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Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal disease of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) caused by transmissible protease-resistant prions. Since the discovery of CWD in southern Wisconsin in 2001, more than 20,000 deer have been removed from a >2,500-km2 disease eradication zone surrounding the three initial cases. Nearly all deer removed...

Low and high water periods create contrasting challenges for trees inhabiting periodically flooded wetlands. Low to moderate flood durations and frequencies may bring nutrient subsidies, while greater hydroperiods can be energetically stressful because of oxygen deficiency. We tested the hypothesis that hydroperiod affects the growth of mangrove seedlings and saplings...

Biogeochemistry is at the dawn of an era in which molecular advances enable the discovery of novel microorganisms having unforeseen metabolic capabilities, revealing new insight into the underlying processes regulating elemental cycles at local to global scales. Traditionally, biogeochemical inquiry began by studying a process of interest, and then focusing...

The Bald Friar Metabasalt (BFM) and Kennett Square Amphibolite (KSA) are basaltic units found in the Piedmont of southeastern Pennsylvania. The BFM is also recognized in northern Maryland. Both are believed to represent fragments of the floor of the Iapetus Ocean, but are not known occur in direct association with...

Fresh floodplain deposits (FD), from 11 key stations, covering the Seine mainstem and its major tributaries (Yonne, Marne and Oise Rivers), were sampled from 1994 to 2000. Background levels for Cd, Cu, Hg, Pb, and Zn were established using prehistoric FD and actual bed sediments collected in small forested sub-basins...

In recent decades, earlier and more frequent harvests of agricultural grasslands have been implicated as a major cause of population declines in grassland songbirds. From 2002 to 2005, in the Champlain Valley of Vermont and New York, USA, we studied the reproductive success of Savannah Sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis) and Bobolinks...

Prior research on manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) survival in northwest Florida, based on mark-resighting photo-identification data from 1982-1998, showed that annual adult apparent survival rate was significantly lower during years with extreme storms. Mechanisms that we proposed could have led to lower estimates included stranding, injury from debris, being fatally...

We compared soil-surface penetration resistance and abundance of ant mounds at 12 western Great Basin sites (composed of 19 plots) either grazed by feral horses (Equus caballus) or having had horses removed for the last 10–14 years. Across this broad spatial domain (3.03 million ha), we minimized confounding due to abiotic...

Hydrous-pyrolysis experiments were conducted on an organic-rich Devonian-Mississippian shale, which was also leached by dilute HCl before and after pyrolysis, to identify and quantify the induced chemical and isotopic changes in the rock. The experiments significantly affect the organic-mineral organization, which plays an important role in natural interactions during diagenetic...

The distributions of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), Ba, U, and a suite of naturally occurring radionuclides in the U/Th decay series (222Rn, 223,224,226,228Ra) were studied during high- and low-discharge conditions in the Loxahatchee River estuary, Florida to examine the role of submarine groundwater discharge in estuarine transport. The fresh water...

Aim of this study was to determine effects of heavy metals on litter consumption by the earthworm Lumbricus rubellus in National Park the "Brabantsche Biesbosch", the Netherlands. Adult L. rubellus were collected from 12 polluted and from one unpolluted field site. Earthworms collected at the unpolluted site were kept in...

We investigated the relative roles of bottom-up and top-down factors in limiting productivity of an upper trophic level marine predator. Our primary working hypothesis was that the reproductive success of black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) a piscivorous, colonial-nesting seabird, was most limited by the abundance, distribution, and species composition of surface-schooling...

Primers for 16 microsatellite loci were developed for the trumpeter swan (Cygnus buccinator), a species recovering from a recent population bottleneck. In a screen of 158 individuals, the 16 loci were found to have levels of variability ranging from two to seven alleles. No loci were found to be linked,...

Knowledge of individual growth and mortality rates of an introduced fish population is required to determine the success and degree of establishment as well as to predict the fish's impact on native fauna. The age and growth of flathead catfish Pylodictis olivaris have been studied extensively in the species' native...

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A submersible sonde equipped with a specific conductivity probe, linked with a global positioning satellite receiver was developed, deployed on a small boat, and used to map spatial and temporal variations in specific conductivity in a large reservoir. 7,695 sample points were recorded during 8 sampling trips. Specific conductivity ranged...

A solar effect on streamflow in the Midwestern United States is described and supported in a six-step physical connection between total solar irradiance (TSI), tropical sea-surface temperatures (SSTs), extratropical SSTs, jet-stream vorticity, surface-layer vorticity, precipitation, and streamflow. Variations in the correlations among the individual steps indicate that the solar/hydroclimatic mechanism...

A scheme to generate pseudo-2D shear-velocity sections with high horizontal resolution and low field cost by inversion of high frequency surface waves is presented. It contains six steps. The key step is the joint method of crossed correlation and phase shift scanning. This joint method chooses only two traces to...

Evapotranspiration rates and the ground water component of evapotranspiration at a site in Colorado's San Luis Valley that is dominated by shrubby phreatophytes (greasewood and rabbitbrush) were compared before and after a water table drawdown. Evapotranspiration (ET) rates at the site were first measured in 1985-1987 (pre-drawdown) when the mean...

We used satellite telemetry, remotely sensed data (bathymetry, chlorophyll a (chl a), sea-surface temperature (SST), wind speed) and first-passage time (FPT) analysis to determine the distribution, movement patterns, and habitat associations of short-tailed albatrosses (Phoebastria albatrus) during the non-breeding season, 2002 and 2003. Satellite transmitters were deployed on birds immediately...

Food availability comprises a complex interaction of factors that integrates abundance, taxonomic composition, accessibility, and quality of the prey base. The relationship between food availability and reproductive performance can be assessed via the nutritional stress (NSH) and junk-food (JFH) hypotheses. With respect to reproductive success, NSH posits that a deficiency...

The Illinois Basin has not been developed for Coalbed Methane (CBM) production. It is imperative to determine both gas content and other parameters for the Kentucky portion of the Illinois Basin if exploration is to progress and production is to occur in this area. This research is part of a...

Lesser scaup (Aythya affinis) populations have been declining since the late 1970s. One of the explanations to account for this decline, the spring-condition hypothesis (SCH), is based on the premise that scaup are limited by their ability to acquire or maintain nutrient reserves during migration to the breeding grounds, leading...

Semipermeable membrane devices (SPMDs) were deployed at eight sites within the Buffalo Slough, near Portland, Oregon, to (1) measure the spatial and seasonal distribution of dissolved polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and organochlorine (OC) compounds in the slough, (2) assess the usefulness of SPMDs as a tool for investigating and monitoring...