Bluegill population demographics as related to abiotic and biotic factors in Florida lakes
Andrew Kenneth Carlson, Mark V. Hoyer
2023, Fishes (8)
Research on Bluegills, Lepomis macrochirus R., is abundant but typically focuses on water bodies with similar environmental conditions. We assessed Bluegill density, relative abundance (catch per unit effort [CPUE] by electrofishing), growth, and size structure in 60 lakes with wide-ranging surface areas (2–12,412 ha), trophic states (oligotrophic–hypereutrophic), and macrophyte abundances (0.3–100...
An evaluation of multistate occupancy models for estimating relative abundance and population trends
Valerie A. Steen, Adam Duarte, James Peterson
2023, Ecological Modelling (478)
Detecting spatiotemporal changes in the abundances of organisms is key to effectively conserving species. While indices of abundance have long been used, there has been a shift toward model-based estimators that account for the detection process. Popular approaches including traditional occupancy models and N-mixture models entail tradeoffs. The traditional occupancy...
Support for the fasting endurance hypothesis of partial migration in a nearshore seabird
Bradley P. Wilkinson, Patrick G.R. Jodice
2023, Ecosphere (14)
Partial migration occurs when only a fraction of a population migrates instead of all individuals. Considered an evolutionary precursor to full migration, understanding why some individuals choose to undertake migration while others do not may serve to inform general migratory theory. While several hypotheses currently exist for explaining the maintenance...
Anthropogenic subsidies influence resource use during a mange epizootic in a desert coyote population
Craig D. Reddell, Gary W. Roemer, David K. Delaney, Talesha Karish, James W. Cain III
2023, Oecologia (201) 435-447
Colonization of urban areas by synanthropic wildlife introduces novel and complex alterations to established ecological processes, including the emergence and spread of infectious diseases. Aggregation at urban resources can increase disease transfer, with wide-ranging species potentially infecting outlying populations. The garrison at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California, USA,...
A review of common natural disasters as analogs for asteroid impact effects and cascading hazards
Timothy N. Titus, D. G. Robertson, Joel B. Sankey, Larry G. Mastin, Francis K. Rengers
2023, Natural Hazards (116) 1355-1402
Modern civilization has no collective experience with possible wide-ranging effects from a medium-sized asteroid impactor. Currently, modeling efforts that predict initial effects from a meteor impact or airburst provide needed information for initial preparation and evacuation plans, but longer-term cascading hazards are not typically considered. However, more common natural disasters,...
From bottom-up to top-down control of invertebrate herbivores in a retrogressive chronosequence
Anne Kempel, Eric Allan, Martin M. Gossner, Malte Jochum, James Grace, David A. Wardle
2023, Ecology Letters (26) 411-424
In the long-term absence of disturbance, ecosystems often enter a decline or retrogressive phase which leads to reductions in primary productivity, plant biomass, nutrient cycling and foliar quality. However, the consequences of ecosystem retrogression for higher trophic levels such as herbivores and predators, are less clear. Using a post-fire forested...
Six years of fluvial response to a large dam removal on the Carmel River, California, USA
Amy E. East, Lee R. Harrison, Douglas P. Smith, Joshua B. Logan, Rosealea Bond
2023, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (48) 1487-1501
Measuring river response to dam removal affords a rare, important opportunity to study fluvial response to sediment pulses on a large field scale. We present a before–after/control–impact study of the Carmel River, California, measuring fluvial geomorphic and grain-size evolution over 8 years, six of which postdated removal of a 32 m-high...
Increasing Alaskan river discharge during the cold season is driven by recent warming
D Blaskey, Joshua C. Koch, M. Gooseff, A. C. Newman, Yang Cheng, Jonathan A. O’Donnell, K Musselman
2023, Environmental Research Letters (18)
Arctic hydrology is experiencing rapid changes including earlier snow melt, permafrost degradation, increasing active layer depth, and reduced river ice, all of which are expected to lead to changes in stream flow regimes. Recently, long-term (>60 years) climate reanalysis and river discharge observation data have become available....
Upwelling, climate change, and the shifting geography of coral reef development
Victor Rodriguez-Ruano, Lauren Toth, Ian C. Enochs, Carly J. Randall, Richard B. Aronson
2023, Scientific Reports (13)
The eastern tropical Pacific is oceanographically unfavorable for coral-reef development. Nevertheless, reefs have persisted there for the last 7000 years. Rates of vertical accretion during the Holocene have been similar in the strong-upwelling Gulf of Panamá (GoP) and the adjacent, weak-upwelling Gulf of Chiriquí (GoC); however, seasonal...
Detection and monitoring of small-scale diamond and gold mining dredges using synthetic aperture radar on the Kadéï (Sangha) River, Central African Republic
Marissa Ann Alessi, Peter G. Chirico, Sindhuja Sunder, Kelsey L. O’Pry
2023, Remote Sensing (15)
Diamond and gold mining has been practiced by artisanal miners in the Central African Republic (CAR) for decades. The recent introduction of riverine dredges indicates a transition from artisanal/manual digging and sorting techniques to small-scale mining methods. This study implements a remote sensing analysis of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)...
Stabilising effects of karstic groundwater on stream fish communities
Nathaniel P. Hitt, Karli M. Rogers, Karmann G. Kessler, Martin A. Briggs, Jennifer H. Fair
2023, Ecology of Freshwater Fish (32) 538-551
Although groundwater exchange processes are known to modulate atmospheric influences on stream temperature and flow, the implications for ecological stability are poorly understood. Here, we evaluated temporal change in stream fish communities across a gradient of groundwater influence defined by karst terrain (carbonate parent materials) within...
Sierra Nevada amphibians demonstrate stable occupancy despite precipitation volatility in the early 21st Century
Brian J. Halstead, Patrick M. Kleeman, Jonathan P. Rose, Gary M. Fellers
2023, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (10)
Climate can have a strong influence on species distributions, and amphibians with different life histories might be affected by annual variability in precipitation in different ways. The Sierra Nevada of California, United States, experienced some of the driest and wettest years on record in the early 21st Century, with...
When less is more: How increasing the complexity of machine learning strategies for geothermal energy assessments may not lead toward better estimates
Stanley Paul Mordensky, John Lipor, Jacob DeAngelo, Erick R. Burns, Cary Ruth Lindsey
2023, Geothermics (110)
Previous moderate- and high-temperature geothermal resource assessments of the western United States utilized data-driven methods and expert decisions to estimate resource favorability. Although expert decisions can add confidence to the modeling process by ensuring reasonable models are employed, expert decisions also introduce human and, thereby, model bias. This bias...
Regolith of the crater floor units, Jezero crater, Mars: Textures, composition and implications for provenance
Alicia Vaughan, Michelle E. Minitti, Emily L. Cardarelli, Jeffrey R. Johnson, Linda C. Kah, Paolo Pilleri, Mellisa S. Rice, Mark Sephton, Briony H. N. Horgan, Roger C. Wiens, R. Aileen Yingst, Maria-Paz Zorzano Mier, Ryan B. Anderson, James F. III Bell, Adrian J. Brown, Edward A. Cloutis, Agnes Cousin, Kenneth E. Herkenhoff, Elisabeth M. Housrath, Alexander G. Hayes, Kjartan M. Kinch, Marco Merusi, Chase C. Million, Robert Sullivan, Sandra M. Siljestrom, Michael St. Clair
2023, JGR-Planets (128)
A multi-instrument study of the regolith of Jezero crater floor units by the Perseverance rover has identified three types of regolith: fine-grained, coarse-grained, and mixed-type. Mastcam-Z, WATSON, and SuperCam RMI were used to characterize regolith texture, particle size, and roundedness where possible. Mastcam-Z multispectral and SuperCam LIBS...
Groundwater quality near the Montebello Oil Field, Los Angeles County, California
Jennifer S. Stanton, Michael Land, Matthew K. Landon, David H. Shimabukuro, Peter B. McMahon, Tracy A. Davis, Andrew G. Hunt, Theron A. Sowers
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5128
Groundwater quality and potential sources and migration pathways of chemical constituents associated with hydrocarbon-bearing formations were assessed by the U.S. Geological Survey for the California State Water Resources Control Board Oil and Gas Regional Monitoring Program (RMP). Groundwater samples were collected as part of the RMP from 21 preexisting wells...
Predicting habitat and distribution of an interior highlands regional endemic winter stonefly (Allocapnia mohri) in Arkansas using random forest models
Brianna Annaratone, Camryn Larson, Clay Prater, Ashley Dowling, Daniel D. Magoulick, Michelle A. Evans-White
2023, Hydrobiology (2) 196-211
Stoneflies are a globally threatened aquatic insect order. In Arkansas, a diverse group of winter stonefly (Capniidae: Allocapnia) have not been surveyed since the 1980s, likely because species-level identification requires the rarely-collected adult form. Allocapnia mohri, a regional endemic, was previously commonly found in mountainous, intermittent streams from the Ouachita...
Evaluating the institutional and ecological effects of invasive species prevention policy: A case study from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Claire E. Couch, James Peterson, Paul Heimowitz
2023, Management of Biological Invasions (14) 269-288
Wildlife and natural resource institutions play key roles in invasive species monitoring and management. Paradoxically, the extensive fieldwork undertaken by these institutions and their partners may result in the inadvertent movement and spread of invasive species within and between sensitive ecosystems. In this work, we consider the potential effects of...
Ice and ocean constraints on early human migrations into North America along the Pacific Coast
Summer K. Praetorius, Jay R. Alder, Alan Condron, Alan Mix, Maureen Walczak, Beth Elaine Caissie, Jon Erlandson
2023, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (120)
Founding populations of the first Americans likely occupied parts of Beringia during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The timing, pathways, and modes of their southward transit remain unknown, but blockage of the interior route by North American ice sheets between ~26 and 14 cal kyr BP (ka) favors a coastal...
Do nurse plant effects strengthen over time? Results from 12 years of desert habitat restoration
Scott R. Abella, Lindsay P. Chiquoine, Mary A. Balogh, Adam J. Taylor, Seth M. Munson
2023, Plant Ecology (224) 299-314
Nurse plant effects occur when benefactor perennials facilitate beneficiary plants below their canopies. Two poorly understood aspects of nurse plant ecology include whether facilitation strengthens as nurse plants mature and whether reestablishing perennials through ecological restoration at disturbed sites can trigger facilitation akin to in natural...
Integrating urban water fluxes and moving beyond impervious surface cover: A review
Claire Oswald, Christa Kelleher, Sarah Ledford, Kristina G. Hopkins, Anneliese Sytsma, Doerthe Tetzlaff, Laura Toran, Carolyn Voter
2023, Journal of Hydrology (618)
Though urban areas represent a small fraction of global land cover, they have an outsized impact on hydrological processes. Within these areas, the pathways that water follows are fundamentally transformed by the disturbance of soils, land cover, vegetation, topography, and built infrastructure. While progress has...
Dynamics of the wave-driven circulation in the lee of nearshore reefs
Renan F. da Silva, Jeff Hansen, Ryan Lowe, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, Mark L. Buckley
2023, JGR-Oceans (128)
Nearshore rocky reefs with scales of order 10–100 m are common along the world's coastline and often shape wave-driven hydrodynamics and shoreline morphology in their lee. The interaction of waves with these reefs generally results in either two or four-cell mean circulation systems (2CC and 4CC, respectively), with...
Hawai‘i residents’ perceptions of Kīlauea’s 2018 eruption information
Robert T. Goldman, Wendy K. Stovall, David Damby, Sara K. McBride
2023, Volcanica (6) 19-43
The 2018 eruption of Kīlauea Volcano was notable for its variety of large and spatially distinct hazards, simultaneously affecting three geographically disparate, culturally diverse regions in Hawaiʻi. We conducted a pilot study, consisting of 18 semi-structured interviews, two survey responses, and several informal conversations with Hawaiʻi residents...
Birth rates and neonate survival in a parasite rich moose population in Vermont, USA
Jacob DeBow, Joshua Blouin, Elias Rosenblatt, Cedric Alexander, Nicholas Fortin, Katherina Gieder, James Murdoch, Therese M. Donovan
2023, Alces (58) 51-73
Moose (Alces alces) populations are declining across much of their southern geographic range in North America. In Vermont and other northeastern states, measurable declines are attributed to low calf survival and reduced productivity associated with persistent winter tick (Dermacentor albipictus) parasitism. In 2017–2020, we studied 75 radio-collared female moose (38...
Oral Sampling of little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) maternity colonies for SARS-CoV-2 in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, USA
Megan L. Moran, William Boyd, Jesse L. De La Cruz, Andrea S. Bertke, W. Mark Ford
2023, Animals (13)
The potential introduction of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, into North American bat populations is of interest to wildlife managers due to recent disease-mediated declines of several species. Populations of little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) have collapsed due to white-nose syndrome (WNS), a disease caused by...
Dating individual zones in phenocrysts from the 2016–2017 eruption of Bogoslof volcano provides constraints on timescales of magmatic processes
Jamshid Moshrefzadeh, Pavel Izbekof, Matthew W. Loewen, Jessica Larsen, Sean P. Regan
2023, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (435)
We investigate the rates of magmatic processes using clinopyroxene diffusion chronometry on volcanic products erupted in August 2017 at the end of the 9-month eruption of Bogoslof volcano. The eruptive products contain plagioclase, clinopyroxene, and amphibole, all of which exhibit sharp chemical boundaries...
