Evaluating the role of active management in mature Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) stands for songbird conservation
Neil Williams, Joan Hagar, Matthew Powers
2021, Forest Ecology and Management (502)
Forest birds, particularly those associated with late-successional forests, are of widespread conservation interest. Although birds are among the more widely studied taxa of forest wildlife, relatively few studies have examined the long-term effects of active management (i.e., intentional stand density reduction) on the forest bird assemblage. This is an important...
Floodplain forest tree seedling response to variation in flood timing and duration
W.A. Kroschel, Sammy L. King
2021, Forest Ecology and Management (502)
The regeneration process is a sensitive period within life cycles of floodplain tree species and can strongly influence forest community composition. Yet, fundamental information remains limited on the relationship between regeneration processes and the flood disturbances that, together, construct floodplain forest landscapes. In a controlled greenhouse experiment we tested the effects of complete submergence on six...
Fire refugia in old-growth forests: Predicting habitat persistence to support land management in an era of rapid global change
Cameron E. Naficy, Garrett W. Meigs, Matt J. Gregory, Ray Davis, David M. Bell, Katie M. Dugger, J. David Wiens, Meg A. Krawchuk
2021, Report
Recent stand-replacing wildfires in late-successional and old-growth (LSOG) forests have increased land manager interest in fire refugia, which could provide vital habitat for threatened and endangered species during a time of rapid change. The overall goal of this project was to model, map, and share information essential for the conservation...
Optical properties of water for prediction of wastewater contamination, human-associated bacteria, and fecal indicator bacteria in surface water at three watershed scales
Steven R. Corsi, Laura A. DeCicco, Angela Hansen, Peter L. Lenaker, Brian A. Bergamaschi, Brian A. Pellerin, Debra Dila, Melinda Bootsma, Susan Spencer, Mark A. Borchardt, Sandra L. McLellan
2021, Environmental Science and Technology (55) 13770-13782
Relations between spectral absorbance and fluorescence properties of water and human-associated and fecal indicator bacteria were developed for facilitating field sensor applications to estimate wastewater contamination in waterways. Leaking wastewater conveyance infrastructure commonly contaminates receiving waters. Methods to quantify such contamination can be time consuming, expensive, and often nonspecific. Human-associated...
Using the California Waterfowl Tracker to assess proximity of waterfowl to commercial poultry in the Central Valley of California
Sarai Acosta, Todd Kelman, Shane Feirer, Elliott Matchett, Jaclyn A. Smolinsky, Maurice E. Pitesky, Jeffrey J. Buler
2021, Avian Diseases (65) 483-492
Migratory waterfowl are the primary reservoir of avian influenza viruses (AIV) which can be spread to commercial poultry. Surveillance efforts that track the location and abundance of wild waterfowl and link those data to inform assessments of risk and sampling for AIV currently do not exist. To assist surveillance and...
Analysis of body condition indices reveals different ecotypes of the Antillean manatee
D. N. Castelblanco-Martinez, Daniel Slone, S. S. Landeo-Yauri, E. A. Ramos, Anmari Álvarez-Alemán, Fernanda L. N. Attademo, Cathy A. Beck, Robert K. Bonde, Susan M. Butler, L. J. Cabrias-Contreras, D. Caicedo-Herrera, Jamal Galves, I. V. Gomez-Camelo, D. Gonzalez-Socoloske, D. Jiménez-Domínguez, Fabia O. Luna, Y. Mona-Sanabria, J. B. Morales-Vela, L. D. Olivera-Gomez, Janneth Adriana Padilla-Saldivar, James A. Powell, James P. Reid, G. Rieucau, Antonio A. Mignucci-Gianonni
2021, Scientific Reports (11)
Assessing the body condition of wild animals is necessary to monitor the health of the population and is critical to defining a framework for conservation actions. Body condition indices (BCIs) are a non-invasive and relatively simple means to assess the health of individual animals, useful for addressing a wide variety...
Machine learning can assign geologic basin to produced water samples using major ion geochemistry
Jenna L. Shelton, Aaron M. Jubb, Samuel Saxe, Emil D. Attanasi, Alexei Milkov, Mark A Engle, Philip A. Freeman, Christopher Shaffer, Madalyn S. Blondes
2021, Natural Resources Research (30) 4147-4163
Understanding the geochemistry of waters produced during petroleum extraction is essential to informing the best treatment and reuse options, which can potentially be optimized for a given geologic basin. Here, we used the US Geological Survey’s National Produced Waters Geochemical Database (PWGD) to determine if major ion chemistry could be...
Clays are not created equal: How clay mineral type affects soil parameterization
Peter Lehmann, Ben Leshchinsky, Surya Gupta, Benjamin B. Mirus, Samuel Bickel, Ning Lu, Dani Or
2021, Geophysical Research Letters (48)
Clay minerals dominate the soil colloidal fraction and its specific surface area. Differences among clay mineral types significantly influence their effects on soil hydrological and mechanical behavior. Presently, the soil clay content is used to parameterize soil hydraulic and mechanical properties (SHMP) for land surface models while...
Avian predation of juvenile Lost River and Shortnose Suckers in Upper Klamath Lake: An assessment of Sucker assisted rearing program releases during 2018–2020
Allen Evans, Quinn Payton, Nathan V Banet, Bradley M. Cramer, Caylen Kelsey, David A. Hewitt
2021, Report
To bolster recruitment in Endangered Species Act (ESA) listed Lost River Suckers (Deltistes luxatus) and Shortnose Suckers (Chasmistes brevirostris) in the Upper Klamath Basin (UKB), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and its partners have implemented the Sucker Assisted Rearing Program (SARP). As part of this program, juvenile suckers...
Characterization of water resources in the Big Lost River Basin, south-central Idaho
Lauren M. Zinsser, editor(s)
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5078
Water resources in the Big Lost River Basin, Idaho are vital to irrigated agriculture, domestic, municipal and other uses but declining groundwater levels, diminished streamflows, and concern about drought motivated an evaluation of water resources in the basin. This multichapter volume documents the findings of a hydrogeologic investigation of the...
Ecosystem carbon balance in the Hawaiian Islands under different scenarios of future climate and land use change
Paul C. Selmants, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Jinxun Liu, Tamara Wilson, Clay Trauernicht, Abby G. Frazier, Gregory P. Asner
2021, Environmental Research Letters (16)
The State of Hawai'i passed legislation to be carbon neutral by 2045, a goal that will partly depend on carbon sequestration by terrestrial ecosystems. However, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the future direction and magnitude of the land carbon sink in the Hawaiian Islands. We used the Land Use and...
Demographic risk assessment for a harvested species threatened by climate change: Polar bears in the Chukchi Sea
Eric V. Regehr, Michael C. Runge, Andrew L. Von Duyke, Ryan R. Wilson, Lori Polasek, Karyn D. Rode, Nathan J. Hostetter, Sarah J. Converse
2021, Ecological Applications (31)
Climate change threatens global biodiversity. Many species vulnerable to climate change are important to humans for nutritional, cultural, and economic reasons. Polar bears Ursus maritimus are threatened by sea-ice loss and represent a subsistence resource for Indigenous people. We applied a novel population modeling-management framework that is based on species life history...
Optimization of salt marsh management at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, Maine, through use of structured decision making
Hilary A. Neckles, James E. Lyons, Jessica L. Nagel, Susan C. Adamowicz, Toni Mikula, Kathleen M. O’Brien, Bri Benvenuti, Ryan Kleinert
2021, Open-File Report 2021-1080
Structured decision making is a systematic, transparent process for improving the quality of complex decisions by identifying measurable management objectives and feasible management actions; predicting the potential consequences of management actions relative to the stated objectives; and selecting a course of action that maximizes the total benefit achieved and balances...
Development of a groundwater-simulation model in the Los Angeles Coastal Plain, Los Angeles County, California
Scott Paulinski, editor(s)
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5088
Executive SummaryThe Los Angeles Coastal Plain (LACP) covers about 580 square miles and is the largest coastal plain of semiarid southern California. The LACP is heavily developed with mostly residential, commercial, and industrial land uses that rely heavily on groundwater for water supply. In 2010, the LACP was home to...
Assessing potential groundwater-level declines from future withdrawals in the Hualapai Valley, northwestern Arizona
Jacob E. Knight, Bruce Gungle, Jeffrey R. Kennedy
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5077
A numerical groundwater flow model of the Hualapai Valley Basin in northwestern Arizona was developed to assist water-resource managers in understanding the potential effects of projected groundwater withdrawals on groundwater levels in the basin. The Hualapai Valley Hydrologic Model (HVHM) simulates the hydrologic system for the years 1935 through 2219,...
Deep learning approaches for improving prediction of daily stream temperature in data-scarce, unmonitored, and dammed basins
Farshid Rahmani, Chaopeng Shen, Samantha K. Oliver, Kathryn Lawson, Alison P. Appling
2021, Hydrological Processes (35) e14400
Basin-centric long short-term memory (LSTM) network models have recently been shown to be an exceptionally powerful tool for stream temperature (Ts) temporal prediction (training in one period and predicting in another period at the same sites). However, spatial extrapolation is a well-known challenge to modelling Ts and...
Investigating the effect of enhanced oil recovery on the noble gas signature of casing gases and produced waters from selected California oil fields
R. L. Tyne, P. H. Barry, R. Karolytė, D. J. Bryne, Justin T. Kulongoski, D.J. Hillegonds, C. J. Ballentine
2021, Chemical Geology (584)
In regions where water resources are scarce and in high demand, it is important to safeguard against contamination of groundwater aquifers by oil-field fluids (water, gas, oil). In this context, the geochemical characterisation of these fluids is critical so that anthropogenic contaminants can be readily identified. The first step...
A simplified method for rapid estimation of emergency water supply needs after earthquakes
Joseph Charles Toland, Anne Wein
2021, Water (13)
Researchers are investigating the problem of estimating households with potable water service outages soon after an earthquake. Most of these modeling approaches are computationally intensive, have large proprietary data collection requirements or lack precision, making them unfeasible for rapid assessment, prioritization, and allocation of emergency water resources in large, complex...
Managing water resources on Long Island, New York, with integrated, multidisciplinary science
Robert F. Breault, John P. Masterson, Christopher Schubert, Liv M. Herdman
2021, Fact Sheet 2021-3044
Nutrients, harmful algal blooms, and synthetic chemicals like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and 1,4-dioxane threaten Long Island’s water resources by affecting the quality of drinking water and ecologically sensitive habitats that support the diverse wildlife throughout the island. Understanding the occurrence, fate, and transport of these potentially harmful chemicals...
Evaluating the state-of-the-art in remote volcanic eruption characterization Part I: Raikoke volcano, Kuril Islands
Kathleen McKee, Cassandra Marie Smith, Kevin Reath, Eveanjelene Snee, Sean Maher, Robin S. Matoza, Simon A Carn, Larry G. Mastin, Kyle R. Anderson, David Damby, Diana Roman, Artem Degterev, Alexander Rybin, Marina Chibisova, Jelle D. Assink, Rodrigo de Negri Levia, Anna Perttu
2021, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (419) 1-14
Raikoke, a small, unmonitored volcano in the Kuril Islands, erupted in June 2019. We integrate data from satellites (including Sentinel-2, TROPOMI, MODIS, Himawari-8), the International Monitoring System (IMS) infrasound network, and global lightning detection network (GLD360) with information from local authorities and social media to retrospectively characterize the eruptive sequence...
Methods for estimating regional skewness of annual peak flows in parts of eastern New York and Pennsylvania, based on data through water year 2013
Andrea G. Veilleux, Daniel M. Wagner
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5015
Bulletin 17C (B17C) recommends fitting the log-Pearson Type III (LP−III) distribution to a series of annual peak flows at a streamgage by using the method of moments. The third moment, the skewness coefficient (or skew), is important because the magnitudes of annual exceedance probability (AEP) flows estimated by using the...
Multidisciplinary constraints on magma compressibility, the pre-eruptive exsolved volatile fraction, and the H2O/CO2 molar ratio for the 2006 Augustine eruption, Alaska
Valerie K. Wasser, Taryn M. Lopez, Kyle R. Anderson, Pavel E. Izbekov, Jeffrey T. Freymueller
2021, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G-Cubed) (22) 1-24
Geodetically modeled reservoir volume changes during volcanic eruptions are commonly much smaller than the observed eruptive volumes. This discrepancy is thought to be partially due to the compressibility of magma, which is largely controlled by the presence of exsolved volatiles. The 2006 eruption of Augustine Volcano, Alaska, produced an eruptive...
Upper Grand Coulee: New views of a channeled scabland megafloods enigma
Richard B. Waitt, Brian F. Atwater, Karin Lehnigk, Isaac J. Larsen, Bruce N. Bjornstad, Michelle A. Hanson, Jim E. O'Connor
2021, Book chapter, From terranes to terrains: Geologic field guides on the construction and destruction of the Pacific Northwest
New findings about old puzzles occasion rethinking of the Grand Coulee, greatest of the scabland channels. Those puzzles begin with antecedents of current upper Grand Coulee. By a recent interpretation, the upper coulee exploited the former high-level valley of a preflood trunk stream that had drained to the southwest beside...
Evaluating the impact of watershed development and climate change on stream ecosystems: A Bayesian network modeling approach
Song S. Qian, Jonathan G. Kennen, Jason May, Mary Freeman, Thomas F Cuffney
2021, Water Research (205)
A continuous-variable Bayesian network (cBN) model is used to link watershed development and climate change to stream ecosystem indicators. A graphical model, reflecting our understanding of the connections between climate change, weather condition, loss of natural land cover, stream flow characteristics, and stream ecosystem indicators is used as the basis for...
miR133b microinjection during early development targets transcripts of sardiomyocyte ion channels and induces oil-like cardiotoxicity in zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos
Justin Blaine Greer, Jason T. Magnuson, Victoria McGruer, Le Qian, Subham Dasgupta, David C. Volz, Daniel Schlenk
2021, Chemical Research in Toxicology (34) 2209-2215
Previous studies have shown that altered expression of a family of small noncoding RNAs (microRNAs, or miRs) regulates the expression of downstream mRNAs and is associated with diseases and developmental disorders. miR133b is highly expressed in mammalian cardiac and skeletal muscle,...
