San Francisco Estuary chlorophyll sensor and sample analysis intercomparison
Elizabeth B. Stumpner, Jamie S. Yin, Matthew Heberger, Jing Wu, Adam Wong, John Franco Saraceno
2022, Report
This report presents an assessment of chlorophyll collection methods and anonymous results of field and laboratory comparisons in 2018 - 2019 by agencies in the San Francisco Estuary (SFE). The methods assessment and comparison exercises, with funding provided by the Delta Regional Monitoring Program and Bay Nutrient Management Strategy and...
Workshops report for mesophotic and deep benthic community fish, mobile invertebrates, sessile invertebrates and infauna
Rachel Bassett, Stacey L. Harter, Randy Clark, Ian Zink, Katherine Hornick, Jennifer Hartman, Hanna Bliska, Melissa Carle, Tracey Sutton, Amanda Demopoulos, Andy David, Kristopher Benson, Jill Bourque, Martha S. Nizinski, Nancy G. Prouty, Stephanie M. Sharuga, Alicia Caporaso, Jennifer Le, Jennifer Herting, Cheryl L. Morrison, Matthew Poti
2022, DWH MDBC Summary Report SR-22-01
Two workshops with subject matter experts in the appropriate fields, were held in November and December 2021 to elicit guidance and feedback from the broader mesophotic and deep benthic scientific community. These workshops focused on best practices/approaches and identifying data gaps relative to habitat assessment and evaluation goals of the...
Whooping crane stay length in relation to stopover site characteristics
Andrew J. Caven, Aaron T. Pearse, David A. Brandt, Mary J. Harner, Greg D. Wright, David M. Baasch, Emma M. Brinley Buckley, Kristine L. Metzger, Matthew R Rabbe, Anne E Lacy
2022, Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop (15) 6-33
Whooping crane (Grus americana) migratory stopovers can vary in length from hours to more than a month. Stopover sites provide food resources and safety essential for the completion of migration. Factors such as weather, climate, demographics of migrating groups, and physiological condition of migrants influence migratory movements of cranes (Gruidae)...
Extensive droughts in the conterminous United States during multiple centuries
Gregory J. McCabe, David M. Wolock
2022, Earth Interactions (26) 84-93
Extensive and severe droughts have substantial effects on water supplies, agriculture, and aquatic ecosystems. To better understand these droughts, we used tree-ring-based reconstructions of the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) for the period 1475–2017 to examine droughts that covered at least 33% of the conterminous United States (CONUS). We identified...
Impact of spectral resolution on quantifying cyanobacteria in lakes and reservoirs: A machine-learning assessment
Kiana Zolfaghari, Nima Pahlevan, Caren Binding, Daniela Gurlin, Stefan G.H. Simis, Antonio Ruiz Verdu, Lin Li, Christopher J. Crawford, Andrea VanderWoude, Reagan Errera, Arthur Zastepa, Claude R. Duguay
2022, IEEE Transactions in Geoscience and Remote Sensing (60)
Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms are an increasing threat to coastal and inland waters. These blooms can be detected using optical radiometers due to the presence of phycocyanin (PC) pigments. The spectral resolution of best-available multispectral sensors limits their ability to diagnostically detect PC in the presence of other photosynthetic pigments....
Nitrogen reductions have decreased hypoxia in the Chesapeake Bay: Evidence from empirical and numerical modeling
Luke T Frankel, Marjorie A. M. Friedrichs, Pierre St-Laurent, Aaron J. Bever, Romuald N. Lipcius, Gopal Bhatt, Gary W. Shenk
2022, Science of the Total Environment (814)
Seasonal hypoxia is a characteristic feature of the Chesapeake Bay due to anthropogenic nutrient input from agriculture and urbanization throughout the watershed. Although coordinated management efforts since 1985 have reduced nutrient inputs to the Bay, oxygen concentrations at depth in the summer still frequently...
Food, beverage, and feedstock processing facility wastewater: A unique and underappreciated source of contaminants to U.S. streams
Laura E. Hubbard, Dana W. Kolpin, Carrie E. Givens, Bradley D. Blackwell, Paul M. Bradley, James L. Gray, Rachael F. Lane, Jason R. Masoner, R. Blaine McCleskey, Kristin M. Romanok, Mark W. Sandstrom, Kelly L. Smalling, Daniel L. Villeneuve
2022, Environmental Science & Technology (56) 1028-1040
Process wastewaters from food, beverage, and feedstock facilities, although regulated, are an under-investigated environmental contaminant source. Food process wastewaters (FPWWs) from 23 facilities in 17 U.S. states were sampled and documented for a plethora of chemical and microbial contaminants. Of the 576 analyzed organics, 184 (32%) were detected at least...
Reservoir attributes display cascading spatial patterns along river basins
N.M. Faucheux, A.R. Sample, C.A. Aldridge, D.M. Norris, C. Owens, Victoria R. Starnes, S. VanderBloemen, Leandro E. Miranda
2022, Water Resources Research (58)
Considering reservoirs as linear fragments in a basin's river network could improve understanding, predictability, and management efficiency. We looked for general cascading spatial patterns across five categories of reservoir attributes: land cover, morphology and hydrology, fish habitat, fish assemblages, and fisheries. Attributes were pulled from various databases for large reservoirs...
Reconstructing the paleoceanographic and redox conditions responsible for variations in uranium content in North American Devonian black shales
Michelle L. Abshire, Natascha Riedinger, John M. Clymer, Clint Scott, Silke Severmann, Stephen J. Romaniello, James O. Puckette
2022, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (587)
The uranium (U) content, and more recently, the ratio between 238U and 235U in black shales are commonly applied as a proxy to determine redox conditions and infer organic-richness. Uranium contents typically display a linear relationship with total organic carbon (TOC) in shales. This relationship is due to...
Effects of salinity and a glucocorticoid antagonist, RU486, on waterborne aldosterone and corticosterone of northern leopard frog larvae
Brian J. Tornabene, Creagh W Breuner, Blake R. Hossack, Erica J Crespi
2022, General and Comparative Endocrinology (317)
Increased salinity is an emerging contaminant of concern for aquatic taxa. For amphibians exposed to salinity, there is scarce information about the physiological effects and changes in osmoregulatory hormones such as corticosterone (CORT) and aldosterone (ALDO). Recent studies have quantified effects of salinity on CORT physiology of amphibians based on...
Phytoplankton community interactions and cyanotoxin mixtures in three recurring surface blooms within one lake
Victoria Christensen, Hayley T. Olds, Jack E. Norland, Eakalak Khan
2022, Journal of Hazardous Materials (427)
Cyanobacteria can produce numerous secondary metabolites (cyanotoxins) with various toxicities, yet data on cyanotoxins in many lakes are limited. Moreover, little research is available on complex relations among cyanobacteria that produce toxins. Therefore, we studied cyanobacteria and 19 cyanotoxins at three sites with recurring blooms in Kabetogama Lake (USA). Seven of 19...
Mapped predictions of manganese and arsenic in an alluvial aquifer using boosted regression trees
Katherine J. Knierim, James A. Kingsbury, Kenneth Belitz, Paul E. Stackelberg, Burke J. Minsley, James R. Rigby
2022, Groundwater (60) 362-376
Manganese (Mn) concentrations and the probability of arsenic (As) exceeding the drinking-water standard of 10 μg/L were predicted in the Mississippi River Valley alluvial aquifer (MRVA) using boosted regression trees (BRT). BRT, a type of ensemble-tree machine-learning model, were created using predictor variables that affect Mn and...
Relationship of trout growth to frequent electrofishing and diet collection in a headwater stream
Niall G. Clancy, James L. Dunnigan, Phaedra E. Budy
2022, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (42) 109-114
Research on fishes sometimes requires that individual fish be captured and subjected to invasive procedures multiple times over a relatively short time span. Electrofishing is one of the most common techniques used to capture fish, and it is known to cause injury to fish under certain circumstances. We evaluated the...
Salinity contributions from geothermal waters to the Rio Grande and shallow aquifer system in the transboundary Mesilla (United States)/Conejos-Médanos (Mexico) Basin
Jeff D. Pepin, Andrew J. Robertson, Shari A. Kelley
2022, Water (14)
Freshwater scarcity has raised concerns about the long-term availability of the water supplies within the transboundary Mesilla (United States)/Conejos-Médanos (Mexico) Basin in Texas, New Mexico, and Chihuahua. Analysis of legacy temperature data and groundwater flux estimates indicates that the region’s known geothermal systems may contribute more than 45,000 tons of...
Improving groundwater model calibration with repeat microgravity measurements
Jeffrey R. Kennedy, Libby M. Wildermuth, Jacob E. Knight, Joshua D. Larson
2022, Groundwater (60) 393-403
Groundwater-flow models depend on hydraulic head and flux observations for evaluation and calibration. A different type of observation—change in storage measured using repeat microgravity—can also be used for parameter estimation by simulating the expected change in gravity from a groundwater model and including the observation misfit...
Exploring local riverbank sediment controls on the occurrence of preferential groundwater discharge points
Martin A. Briggs, Kaetlyn Jackson, F. Liu, Eric Moore, Alaina Bisson, A. M. Helton
2022, Water (14)
Groundwater discharge to rivers takes many forms, including preferential groundwater discharge points (PDPs) along riverbanks that are exposed at low flows, with multi-scale impacts on aquatic habitat and water quality. The physical controls on the spatial distribution of PDPs along riverbanks are not well-defined, rendering their prediction...
The statistical power to detect regional temporal trends in riverine contaminants in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, USA
Tyler Wagner, Paul McLaughlin, Kelly L. Smalling, Sara E. Breitmeyer, Stephanie E. Gordon, Gregory E. Noe
2022, Science of the Total Environment (812)
Chemical contamination of riverine ecosystems is largely a result of urbanization, industrialization, and agricultural activities occurring on adjacent terrestrial landscapes. Land management activities (e.g., Best Management Practices) are an important tool used to reduce point and non-point sources of pollution. However, the ability to confidently make inferences about the efficacy...
Capture vulnerability of sea turtles on recreational fishing piers
Margaret Lamont, Robert Michael Mollenhauer, Allen M. Foley
2022, Ecology and Evolution
Capture vulnerability of commercial and recreational fishes has been associated with behavioral, morphological, and life-history traits; however, relationships with non-target species, such as sea turtles, have not been adequately studied. We examined species composition, timing of captures, morphological variables including body size and head width, and...
Effects of stream intermittency on minnow (Leuciscidae) and darter (Percidae) trophic dynamics in an agricultural watershed
Christine E. Fallon, Krista A. Capps, Mary Freeman, Chelsea R. Smith, Stephen W. Golladay
2022, Ecology of Freshwater Fishes (31) 544-558
Stream intermittency is predicted to increase where water withdrawals and climate warming are increasing. In regions coupled with high fish diversity, understanding how intermittency influences fish trophic ecology is critical for informing ecosystem function. This study compared fish diets across seasons in perennial and intermittent streams...
Ocean connectivity drives trophic support for consumers in an intermittently closed coastal lagoon
Matthew J. Young, Frederick V. Feyrer, Darren Fong, Rachel C. Johnson, Tamara E. C. Kraus, Veronica L. Violette, Elizabeth B. Stumpner, Megan B. Young
2022, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (264)
Estuarine food webs are complex, as marine, freshwater, and terrestrial inputs combine and contribute variable amounts of organic material. Seasonal fluctuations in precipitation amplify the dynamism inherent to estuarine food webs, particularly in lagoonal estuaries, which can be seasonally closed and disconnected from the...
Mapping biological soil crusts in a Hawaiian dryland
Eszter Collier, Ryan L. Perroy, Sasha C. Reed, Jon P Price
2022, International Journal of Remote Sensing (43) 484-509
Historical and ongoing land use patterns in the Hawaiian Islands have degraded the Islands’ drylands, causing erosion and detrimentally affecting adjacent coastal marine ecosystems. Biological soil crust (biocrust) communities have been shown to increase soil stability in drylands worldwide, but their efficacy in mitigating soil erosion in Hawaiian drylands is...
Using fish community and population indicators to assess the biological condition of streams and rivers of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, USA
Kelly O. Maloney, Kevin P. Krause, Matthew J. Cashman, Wesley M. Daniel, Benjamin P. Gressler, Daniel J. Wieferich, John A. Young
2022, Ecological Indicators (134)
The development of indicators to assess relative freshwater condition is critical for management and conservation. Predictive modeling can enhance the utility of indicators by providing estimates of condition for unsurveyed locations. Such approaches grant understanding of where “good” and “poor” conditions occur and provide insight into landscape contexts supporting such conditions....
Multimineral petrophysics of thermally immature Eagle Ford Group and Cretaceous mudstones, U.S. Geological Survey Gulf Coast 1 research wellbore in central Texas
Lauri A. Burke, Justin E. Birdwell, Stanley T. Paxton
2022, Interpretation (10) T151-T165
Traditional petrophysical methods to evaluate organic richness and mineralogy using gamma-ray and resistivity log responses are not diagnostic in source rocks. We have developed a deterministic, nonproprietary method to quantify formation variability in total organic carbon (TOC) and three key mudrock mineralogical components of nonhydrocarbon-bearing...
A scalable model-independent iterative data assimilation tool for sequential and batch estimation of high dimensional model parameters and states
Ayman H. Alzraiee, Jeremy T. White, Matthew Knowling, Randall J. Hunt, Michael N. Fienen
2022, Environmental Modelling & Software (150)
Ensemble-based data assimilation (DA) methods have displayed strong potential to improve model state and parameter estimation across several disciplines due to their computational efficiency, scalability, and ability to estimate uncertainty in the dynamic states and the parameters. However, a barrier to adoption of ensemble DA methods remains. Namely, there is currently a...
Low occurrence of multi-antimicrobial and heavy metal resistance in Salmonella enterica from wild birds in the United States
Yezhi Fu, Nkuchia M M’ikanatha, Chris A Whitehouse, Heather Tate, Andrea Ottensen, Jeffrey M. Lorch, David S. Blehert, Brenda M. Berlowski-Zier, Edward G. Dudley
2022, Environmental Microbiology (24) 1380-1394
Wild birds are common reservoirs of Salmonella enterica. Wild birds carrying resistant S. enterica may pose a risk to public health as they can spread the resistant bacteria across large spatial scales within a short time. Here, we whole-genome sequenced 375 S. enterica strains from wild birds collected in 41 U.S. states during 1978–2019 to examine bacterial...
