Using density surface models to estimate spatio-temporal changes in population densities and trend
Richard J. Camp, David L Miller, Len Thomas, Steve T. Buckland, Steve J. Kendall
2020, Ecography (43) 1079-1089
Precise measures of population abundance and trend are needed for species conservation; these are most difficult to obtain for rare and rapidly changing populations. We compare uncertainty in densities estimated from spatio–temporal models with that from standard design‐based methods. Spatio–temporal models allow us to target priority areas where, and at...
Management of remnant tallgrass prairie by grazing or fire: Effects on plant communities and soil properties
Diane L. Larson, Daniel L. Hernández, Jennifer L. Larson, Julia B. Leone, Nora P. Pennarola
2020, Ecosphere (11)
Tallgrass prairie is a disturbance‐dependent ecosystem that has suffered steep declines in the midwestern United States. The necessity of disturbance, typically fire or grazing, presents challenges to managers who must apply them on increasingly small and fragmented parcels. The goal of this study was to compare...
Characterization of peak streamflow and stages at selected streamgages in eastern and northeastern Oklahoma from the May to June 2019 flood event—With an emphasis on flood peaks downstream from dams and on tributaries to the Arkansas River
Jason M. Lewis, David J. Williams, Sarah J. Harris, A.R. Trevisan
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1090
As much as 22 inches of rain fell in Oklahoma in May 2019, resulting in historic flooding along the Arkansas River and its tributaries in eastern and northeastern Oklahoma. The flooding along the Arkansas River and its tributaries that began in May continued into June 2019. Peaks of record were...
Modelling marsh-forest boundary transgression in response to storms and sea-level rise
Joel A. Carr, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Matt L. Kirwan
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
The lateral extent and vertical stability of salt marshes experiencing rising sea levels depend on interacting drivers and feedbacks with potential for non‐linear behaviors. A two‐dimensional transect model was developed to examine changes in marsh and upland forest lateral extent and to explore controls on marsh inland transgression. Model behavior...
Geomorphic map of western Whatcom County, Washington
Dori J. Kovanen, Ralph A. Haugerud, Don J. Easterbrook
2020, Scientific Investigations Map 3406
Western Whatcom County has a rich history of glaciation, sea-level change, fluvial erosion and deposition, landsliding, nearby volcanic activity, and human landscape modification. This lidar-derived geomorphic map interprets this history from the form and position of the Earth’s surface.The geomorphic record is broken into nine phases, beginning with the peak...
Repurposing a hindcast simulation of the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane, south Florida
M. Dennis Krohn, Eric D. Swain, Catherine A. Langtimm, Jayantha Obeysekera
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1010
Hydrodynamic model hindcasts of the surface water and groundwater of the Everglades and the greater Miami, Florida, area were used to simulate hydrology using estimated storm surge height, wind field, and rainfall for the Great Miami Hurricane (GMH), which struck on September 18, 1926. Ranked estimates of losses from hurricanes...
Internal tides can provide thermal refugia that will buffer some coral reefs from future global warming
Curt D. Storlazzi, Olivia M. Cheriton, Ruben Van Hooidonk, Zhongxiang Zhao, Russell E. Brainard
2020, Scientific Reports (10)
Observations show ocean temperatures are rising due to climate change, resulting in a fivefold increase in the incidence of regional-scale coral bleaching events since the 1980s; analyses based on global climate models forecast bleaching will become an annual event for most of the world’s coral reefs within 30–50 yr. Internal...
The importance of the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico to foraging loggerhead sea turtles
Kristen M. Hart, Margaret M. Lamont, Autumn Iverson, Brian Smith
2020, Frontiers in Marine Science (7)
Identification of high-use foraging sites where imperiled sea turtles are resident remains a globally-recognized conservation priority. In the biodiverse Gulf of Mexico (GoM), recent telemetry studies highlighted post-nesting foraging sites for federally threatened loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta). Our aim here was to discern loggerhead use of additional northern GoM regions...
Ancient Martian aeolian sand dune deposits recorded in the stratigraphy of Valles Marineris and implications for past climates
Matthew Chojnacki, Lori K. Fenton, Aaron R Weintraub, Lauren A. Edgar, Mohini Jeetendra Jodhpurkar, Christopher S. Edwards
2020, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (125)
Aeolian sediment transport, deposition, and erosion have been ongoing throughout Mars's history. This record of widespread aeolian processes is preserved in landforms and geologic units that retain important clues about past environmental conditions including wind patterns. In this study we describe landforms within Melas Chasma, Valles Marineris, that occur in...
Ecosystem services of riparian restoration: A review of rock detention structures in the Madrean Archipelago Ecoregion
Laura M. Norman
2020, Air, Soil and Water Research (13)
In northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States, limited water supplies and fragile landscapes jeopardize world-renowned biological diversity. Simple rock detention structures have been used to manage agricultural water for over a thousand years and are now being installed to restore ecohydrological functionality but with little scientific evidence of their...
Data-driven, multi-model workflow suggests strong influence from hurricanes on the generation of turbidity currents in the Gulf of Mexico
Courtney K. Harris, Jaia Syvitski, H.G. Arango, E. H. Meiburg, Sagy Cohen, C.J. Jenkins, Justin J. Birchler, E. W. H. Hutton, T. A. Kniskern, S. Radhakrishnan, Guillermo Auad
2020, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (8)
Turbidity currents deliver sediment rapidly from the continental shelf to the slope and beyond; and can be triggered by processes such as shelf resuspension during oceanic storms; mass failure of slope deposits due to sediment- and wave-pressure loadings; and localized events that grow into sustained currents via self-amplifying ignition. Because...
A hybrid approach for predictive soil property mapping using conventional soil survey data
Travis W. Nauman, Michael C. Duniway
2020, Soil Science Society of America Journal (84) 170-1194
Soil property maps are important for land management and earth systems modeling. A new hybrid point-disaggregation predictive soil property mapping strategy improved mapping in the Colorado River Basin, and can be applied to other areas with similar data (e.g. conterminous United States). This new approach increased sample size ~6-fold over...
Evaluation of genetic structuring within GIS‐derived Brook Trout management units
Lucas Nathan, Y. Kanno, Benjamin Letcher, Amy B. Welsh, Andrew R. Whiteley, Jason C. Vokoun
2020, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (149) 681-694
Delineation of management units across broad spatial scales can help to visualize population structuring and identify conservation opportunities. Geographical information system (GIS) approaches can be useful for developing broad‐scale management units, especially when paired with field data that can validate the GIS‐based delineations. Genetic data can be useful for evaluating...
Dynamics of lake trout production in the main basin of Lake Huron
Ji X. He, James R. Bence, Charles P. Madenjian, Randall M. Claramunt
2020, ICES Journal of Marine Science (77) 975-987
To inform lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) fishery management in Lake Huron that has undergone rapid ecosystem changes, we quantified lake trout production dynamics by coupling age-structured stock assessment and fish bioenergetics models. Our approach revealed the connection between piscivore production and prey consumption, included growth compensation to reproduction losses,...
Generalized models to estimate carbon and nitrogen stocks of organic soil horizons in Interior Alaska
Kristen L. Manies, Mark Waldrop, Jennifer W. Harden
2020, Earth System Science Data (ESSD) (12) 1745-1757
Boreal ecosystems comprise one tenth of the world’s land surface and contain over 20 % of the global soil carbon (C) stocks. Boreal soils are unique in that its mineral soil is covered by what can be quite thick layers of organic soil. These organic soil layers, or horizons, can...
Understanding the uncertainty in global forest carbon turnover
Thomas A. M. Pugh, Tim Tito Rademacher, Sarah Shafer, Jorg Steinkamp, Jonathan Barichivich, Brian Beckage, Vanessa Haverd, Anna Harper, Jens Heinke, Kazuya Nishina, Anja Rammig, Hisashi Sato, Almut Arneth, Stijn Hantson, Thomas Hickler, Markus Kautz, Benjamin Quesada, Benjamin Smith, Kirsten Thonicke
2020, Biogeosciences (17) 3961-3989
The length of time that carbon remains in forest biomass is one of the largest uncertainties in the global carbon cycle, with both recent historical baselines and future responses to environmental change poorly constrained by available observations. In the absence of large-scale observations, models used for global assessments tend to...
The catastrophic decline of tortoises at a fenced natural area
Kristin H. Berry, Julie L. Yee, Timothy A. Shields, Laura Stockton
2020, Wildlife Monographs (205) 1-53
Agassiz’s desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), a threatened species of the southwestern United States, has severely declined to the point where 76% of populations in critical habitat (Tortoise Conservation Areas) are below viability. The potential for rapid recovery of wild populations is low because females require 12–20 years to reach reproductive...
Channel cross-section analysis for automated stream head identification
Ethan J. Shavers, Larry Stanislawski
2020, Environmental Modelling & Software (132)
Headwater streams account for more than half of the streams in the United States by length. The substantial occurrence and susceptibility to change of headwater streams makes regular updating of related maps vital to the accuracy of associated analysis and display....
Adjusted geomagnetic data—Theoretical basis and validation
E. Joshua Rigler, Abram E. Claycomb
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1053
Adjusted geomagnetic data are magnetometer measurements with provisional correction factors applied such that vector quantities are oriented in a local Cartesian frame in which the X axis points north, the Y axis points east, and the Z axis points down. These correction factors are determined from so-called absolute measurements, which...
Laboratory electrical conductivity of marine gas hydrate
Steven Constable, Ryan Lu, Laura A. Stern, Wyatt L. Du Frane, Jeffery J. Roberts
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
Methane hydrate was synthesized from pure water ice and flash frozen seawater, with varying amounts of sand or silt added. Electrical conductivity was determined by impedance spectroscopy, using equivalent circuit modeling to separate the effects of electrodes and to gain insight into conduction mechanisms. Silt and sand...
Fate and behavior tools related to inland spill response—Workshop on the U.S. Geological Survey’s role in Federal science support
Daniel J. Sullivan, Faith A. Fitzpatrick
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1063
Executive SummaryThere is a growing body of tools available for science support for determining the fate and behavior of industrial and agricultural chemicals that are rapidly injected (“spilled”) into aquatic environments. A 2-day roundtable-style workshop was held by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Middleton, Wisconsin, in December 2017 to...
A global shape model for Saturn's moon Enceladus from a dense photogrammetric control network
Michael T. Bland, Lynn A. Weller, David Mayer, Brent A. Archinal
2020, Conference Paper, ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences
A planetary bodys global shape provides both insight into its geologic evolution, and a key element of any Planetary Spatial Data Infrastructure (PSDI). NASAs Cassini mission to Saturn acquired more than 600 moderate- to high-resolution images (< 500 m/pixel) of the small, geologically active moon Enceladus. The moons internal global...
Citizen scientists record novel leaf phenology of invasive shrubs in eastern U.S. forests
Erynn E. Maynard-Bean, Margot Kaye, Tyler Wagner, Eric P. Burkhart
2020, Biological Invasions (22) 3325-3337
Invasive shrubs are an emergent concern in deciduous forests of eastern North America. Their extended leaf phenology (ELP) – earlier leaf emergence and later leaf off compared to native shrubs and the overstory canopy – can simultaneously provide photosynthetic benefits to invasive shrubs while negatively affecting native flora and fauna...
Localized fluid discharge by tensile cracking during the post-seismic period in subduction zones
Makoto Otsubo, Jeanne L. Hardebeck, Ayumu Miyakawa, Asuka Yamaguchi, Gaku Kimura
2020, Scientific Reports (10)
It is thought that extensional structures (extensional cracks and normal faults) generated during the post-seismic period create fluid pathways that enhance the drainage of the subducting plate interface, thus reducing the pore pressure and increasing fault strength. However, it remains to be elucidated how much pore fluid pressure decreases by...
Wildfire and the ecological niche: Diminishing habitat suitability for an indicator species within semi‐arid ecosystems
Shawn T. O’Neil, Peter S. Coates, Brianne E. Brussee, Mark A. Ricca, Shawn P. Espinosa, Scott C. Gardner, David J Delahanty
2020, Global Change Biology (26) 6296-6312
Globally accelerating frequency and extent of wildfire threatens the persistence of specialist wildlife species through direct loss of habitat and indirect facilitation of exotic invasive species. Habitat specialists may be especially prone to rapidly changing environmental conditions because their ability to adapt lags behind the rate...
