Becoming an actionable scientist: Challenges, competency, and the development of expertise
Julia B. Goolsby, Amanda E. Cravens, Mary Ann Rozance
2023, Environmental Management (72) 1128-1145
Demand has grown for actionable science to support real-world decision-making around climate change and related environmental management challenges. Producing actionable science requires scientists to hold a distinct set of competencies, yet relatively little is known about what these competencies are or how to train scientists to...
Telescoping prey selection in invasive Burmese pythons spells trouble for endangered rodents
Issac Lord, Joseph Redinger, Jeremy Dixon, Kristen Hart, Jacquelyn C. Guzy, Christina M. Romagosa, Michael V. Cove
2023, Food Webs (37)
The allometric scaling of predators and their prey is well established within snakes (i.e., gape-width limits maximum prey sizes). However, while some species exhibit ontogenetic shifts to larger prey as they grow, others exhibit telescoping prey selection and continue to...
Nearshore subtidal community response during and after sediment disturbance associated with dam removal
Stephen P. Rubin, Melissa M. Foley, Ian M. Miller, Andrew W. Stevens, Jonathan A. Warrick, Helen D. Berry, Nancy E. Elder, Matthew M. Beirne, Guy Gelfenbaum
2023, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (11)
Dam removal is used increasingly to restore aquatic ecosystems and remove unnecessary or high-risk infrastructure. As the number of removals increases, there is a growing understanding about the hydrologic, geomorphic, and ecological responses to these removals. Most dam removal studies, however, focus on river and watershed responses to dam removal....
Comment on "Multi-Event explosive seismic source for the 2022 Mw 6.3 Hunga Tonga submarine volcanic eruption" by Julien Thurin, Carl Tape, and Ryan Modrak
Frederick Pollitz, Ricardo Garza-Giron, Thorne Lay
2023, The Seismic Record (3) 210-2014
No abstract available....
Rangeland Ecosystem Services: Connecting nature and people
Jeff Goodwin, Lauren M. Porensky, Paul Meiman, Hailey Wilmer, Justin D. Derner, Rich Iovanna, Anna Clare Monlezun, Mark W. Vandever, Jon Griggs, Frank Price, Sheri Spiegal, Nick Padilla, Dave Voth, Anna Maher, Rory O'Connor, David Hoover, Jenny Pluhar, Catherine Estep, William Fox
2023, Report
No abstract available....
Conservation decision support for Silver Chub habitat in Lake Erie
James E. McKenna Jr.
2023, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (43) 1151-1165
ObjectiveConservation and restoration of aquatic species is difficult, especially for rare species, because their habitats are typically disturbed, obscuring the natural ability of the habitat to support each species. The Lake Erie population of Silver Chub Macrhybopsis storeriana struggles to sustain itself in a habitat disturbed by a wide...
Seventy questions of importance to the conservation of the North Central grasslands of the United States in a changing climate
Christine D. Miller Hesed, Heather M. Yocum, Molly S. Cross, Aparna Bamzai-Dodson, Ben Wheeler, Jon P. Beckmann, Marissa Ahlering, Kimberly R. Hall, Emily Boyd-Valandra, Danika Mosher, Brian W. Miller, Sarah Jaffe
2023, Conservation Science and Practice (5)
Successful conservation of ecosystems in a changing climate requires actionable research that directly supports the rethinking and revising of management approaches to address changing risks and opportunities. As an important first step toward actionable research, we reviewed and synthesized grassland management-related documents to identify broadly shared questions that, if answered,...
Evaluation of hydrodynamic mixing in an afterbay reservoir
Paul Work
2023, Journal of Environmental Engineering (149)
This study focused on the mixing of a solute, assumed to be conservative, introduced to one arm of an afterbay reservoir, between Keswick and Shasta Dams on the Sacramento River near Redding, California. Rhodamine water tracer (WT) dye served as the solute in a field experiment, and was introduced over...
Occurrence of pharmaceutical compounds in the San Antonio segment of the Edwards (Balcones fault zone) aquifer, south-central Texas, June 2018–August 2020
Stephen P. Opsahl, MaryLynn Musgrove
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5069
The occurrence of pharmaceutical compounds (hereinafter referred to as “pharmaceuticals”) in surface water that recharges the San Antonio segment of the Edwards aquifer in south-central Texas is of concern with respect to potential effects on groundwater quality. This study, conducted during June 2018–August 2020 by the U.S. Geological Survey in...
Ooencyrtus pitosina (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae)–A natural enemy of Samoan swallowtail butterfly Papilio godeffroyi (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae)
Andrew Polaszek, John Noyes, Elena Lugli, Mark Schmaedick, Robert W. Peck, Paul C. Banko, Lucian Fusu
2023, PLoS ONE (18)
A new species of encyrtid wasp, Ooencyrtus pitosina Polaszek, Noyes & Fusu sp. n., (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae: Encyrtinae) is described as a gregarious parasitoid in the eggs of the endemic Samoan swallowtail butterfly Papilio godeffroyi (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) in the Samoan archipelago. It is described here because it is an important natural enemy of this butterfly, and to...
Prey ration, temperature, and predator species influence digestion rates of prey DNA inferred from qPCR and metabarcoding
Cory Dick, Wesley A. Larson, Kirby Karpan, Diana S. Baetscher, Yue Shi, Suresh Sethi, Nann A. Fangue, Mark J. Henderson
2023, Molecular Ecology Resources (00) 1-17
Diet analysis is a vital tool for understanding trophic interactions and is frequently used to inform conservation and management. Molecular approaches can identify diet items that are impossible to distinguish using more traditional visual-based methods. Yet, our understanding of how different variables, such as predator species or prey ration size,...
Application of the technology readiness levels framework to natural resource management tools
Aaron R. Cupp, Andrea K. Fritts, Marybeth K. Brey, Christa M. Woodley, David Smith, Mark Cornish, Amy McGovern, Rob Simmonds, Neal Jackson
2023, Fisheries (48) 474-479
Technology advancements in fisheries science can provide useful tools to support natural resource management and conservation. However, new technologies may also present challenges for decision makers due to the lack of a standardized process to assess technologies for consideration within management plans. Future technology development in fishery and water resources...
Visitation to national parks in California shows annual and seasonal change during extreme drought and wet years
Jeffrey S. Jenkins, John T. Abatzoglou, Emily J. Wilkins, Elizabeth E. Perry
2023, PLOS Climate (2)
This study examines the influence of drought indicators on recreational visitation patterns to National Park Service units in California (USA) from 1980 to 2019. We considered mountain, arid, and coastal park types across a climate gradient where seasonal recreational opportunities are directly or indirectly dependent on water resources. Significant departures...
Predicting water quality in the Clark Fork near Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site, southwestern Montana
Christopher A. Ellison
2023, Fact Sheet 2023-3032
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provides a wide range of streamflow, groundwater, and water-quality data to Government, commercial, academic, and public users. The USGS has a record of success with using optical turbidity sensors to predict suspended-sediment concentrations in rivers and streams. Turbidity sensors collect backscatter signals from suspended particles...
Initial comparison of pollen counting methods using precipitation and ambient air samples and automated artificial intelligence to support national monitoring objectives
Gregory A. Wetherbee, David A. Gay, Eric Uram, Terri Williams, Andrew Johnson
2023, Aerobiologia (39) 303-325
Given the endemic nature of pollen throughout the environment, the impact upon human health, and the need for more extensive and better measurements of pollen in the USA, a preliminary project within the National Atmospheric Deposition Program’s (NADP) National Trends Network (NTN) was developed. Pollen was...
SaTSeaD: Satellite Triangulated Sea Depth open-source bathymetry module for NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline
Monica Palaseanu-Lovejoy, Oleg Alexandrov, Jeffrey J. Danielson, Curt D. Storlazzi
2023, Remote Sensing (15)
We developed the first-ever bathymetric module for the NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline (ASP) open-source topographic software called Satellite Triangulated Sea Depth, or SaTSeaD, to derive nearshore bathymetry from stereo imagery. Correct bathymetry measurements depend on water surface elevation, and whereas previous methods considered the water surface horizontal, our bathymetric...
Functional gene composition and metabolic potential of deep-sea coral-associated microbial communities
Zoe A. Pratte, Frank J. Stewart, Christina A. Kellogg
2023, Coral Reefs (42) 1011-1023
Over the past decade, an abundance of 16S rRNA gene surveys have provided microbiologists with data regarding the prokaryotes present in a coral-associated microbial community. Functional gene studies that provide information regarding what those microbes might do are fewer, particularly for non-tropical corals. Using the GeoChip...
Assessment of continuous oil and gas resources in the Upper Jurassic Smackover Formation of the onshore U.S. Gulf Coast, 2022
Katherine J. Whidden, Justin E. Birdwell, Rand Gardner, Scott A. Kinney, Stanley T. Paxton, Janet K. Pitman, Christopher J. Schenk
2023, Fact Sheet 2023-3021
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean continuous resources of 0.8 billion barrels of oil and 16 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Upper Jurassic Smackover Formation of the onshore U.S. Gulf Coast region....
Bighorn sheep associations: Understanding tradeoffs of sociality and implications for disease transmission
Marie Tosa, Mark Biel, Tabitha A. Graves
2023, PeerJ (11)
Sociality directly influences mating success, survival rates, and disease, but ultimately likely evolved for its fitness benefits in a challenging environment. The tradeoffs between the costs and benefits of sociality can operate at multiple scales, resulting in different interpretations of animal behavior. We investigated the influence of intrinsic (e.g., relatedness,...
The blue carbon reservoirs from Maine to Long Island, NY
Philip D. Colarusso, Zamir Libohova, Emily Shumchenia, Meagan J. Eagle, Megan Christian, Robert Vincent, Beverly Johnson
2023, Report
In response to the New England Governor and Eastern Canadian Premier 2017 Climate Change Action Plan recommendation to “manage blue carbon resources to preserve and enhance their existing carbon reservoirs,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) convened a New England Blue Carbon Inventory Workgroup, comprised of a variety of federal,...
Evolutionary fire ecology: An historical account and future directions
Juli G. Pausas, Jon Keeley
2023, BioScience
The idea that fire acts as an evolutionary force contributing to shaping species traits started a century ago, but had not been widely recognized until very recently. Among the first to realize this force were Edward B. Poulton, R. Dale Guthrie, and Edwin V. Komarek in animals and Willis L. Jepson, Walter W. Hough, Tom M. Harris, Philip V. Wells, and Robert W. Mutch...
Fuel treatments in shrublands experiencing pinyon and juniper expansion result in trade-offs between desired vegetation and increased fire behavior
Claire L. Williams, Lisa M. Ellsworth, Eva Strand, Matt C. Reeves, Scott Shaff, Karen Short, Jeanne C. Chambers, Beth Newingham, Claire Tortorelli
2023, Fire Ecology (19)
BackgroundNative pinyon (Pinus spp.) and juniper (Juniperus spp.) trees are expanding into shrubland communities across the Western United States. These trees often outcompete with native sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) associated species, resulting in increased canopy fuels and reduced surface fuels. Woodland expansion often results in longer fire return intervals with potential for...
Salinization and sedimentation drive contrasting assembly mechanisms of planktonic and sediment-bound bacterial communities in agricultural streams
Stephen E. DeVilbiss, Jason M. Taylor, Matthew B. Hicks
2023, Global Change Biology (29) 5615-5633
Agriculture is the most dominant land use globally and is projected to increase in the future to support a growing human population but also threatens ecosystem structure and services. Bacteria mediate numerous biogeochemical pathways within ecosystems. Therefore, identifying linkages between stressors associated with agricultural land use and responses of bacterial...
Why are larger fish farther upstream? Testing multiple hypotheses using Silver Chub in two Midwestern United States riverscapes
Joshuah S. Perkin, Patrick M. Kocovsky, Zachary D Steffensmeier, Keith B. Gido
2023, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (43) 1225-1245
ObjectiveThree competing hypotheses might explain the widely documented intrapopulation larger-fish-upstream phenomenon. The age-phased recruitment hypothesis posits that fish spawn downstream and move upstream as they age and grow, the static population with growth and mortality gradients hypothesis posits that fish spawn throughout a riverscape and growth is...
A spatially explicit modeling framework to guide management of subsidized avian predator densities
Shawn T. O’Neil, Peter S. Coates, Sarah C. Webster, Brianne E. Brussee, Seth J. Dettenmaier, John C. Tull, Pat J. Jackson, Michael L. Casazza, Shawn P. Espinosa
2023, Ecosphere (14)
Anthropogenic resource subsidization across western ecosystems has contributed to widespread increases in generalist avian predators, including common ravens (Corvus corax; hereafter, raven). Ravens are adept nest predators and can negatively impact species of conservation concern. Predation effects from ravens are especially concerning for greater...
