Collection of mammal manure and other Debris by nesting Burrowing Owls
M. D. Smith, C.J. Conway
2011, Journal of Raptor Research (45) 220-228
Burrowing Owls (Athene cunicularia) routinely collect and scatter dry manure of mammals around their nesting burrows. Recent studies have suggested this behavior attracts insect prey to the nesting burrow. However, some Burrowing Owls do not use manure, but instead, collect and scatter other materials (e.g., grass, moss, paper, plastic)...
Sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) return after an absence of nearly 90 years: A case of reversion to anadromy
L. Godbout, C.C. Wood, R.E. Withler, S. Latham, R.J. Nelson, L. Wetzel, R. Barnett-Johnson, M.J. Grove, A.K. Schmitt, K.D. McKeegan
2011, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (68) 1590-1602
We document the recent reappearance of anadromous sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) that were thought to have been extirpated by the construction of hydroelectric dams on the Coquitlam and Alouette rivers in British Columbia, Canada, in 1914 and 1927, respectively. Unexpected downstream migrations of juveniles during experimental water releases...
Bedform response to flow variability
J. M. Nelson, B.L. Logan, P.J. Kinzel, Y. Shimizu, S. Giri, R.L. Shreve, S.R. McLean
2011, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (36) 1938-1947
Laboratory observations and computational results for the response of bedform fields to rapid variations in discharge are compared and discussed. The simple case considered here begins with a relatively low discharge over a flat bed on which bedforms are initiated, followed by a short high‐flow period with double the original...
The role of dyking and fault control in the rapid onset of eruption at Chaitén Volcano, Chile
Charles Wicks, Llera J. C. De La J. C., L.E. Lara, J. Lowenstern
2011, Nature (478) 374-377
Rhyolite is the most viscous of liquid magmas, so it was surprising that on 2 May 2008 at Chaitén Volcano, located in Chile’s southern Andean volcanic zone, rhyolitic magma migrated from more than 5 km depth in less than 4 hours and erupted explosively with only two days of detected precursory seismic activity....
In vitro detection and quantification of botulinum neurotoxin type E activity in avian blood
Timothy M. Piazza, David S. Blehert, F. Mark Dunning, Brenda M. Berlowski-Zier, Fusun N. Zeytin, M. D. Samuel, Ward C. Tucker
2011, Applied and Environmental Microbiology (77) 7815-7822
Botulinum neurotoxin serotype E (BoNT/E) outbreaks in the Great Lakes region cause large annual avian mortality events, with an estimated 17,000 bird deaths reported in 2007 alone. During an outbreak investigation, blood collected from bird carcasses is tested for the presence of BoNT/E using the mouse lethality assay. While sensitive,...
Viruses and bacteria in karst and fractured rock aquifers in east Tennessee, USA
T.B. Johnson, L.D. McKay, A.C. Layton, S.W. Jones, G.C. Johnson, J.L. Cashdollar, D.R. Dahling, L.F. Villegas, G.S. Fout, D.E. Williams, G. Sayler
2011, Ground Water (49) 98-110
A survey of enteric viruses and indicator bacteria was carried out in eight community water supply sources (four wells and four springs) in East Tennessee. Seven sites derived their water from carbonate aquifers and one from fractured sandstone. Four of the sites were deemed "low-risk" based on prior monitoring of...
Bird community response to filter strips in Maryland
P.J. Blank, G.P. Dively, D.E. Gill, C.A. Rewa
2011, Journal of Wildlife Management (75) 116-125
Filter strips are strips of herbaceous vegetation planted along agricultural field margins adjacent to streams or wetlands and are designed to intercept sediment, nutrients, and agrichemicals. Roughly 16,000 ha of filter strips have been established in Maryland through the United States Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. Filter strips...
Wave constraints for Titan's Jingpo Lacus and Kraken Mare from VIMS specular reflection lightcurves
J. W. Barnes, J.M. Soderblom, R. H. Brown, L.A. Soderblom, K. Stephan, R. Jaumann, Stéphane Le Mouélic, S. Rodriguez, Christophe Sotin, B. J. Buratti, K. H. Baines, R. N. Clark, P. D. Nicholson
2011, Icarus (211) 722-731
Stephan et al. (Stephan, K. et al. [2010]. Geophys. Res. Lett. 37, 7104-+.) first saw the glint of sunlight specularly reflected off of Titan's lakes. We develop a quantitative model for analyzing the photometric lightcurve generated during a flyby in which the specularly reflected light flux depends on the fraction...
Characteristics of foraging sites and protein status in wintering muskoxen: insights from isotopes of nitrogen
David D. Gustine, Perry S. Barboza, James P. Lawler, Stephen M. Arthur, Brad S. Shults, Kate Persons, Layne G. Adams
2011, Oikos (120) 1546-1556
Identifying links between nutritional condition of individuals and population trajectories greatly enhances our understanding of the ecology, conservation, and management of wildlife. For northern ungulates, the potential impacts of a changing climate to populations are predicted to be nutritionally mediated through an increase in the severity and variance in winter...
Modeling routes of chronic wasting disease transmission: Environmental prion persistence promotes deer population decline and extinction
Emily S. Almberg, Paul C. Cross, Christopher J. Johnson, Dennis M. Heisey, Bryan J. Richards
2011, PLoS ONE (6)
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal disease of deer, elk, and moose transmitted through direct, animal-to-animal contact, and indirectly, via environmental contamination. Considerable attention has been paid to modeling direct transmission, but despite the fact that CWD prions can remain infectious in the environment for years, relatively little information...
Mercury trends in fish from rivers and lakes in the United States, 1969-2005
A.T. Chalmers, D.M. Argue, D.A. Gay, M. E. Brigham, C. J. Schmitt, D. L. Lorenz
2011, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (175) 175-191
A national dataset on concentrations of mercury in fish, compiled mainly from state and federal monitoring programs, was used to evaluate trends in mercury (Hg) in fish from US rivers and lakes. Trends were analyzed on data aggregated by site and by state, using samples of the same fish species...
Experimental and simulation studies of iron oxides for geochemical fixation of CO2-SO2 gas mixtures
Susana Garcia, Robert J. Rosenbauer, James Palandri, M. Mercedes Maroto-Valer
2011, Energy Procedia (4) 5108-5113
Iron-bearing minerals are reactive phases of the subsurface environment and could potentially trap CO2–SO2gas mixtures derived from fossil fuel combustion processes by their conversion to siderite (FeCO3) and dissolved sulfate. Changes in fluid and mineral compositions resulting from reactions, involving the co-injection of SO2 with CO2 were observed both theoretically...
Evaluation of influence of sediment on the sensitivity of a unionid mussel (Lampsilis siliquoidea) to ammonia in 28-day water exposures
N. Wang, R.A. Consbrock, C.G. Ingersoll, M.C. Barnhart
2011, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (30) 2270-2276
A draft update of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ambient water quality criteria (AWQC) for ammonia substantially lowers the ammonia AWQC, primarily due to the inclusion of toxicity data for freshwater mussels. However, most of the mussel data used in the updated AWQC were generated from water-only exposures and limited...
Epistemic uncertainty in California-wide synthetic seismicity simulations
F. F. Pollitz
2011, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (101) 2481-2498
The generation of seismicity catalogs on synthetic fault networks holds the promise of providing key inputs into probabilistic seismic-hazard analysis, for example, the coefficient of variation, mean recurrence time as a function of magnitude, the probability of fault-to-fault ruptures, and conditional probabilities for foreshock-mainshock triggering. I employ a seismicity simulator...
A comparison of methods to assess long-term changes in Sonoran Desert vegetation
S.M. Munson, R. H. Webb, J.A. Hubbard
2011, Journal of Arid Environments (75) 1228-1231
Knowledge about the condition of vegetation cover and composition is critical for assessing the structure and function of ecosystems. To effectively quantify the impacts of a rapidly changing environment, methods to track long-term trends of vegetation must be precise, repeatable, and time- and cost-efficient. Measuring vegetation cover and composition in...
Movement Patterns of American Shad Transported Upstream of Dams on The Roanoke River, North Carolina and Virginia
Julianne E. Harris, J.E. Hightower
2011, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (31) 240-256
American shad Alosa sapidissima are in decline throughout much of their native range as a result of overfishing, pollution, and habitat alteration in coastal rivers where they spawn. One approach to restoration in regulated rivers is to provide access to historical spawning habitat above dams through a trap-and-transport program. We examined the...
Ground settlement monitoring based on temporarily coherent points between two SAR acquisitions
L. Zhang, X. Ding, Z. Lu
2011, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (66) 146-152
An InSAR analysis approach for identifying and extracting the temporarily coherent points (TCP) that exist between two SAR acquisitions and for determining motions of the TCP is presented for applications such as ground settlement monitoring. TCP are identified based on the spatial characteristics of the range and azimuth offsets of...
Population viability analysis to identify management priorities for reintroduced elk in the Cumberland Mountains, Tennessee
J.L. Kindall, L.I. Muller, J. D. Clark, J.L. Lupardus, J.L. Murrow
2011, Journal of Wildlife Management (75) 1745-1752
We used an individual-based population model to perform a viability analysis to simulate population growth (λ) of 167 elk (Cervus elaphus manitobensis; 71 male and 96 female) released in the Cumberland Mountains, Tennessee, to estimate sustainability (i.e., λ > 1.0) and identify the most appropriate options for managing elk restoration. We transported...
Comparing laser-based open- and closed-path gas analyzers to measure methane fluxes using the eddy covariance method
Matteo Detto, Joseph Verfaillie, Frank Anderson, Liukang Xu, Dennis Baldocchi
2011, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology (151) 1312-1324
Closed- and open-path methane gas analyzers are used in eddy covariance systems to compare three potential methane emitting ecosystems in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (CA, USA): a rice field, a peatland pasture and a restored wetland. The study points out similarities and differences of the systems in field experiments and...
Where the wild things are: Predicting hotspots of seabird aggregations in the California Current System
N. Nur, J. Jahncke, M.P. Herzog, J. Howar, K.D. Hyrenbach, J.E. Zamon, D. G. Ainley, J. A. Wiens, K. Morgan, L.T. Balance, D. Stralberg
2011, Ecological Applications (21) 2241-2257
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) provide an important tool for conservation of marine ecosystems. To be most effective, these areas should be strategically located in a manner that supports ecosystem function. To inform marine spatial planning and support strategic establishment of MPAs within the California Current System, we identified areas predicted...
Native and exotic plants of fragments of sagebrush steppe produced by geomorphic processes versus land use
N. Huntly, R. Bangert, S.E. Hanser
2011, Plant Ecology (212) 1549-1561
Habitat fragmentation and invasion by exotic species are regarded as major threats to the biodiversity of many ecosystems. We surveyed the plant communities of two types of remnant sagebrush-steppe fragments from nearby areas on the Snake River Plain of southeastern Idaho, USA. One type resulted from land use (conversion to...
Groupers on the edge: Shelf edge spawning habitat in and around marine reserves of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico
Felicia C. Coleman, Kathryn M. Scanlon, Christopher C. Koenig
2011, Professional Geographer (63) 456-474
The northeastern Gulf of Mexico contains some of the most diverse and productive marine habitat in the United States. Much of this habitat, located on the shelf edge in depths of 50 to 120 m, supports spawning for many economically important species, including groupers. Here, we couple acoustic surveys with...
Finite volume model for two-dimensional shallow environmental flow
F.J.M. Simoes
2011, Journal of Hydraulic Engineering (137) 173-182
This paper presents the development of a two-dimensional, depth integrated, unsteady, free-surface model based on the shallow water equations. The development was motivated by the desire of balancing computational efficiency and accuracy by selective and conjunctive use of different numerical techniques. The base framework of the discrete model uses Godunov...
Methane hydrate-bearing seeps as a source of aged dissolved organic carbon to the oceans
J. W. Pohlman, J.E. Bauer, W.F. Waite, C.L. Osburn, N.R. Chapman
2011, Nature Geoscience (4) 37-41
Marine sediments contain about 500-10,000 Gt of methane carbon, primarily in gas hydrate. This reservoir is comparable in size to the amount of organic carbon in land biota, terrestrial soils, the atmosphere and sea water combined, but it releases relatively little methane to the ocean and atmosphere. Sedimentary microbes convert...
The role of model dynamics in ensemble Kalman filter performance for chaotic systems
G.-H.C. Ng, D. McLaughlin, D. Entekhabi, A. Ahanin
2011, Tellus, Series A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography (63) 958-977
The ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is susceptible to losing track of observations, or ‘diverging’, when applied to large chaotic systems such as atmospheric and ocean models. Past studies have demonstrated the adverse impact of sampling error during the filter’s update step. We examine how system dynamics affect EnKF performance, and...
