shannon Mahan, John Kay
2012, Quaternary Geochronology (10) 345-352
The long term stability and reliability of the luminescence signal for gypsum has not been well documented or systematically measured until just recently. A review of the current literature for luminescence dating of gypsum is compiled here along with original efforts at dating an intact and in-situ bed of selenite...
Earthquake recurrence models fail when earthquakes fail to reset the stress field
Thessa Tormann, Stefan Wiemer, Jeanne L. Hardebeck
2012, Geophysical Research Letters (39)
Parkfield's regularly occurring M6 mainshocks, about every 25 years, have over two decades stoked seismologists' hopes to successfully predict an earthquake of significant size. However, with the longest known inter-event time of 38 years, the latest M6 in the series (28 Sep 2004) did not conform to any of the...
Northwestern salamanders Ambystoma gracile in mountain lakes: record oviposition depths among salamanders
R. Hoffman Jr., C.A. Pearl, G.L. Larson, B. Samora
2012, Herpetological Review (43) 553-556
Oviposition timing, behaviors, and microhabitats of ambystomatid salamanders vary considerably (Egan and Paton 2004; Figiel and Semlitsch 1995; Howard and Wallace 1985; Mac-Cracken 2007). Regardless of species, however, females typically oviposit using sites conducive to embryo development and survival. For example, the results of an experiment by Figiel and Semlitsch...
Do Daphnia use metalimnetic organic matter in a north temperate lake? An analysis of vertical migration
Chase Julian Brosseau, Timothy J. Cline, Jonathan J. Cole, James R. Hodgson, Michael L. Pace, Brian Weidel
2012, Inland Waters (2) 193-198
Diel vertical migration of zooplankton is influenced by a variety of factors including predation, food, and temperature. Research has recently shifted from a focus on factors influencing migration to how migration affects nutrient cycling and habitat coupling. Here we evaluate the potential for Daphnia migrations to incorporate metalimnetic productivity in...
Fire in Mediterranean climate ecosystems-A comparative overview
Jon E. Keeley
2012, Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution (58) 123-135
Four regions of the world share a similar climate and structurally similar plant communities with the Mediterranean Basin. These five areas, known collectively as "mediterranean-type climate (MTC) regions", are dominated by evergreen sclerophyllous-leaved shrublands, semi-deciduous scrub, and woodlands, all of which are prone to widespread crown fires. Summer droughts produce...
Igneous activity, metamorphism, and deformation in the Mount Rogers area of SW Virginia and NW North Carolina: A geologic record of Precambrian tectonic evolution of the southern Blue Ridge Province
Richard P. Tollo, John N. Aleinikoff, Roland Mundil, C. Scott Southworth, Michael A. Cosca, Douglas W. Rankin, Allison E. Rubin, Adrienne Kentner, Christopher A. Parendo, Molly S. Ray
2012, Book chapter, From the Blue Ridge to the Coastal Plain: Field Excursions in the Southeastern United States
Mesoproterozoic basement in the vicinity of Mount Rogers is characterized by considerable lithologic variability, including major map units composed of gneiss, amphibolite, migmatite, meta-quartz monzodiorite and various types of granitoid. SHRIMP U-Pb geochronology and field mapping indicate that basement units define four types of occurrences, including (1) xenoliths of ca....
Spring onset variations and trends in the continental United States: past and regional assessment using temperature-based indices
Mark D. Schwartz, Toby R. Ault, Julio L. Betancourt
2012, International Journal of Climatology
Phenological data are simple yet sensitive indicators of climate change impacts on ecosystems, but observations have not been made routinely or extensively enough to evaluate spatial and temporal patterns across most continents, including North America. As an alternative, many studies use weather-based algorithms to simulate specific phenological responses. Spring Indices...
Five new records of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) for Nebraska
Kristine T. Nemec, James C. Trager, Elizabeth Manley, Craig R. Allen
2012, Prairie Naturalist (44) 63-65
Ants are ubiquitous and influential organisms in terrestrial ecosystems. About 1,000 ant species occur in North America, where they are found in nearly every habitat (Fisher and Cover 2007). Ants are critical to ecological processes and structure. Ants affect soils via tunneling activity (Baxter and Hole 1967), disperse plant seeds...
Saliendo del circulo vicioso: Gestiones alternativas para garantizar la sostenibilidad de la pesca
D.G. Angeler, K.L. Pope, Craig R. Allen
2012, Revista Latinoamericana de Recursos Naturales (8) 76-89
The management of fisheries has historically focused on maintaining maximum sustained yields of single species. This approach generally ignored the broader social-ecological context that consists of coupled systems of people and nature, and resulted in the overexploitation of many fisheries globally, including many in Latin America. There are severe negative...
Coseismic and postseismic stress rotations due to great subduction zone earthquakes
Jeanne L. Hardebeck
2012, Geophysical Research Letters (39)
The three largest recent great subduction zone earthquakes (2011 M9.0 Tohoku, Japan; 2010 M8.8 Maule, Chile; and 2004 M9.2 Sumatra-Andaman) exhibit similar coseismic rotations of the principal stress axes. Prior to each mainshock, the maximum compressive stress axis was shallowly plunging, while immediately after the mainshock, both the maximum and...
Copper-nickel-rich, amalgamated ferromanganese crust-nodule deposits from Shatsky Rise, NW Pacific
J.R. Hein, T.A. Conrad, M. Frank, M. Christl, W.W. Sager
2012, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (13)
A unique set of ferromanganese crusts and nodules collected from Shatsky Rise (SR), NW Pacific, were analyzed for mineralogical and chemical compositions, and dated using Be isotopes and cobalt chronometry. The composition of these midlatitude, deep-water deposits is markedly different from northwest-equatorial Pacific (PCZ) crusts, where most studies have been...
Spectral damping scaling factors for shallow crustal earthquakes in active tectonic regions
Sanaz Rezaeian, Yousef Bozorgnia, I.M. Idriss, Kenneth Campbell, Norman Abrahamson, Walter Silva
2012, PEER Report 2012/01
Ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for elastic response spectra, including the Next Generation Attenuation (NGA) models, are typically developed at a 5% viscous damping ratio. In reality, however, structural and non-structural systems can have damping ratios other than 5%, depending on various factors such as structural types, construction materials, level...
Associations of benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages with environmental variables in the upper Clear Creek watershed, California
Larry R. Brown, Jason T. May, Marissa Wulff
2012, Western North American Naturalist (72) 473-494
Benthic macroinvertebrates are integral components of stream ecosystems and are often used to assess the ecological integrity of streams. We sampled streams in the upper Clear Creek drainage in the Klamath—Siskiyou Ecoregion of northwestern California in fall 2004 (17 sites) and 2005 (original 17 plus 4 new sites) with the...
A mantle-driven surge in magma supply to Kīlauea Volcano during 2003-2007
Michael P. Poland, Asta Miklius, A. Jeff Sutton, Carl R. Thornber
2012, Nature Geoscience (5) 295-300
The eruptive activity of a volcano is fundamentally controlled by the rate of magma supply. At Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i, the rate of magma rising from a source within Earth’s mantle, through the Hawaiian hotspot, was thought to have been relatively steady in recent decades. Here we show that the magma...
Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources
Peter D. Warwick, M.D. Corum, editor(s)
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1024
The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (Public Law 110–140) directs the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to conduct a national assessment of potential geologic storage resources for carbon dioxide (CO2) and to consult with other Federal and State agencies to locate the pertinent geological data needed for the assessment. The...
Step-changes in the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the Gulf of Maine, as documented by the GNATS time series
William M. Balch, D.T. Drapeau, B.C. Bowler, Thomas G. Huntington
2012, Marine Ecology Progress Series (450) 11-35
We identify step-changes in the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the Gulf of Maine (GoM) using the Gulf of Maine North Atlantic Time Series (GNATS), a series of oceanographic measurements obtained between September 1998 and December 2010 along a transect in the GoM running from Portland, ME, to Yarmouth,...
Integrated characterization of the geologic framework of a contaminated site in West Trenton, New Jersey
Karl J. Ellefsen, William C. Burton, Pierre J. Lacombe
2012, Journal of Applied Geophysics (79) 71-81
Fractured sedimentary bedrock and groundwater at the former Naval Air Warfare Center in West Trenton, New Jersey (United States of America) are contaminated with chlorinated solvents. Predicting contaminant migration or removing the contaminants requires an understanding of the geology. Consequently, the geologic framework near the site was characterized with four...
A state-based national network for effective wildlife conservation
Vicky J. Meretsky, Lynn A. Maguire, Frank W. Davis, David M. Stoms, J. Michael Scott, Dennis Figg, Dale D. Goble, Brad Griffith, Scott E. Henke, Jacqueline Vaughn, Steven L. Yaffee
2012, BioScience (62) 970-976
State wildlife conservation programs provide a strong foundation for biodiversity conservation in the United States, building on state wildlife action plans. However, states may miss the species that are at the most risk at rangewide scales, and threats such as novel diseases and climate change increasingly act at regional and...
Mycoplasma testudineum in free-ranging desert tortoises, Gopherus agassizii
Elliott R. Jacobson, Kristin H. Berry
2012, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (48) 1063-1068
We performed clinico-pathological evaluations of 11 wild Agassiz's desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) from a translocation project in the central Mojave Desert, California, USA. Group 1 consisted of nine tortoises that were selected primarily due to serologic status, indicating exposure to Mycoplasma testudineum (seven) or both M. agassizii and M. testudineum...
