Understanding the impacts of surface-groundwater conditions on stream fishes under altered baseflow conditions
Shannon K. Brewer, G. Fox, Y. Zhou, J. Alexander
2020, Cooperator Science Series CSS-136-2020
Persistence of aquatic fauna depends on the conditions and connectivity of surface water and groundwater. In light of altered baseflows and both current and future predicted increases in stream temperatures, it is important to assess current thermal conditions, examine thermal responses of aquatic fauna, and evaluate water-management practices. Our study...
Using advanced population genomics to better understand the relationship between offshore and spawning habitat use for Atlantic Sturgeon
David C. Kazyak, Aaron W. Aunins, Robin L. Johnson, Barbara A. Lubinski, Michael S. Eackles, Tim L. King
2020, OCS Study 2020-062
Atlantic Sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus) are a large-bodied anadromous fish that historically supported important fisheries along the east coast of the United States. Following years of overharvest and habitat degradation, populations experienced severe declines. In 2012, the National Marine Fisheries Service listed Atlantic Sturgeon under the Endangered Species Act (ESA;...
Patterns and drivers of atmospheric river precipitation and hydrologic impacts across the western United States
Christine M. Albano, Michael D. Dettinger, Adrian Harpold
2020, Journal of Hydrometeorology (21) 143-159
Atmospheric rivers (ARs) significantly influence precipitation and hydrologic variability in many areas of the world, including the western United States. As ARs are increasingly recognized by the research community and the public, there is a need to more precisely quantify and communicate their hydrologic impacts, which can vary from hazardous...
Temporospatial shifts in Sandhill Crane staging in the Central Platte River Valley in response to climatic variation and habitat change
Andrew J. Caven, Emma M. Brinley Buckley, Kelsey C King, Joshua D Wiese, David M. Baasch, Greg D. Wright, Mary J. Harner, Aaron T. Pearse, Matt Rabbe, Dana Varner, Brice Krohn, Nicole Arcilla, Kirk D Schroeder, Kenneth F Dinan
2020, Monographs of the Western North American Naturalist (11) 33-76
Over 80% of the Mid-Continent Sandhill Crane (Antigone canadensis) Population (MCP), estimated at over 660,000 individuals, stops in the Central Platte River Valley (CPRV) during spring migration from mid-February through mid-April. Research suggests that the MCP may be shifting its distribution spatially and temporally within the CPRV. From 2002 to...
Event and decadal-scale modeling of barrier island restoration designs for decision support
Joseph W. Long, P. Soupy Dalyander, Michael Poff, Brian Spears, Brett Borne, David M. Thompson, Rangley C. Mickey, Steve Dartez, Gregory Gandy
2020, Shore & Beach (88) 49-57
An interdisciplinary project team was convened to develop a modeling framework that simulates the potential impacts of storms and sea level-rise to habitat availability at Breton Island, Louisiana (Breton) for existing conditions and potential future restoration designs. The model framework was iteratively developed through evaluation of model results at multiple...
Assessment of leachable elements in volcanic ashfall: A review and evaluation of a standardized protocol for ash hazard characterization
Carol Stewart, David Damby, Ines Tomasek, Claire J. Horwell, Geoffrey S. Plumlee, Maria Aurora Armienta, Maria Gabriela Ruiz Hinojosa, Moya Appleby, Pierre Delmelle, Shane Cronin, Christopher J Ottley, Clive Oppenheimer, Suzette A. Morman
2020, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (392)
Volcanic ash presents a widespread and common hazard during and after eruptions. Complex interactions between solid ash surfaces and volcanic gases lead to the formation of soluble salts that may be mobilized in aqueous environments. A variety of stakeholders may be concerned about the effects of ash on human and...
Increasing accuracy of lake nutrient predictions in thousands of lakes by leveraging water clarity data
Tyler Wagner, oa Lottig Noah R. Lottig, Meridith L. Bartley, Ephraim M. Hanks, Erin M. Schliep, Nathan B. Wikle, Katelyn B. S. King, Ian McCullough, Jemma Stachelek, Kendra S. Cheruvelil, Christopher T. Filstrup, Jean-Francois Lapierre, Boyang Liu, Patricia Sorrano, Pang-Ning Tan, Q. Wang, Katherine Webster, Jiayu Zhou
2020, Limnology and Oceanography Letters (5) 228-235
Aquatic scientists require robust, accurate information about nutrient concentrations and indicators of algal biomass in unsampled lakes in order to understand and predict the effects of global climate and land-use change. Historically, lake and landscape characteristics have been used as predictor variables in regression models to generate nutrient predictions, but...
Metal bioavailability models: Current status, lessons learned, considerations for regulatory use, and the path forward
Christopher A. Mebane, M. Jasim Chowdhury, Karel A.C. De Schamphelaere, Stephen Lofts, Paul R. Paquin, Robert C. Santore, Chris M. Wood
2020, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (39) 60-84
Since the early 2000s, biotic ligand models and related constructs have been a dominant paradigm for risk assessment of aqueous metals in the environment. We critically review 1) the evidence for the mechanistic approach underlying metal bioavailability models; 2) considerations for the use and refinement of bioavailability-based toxicity models; 3)...
Microbial source tracking (MST) in Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area: Seasonal and precipitation trends in MST marker concentrations, and associations with E. coli levels, pathogenic marker presence, and land use
Anna M. McKee, Marirosa Molina, Mike Cyterski, Ann Couch
2020, Water Research (171)
Escherichia coli levels in recreational waters are often used to predict when fecal-associated pathogen levels are a human health risk. The reach of the Chattahoochee River that flows through the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area (CRNRA), located in the Atlanta-metropolitan area, is a popular recreation area that frequently exceeds the U.S....
Spatial sampling bias and model complexity in stream-based species distribution models: A case study of Paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) in the Arkansas River basin, USA
A. T. Taylor, T. Hafen, Colt Taylor Holley, A. Gonzalez, James M. Long
2020, Ecology & Evolution (10) 705-717
Leveraging existing presence records and geospatial datasets, species distribution modeling has been widely applied to informing species conservation and restoration efforts. Maxent is one of the most popular modeling algorithms, yet recent research has demonstrated Maxent models are vulnerable to prediction errors related to spatial sampling bias and model complexity....
Assessing the water quality impacts of two Category-5 hurricanes on St. Thomas, Virgin Islands
Sunny Jiang, Muyue Han, Srikiran Chandrasekaran, Yingcong Fang, Christina A. Kellogg
2020, Water Research (171)
Managing waterborne and water-related diseases is one of the most critical factors in the aftermath of hurricane-induced natural disasters. The goal of the study was to identify water-quality impairments in order to set the priorities for post-hurricane relief and to guide future decisions on disaster preparation and relief administration. Field...
Effect of an environmental flow on vegetation growth and health using ground and remote sensing metrics
Martha M. Gomez-Sapiens, Christopher Jarchow, Karl W. Flessa, Patrick B. Shafroth, Edward P. Glenn, Pamela L. Nagler
2020, Hydrological Processes (34) 1682-1696
Understanding the effectiveness of environmental flow deliveries along rivers requires monitoring vegetation. Monitoring data are often collected at multiple spatial scales. For riparian vegetation, optical remote sensing methods can estimate growth responses at the riparian corridor scale, and field‐based measures can quantify species composition; however, the extent to which these...
Algal toxins in Alaskan seabirds: Evaluating the role of saxitoxin and domoic acid in a large-scale die-off of Common Murres
Caroline R. Van Hemert, Sarah K. Schoen, R. Wayne Litaker, Matthew M. Smith, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, John F. Piatt, William C. Holland, Ransom Hardison, John M. Pearce
2020, Harmful Algae (92)
Elevated seawater temperatures are linked to the development of harmful algal blooms (HABs), which pose a growing threat to marine birds and other wildlife. During late 2015 and early 2016, a massive die-off of Common Murres (Uria algae; hereafter, murres) was observed in the Gulf of Alaska coincident with a...
Environmental tracer evidence for connection between shallow and bedrock aquifers and high intrinsic susceptibility to contamination of the conterminous U.S. glacial aquifer
John E. Solder, Bryant C. Jurgens, Paul E. Stackelberg, Christopher L. Shope
2020, Journal of Hydrology (583)
Covering a large portion of the northern conterminous United States (1.87 x 106 km2), the glacial aquifer serves as the primary water supply for 39 million public and domestic water users. Mean groundwater age, groundwater age distribution, and susceptibility to land surface contamination, using a new metric (Susceptibility Index; SI)...
An experimental evaluation of the feasibility of inferring concentrations of a visible tracer dye from remotely sensed data in turbid rivers
Carl J. Legleiter, Paul Manley, Susannah O. Erwin, Edward A. Bulliner
2020, Remote Sensing (12)
The movement of contaminants and biota within river channels is influenced by the flow field via various processes of dispersion. Understanding and modeling of these processes thus can facilitate applications ranging from the prediction of travel times for spills of toxic materials to the simulation of larval drift for...
A hydrologic landscapes perspective on groundwater connectivity of depressional wetlands
Brian P. Neff, Donald O. Rosenberry, Scott G. Leibowitz, David M. Mushet, Heather E. Golden, Mark C. Rains, Renee Brooks, Charles R. Lane
2020, Water (12)
Research into processes governing the hydrologic connectivity of depressional wetlands has advanced rapidly in recent years. Nevertheless, a need persists for broadly applicable, non-site-specific guidance to facilitate further research. Here, we explicitly use the hydrologic landscapes theoretical framework to develop broadly applicable conceptual knowledge of depressional-wetland hydrologic...
Invertebrate communities of Prairie-Pothole wetlands in the age of the aquatic Homogenocene
Kyle McLean, David M. Mushet, Jon N. Sweetman, Michael J. Anteau, Mark T. Wiltermuth
2020, Hydrobiologia (847) 3773-3793
Simplification of communities is a common consequence of anthropogenic modification. However, the prevalence and mechanisms of biotic homogenization among wetland systems require further examination. Biota of wetlands in the North American Prairie Pothole Region are adapted to high spatial and temporal variability in ponded-water duration and salinity. Recent climate change,...
Alternative stable states in inherently unstable systems
David M. Mushet, Owen P. McKenna, Kyle McLean
2020, Ecology and Evolution (10) 843-850
Alternative stable states are nontransitory states within which communities can exist. However, even highly dynamic communities can be viewed within the framework of stable‐state theory if an appropriate “ecologically relevant” time scale is identified. The ecologically relevant time scale for dynamic systems needs to conform to the amount of time...
The method controls the story - Sampling method impacts on the detection of pore-water nitrogen concentrations in streambeds
Sophie Comer-Warner, Julia LA Knapp, Phillip J Blaen, Megan Klaar, Felicity Shelley, Jay P. Zarnetske, Joseph Lee-Cullen, Silvia Folegot, Marie Kurz, Jorg Lewandowski, Judson Harvey, Adam Ward, Clara Mendoza-Lera, Sami Ullah, Thibault Datry, Nicholas Kettridge, Daren Gooddy, Jennifer Drummond, Eugenia Marti, Alexander Milner, David Hannah, Stefan Krause
2020, Science of the Total Environment (709)
Biogeochemical gradients in streambeds are steep and can vary over short distances often making adequate characterisation of sediment biogeochemical processes challenging. This paper provides an overview and comparison of streambed pore-water sampling methods, highlighting their capacity to address gaps in our understanding of streambed biogeochemical processes. This work reviews...
Arsenic-related oxidative stress in experimentally dosed wild great tit nestlings
Pablo Sanchez-Virosta, Silvia Espin, Sandra Ruiz, Bineet Panda, Petteri Ilmonen, Sandra L. Schultz, Natalie Karouna-Renier, Antonio J. Garcia-Fernandez, Tapio Eeva
2020, Environmental Pollution (259)
Arsenic (As) is broadly distributed due to natural and anthropogenic sources, and it may cause adverse effects in birds. However, research on other elements (Pb, Hg and Cd) has been prioritized, resulting in scarce data on As exposure and related effects in wild birds. One of the mechanisms responsible for...
Time scales of arsenic variability and the role of high-frequency monitoring at three water-supply wells in New Hampshire, USA
James R. Degnan, Joseph P. Levitt, Melinda L. Erickson, Bryant C. Jurgens, Bruce D. Lindsey, Joseph D. Ayotte
2020, Science of the Total Environment (709)
Groundwater geochemistry, redox process classification, high-frequency physicochemical and hydrologic measurements, and climate data were analyzed to identify controls on arsenic (As) concentration changes. Groundwater was monitored in two public-supply wells (one glacial aquifer and one bedrock aquifer), and one bedrock-aquifer domestic well in New...
The assessment and remediation of mercury contaminated sites: A review of current approaches
Chris S. Eckley, Cynthia C Gilmour, Sarah E. Janssen, Todd P Luxton, Paul M Randall, Lindsay Whalin, Carrie Austin
2020, Science of the Total Environment (707)
Remediation of mercury (Hg) contaminated sites has long relied on traditional approaches, such as removal and containment/capping. Here we review contemporary practices in the assessment and remediation of industrial-scale Hg contaminated sites and discuss recent advances. Significant improvements have been made in site assessment, including the use of XRF to...
Seismo-acoustic evidence for vent drying during shallow submarine eruptions at Bogoslof volcano, Alaska
David Fee, John J. Lyons, Matthew M. Haney, Aaron Wech, Christopher F. Waythomas, Angela K. Diefenbach, Taryn Lopez, Alexa R. Van Eaton, David J. Schneider
2020, Bulletin of Volcanology Special Issue on the Bogoslof Eruption (82)
Characterizing the state of the volcanic vent is key for interpreting observational datasets and accurately assessing volcanic hazards. This is particularly true for remote, complex eruptions such as the 2016–2017 Bogoslof volcano, Alaska eruption sequence. Bogoslof’s eruptions in this period were either shallow submarine or subaerial, or some combination of...
Traveling to thermal refuges during stressful temperatures leads to foraging constraints in a central-place forager
Catherine G. Haase, Robert J. Fletcher Jr., Daniel H. Slone, James P. Reid, Susan M. Butler
2020, Journal of Mammalogy (101) 271-280
Central-place foragers can be constrained by the distance between habitats. When an organism relies on a central place for thermal refuge, the distance to food resources can potentially constrain foraging behavior. We investigated the effect of distance between thermal refuges and forage patches of the cold-intolerant marine mammal, the Florida...
Chronic and episodic acidification of streams along the Appalachian Trail corridor, eastern United States
Douglas A. Burns, Todd McDonnell, Karen C. Rice, Gregory B. Lawrence, Timothy Sullivan
2020, Hydrological Processes (34) 1498-1513
Acidic atmospheric deposition has adversely affected aquatic ecosystems globally. As emissions and deposition of sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) have declined in recent decades across North America and Europe, ecosystem recovery is evident in many surface waters. However, persistent chronic and episodic acidification remain important concerns in vulnerable regions. We...
