Search Results

SPAtially Referenced Regressions On Watershed attributes (SPARROW) models were used to relate instream nutrient loads to sources and factors influencing the transport of nutrients in the Missouri River Basin. Agricultural inputs from fertilizer and manure were the largest nutrient sources throughout a large part of the basin, although atmospheric and...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Deep-sea hydrothermal vent animals occupy patchy and ephemeral habitats supported by chemosynthetic primary production. Volcanic and tectonic activities controlling the turnover of these habitats contribute to demographic instability that erodes genetic variation within and among colonies of these animals. We examined DNA sequences from one mitochondrial and three nuclear gene...

Equivalence testing and corresponding confidence interval estimates are used to provide more enlightened statistical statements about parameter estimates by relating them to intervals of effect sizes deemed to be of scientific or practical importance rather than just to an effect size of zero. Equivalence tests and confidence interval estimates are...

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...

Invasive species often have dramatic negative effects that lead to the deterioration and loss of biodiversity frequently coupled with the burden of expensive biocontrol programs and subversion of socioeconomic stability. The fauna and flora of oceanic islands are particularly susceptible to invasive species and the increase of global movements of...

Invasive species are regularly claimed as the second threat to biodiversity. To apply a relevant response to the potential consequences associated with invasions (e.g., emphasize management efforts to prevent new colonization or to eradicate the species in places where it has already settled), it is essential to understand invasion mechanisms...

Three years of weekly- to biweekly-resolved sediment-trap data show that almost 90% of the total flux of tests of the planktic foraminifer Globorotalia truncatulinoides to sediments in the northern Gulf of Mexico occurs in January and February. Comparison of δ18O from tests of non-encrusted Gl. truncatulinoides in sediment-trap samples with...

This paper presents the procedures and results of intensity- and time-based seismic risk assessments of a sample nuclear power plant (NPP) to demonstrate the risk-assessment methodology proposed in its companion paper. The intensity-based assessments include three sets of sensitivity studies to identify the impact of the following factors on the...

An earthquake of MW = 6.1 occurred in the Elazığ region of eastern Turkey on 8 March 2010 at 02:32:34 UTC. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported the epicenter of the earthquake as 38.873°N-39.981°E with a focal depth of 12 km. Forty-two people lost their lives and 137 were injured during...

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) population declines may be caused by range-wide degradation of sagebrush (woody Artemisia spp.) steppe ecosystems. Understanding how greater sage-grouse use the landscape is essential for successful management. We assessed greater sage-grouse habitat selection on a landscape level in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We used a Geographic Information...

Uranium–Pb (zircon) ages are linked with geochemical data for porphyry intrusions associated with giant porphyry Cu–Au systems at Oyu Tolgoi to place those rocks within the petrochemical framework of <a title="Learn more about...

Food-grade CO2 was injected into a shallow aquifer through a perforated pipe placed horizontally 1–2 m below the water table at the Montana State University Zero Emission Research and Technology (MSU-ZERT) field site at Bozeman, Montana. The possible impact of elevated CO2 levels on...

 Full‐resolution 3D Ground‐Penetrating Radar (GPR) data were combined with high‐resolution hydraulic conductivity (K) data from vertical Direct‐Push (DP) profiles to characterize a portion of the highly heterogeneous MAcro Dispersion Experiment (MADE) site. This is an important first step to better understand the influence of aquifer heterogeneities on observed anomalous...

Animal species across multiple taxa demonstrate multi-annual population cycles, which have long been of interest to ecologists. Correlated population cycles between species that do not share a predator–prey relationship are particularly intriguing and challenging to explain. We investigated annual population trends of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) and cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus sp.)...

To study the geochemical characteristics of 11 environmentally sensitive trace elements in the coals of the Permian Period from the Huainan coalfield, Anhui province, China, borehole samples of 336 coals, two partings, and four roof and floor mudstones were collected from mineable coal seams. Major elements and selected trace elements were determined by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), inductively coupled...

One prediction of the novel weapons hypothesis (NWH) for the dominance of exotic invasive plant species is that the allelopathic effects of successful invaders will, in general, be more biochemically inhibitory to native species and microbes in invaded regions than the native plants themselves. However, no study has compared biochemical...

Four lithotypes (vitrain, bright clarain, clarain, and fusain) of a high volatile bituminous Springfield Coal from the Illinois Basin were characterized using advanced solid-state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The NMR techniques included quantitative direct polarization/magic angle spinning (DP/MAS), cross polarization/total sideband suppression (CP/TOSS), dipolar dephasing, CHn selection, and recoupled C–H long-range dipolar dephasing techniques. The...

1. For north temperate lakes, the well-studied empirical relationship between phosphorus (as measured by total phosphorus, TP), the most commonly limiting nutrient and algal biomass (as measured by chlorophyll a, CHL) has been found to vary across a wide range of landscape settings. Variation in the parameters of these TP–CHL regressions has...

We investigated postbreeding resource selection by adult black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes) on a 452-ha black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) colony in the Conata Basin of South Dakota during 2007–2008. We used resource selection functions (RSFs) to evaluate relationships between numbers of ferret locations and numbers of prairie dog burrow openings...

Procedures for a viral replication in excised fin tissue (VREFT) assay were adapted to Pacific herring, Clupea pallasii, and optimized both to reduce processing time and to provide the greatest resolution between na??ve herring and those previously exposed to viral haemorrhagic septicaemia virus (VHSV), Genogroup IVa. The optimized procedures included...

Two high-head dams on the Elwha River in Washington State (USA) have changed the migratory patterns of resident and anadromous fish, limiting Pacific salmon to the lower 7.9 km of a river that historically supported large Pacific salmon runs. To document the effects of the dams prior to their removal, we...