Overall methodology design for the United States National Land Cover Database 2016 products
Suming Jin, Collin Homer, Limin Yang, Patrick Danielson, Jon Dewitz, Congcong Li, Zhe Zhu, George Z. Xian, Danny Howard
2019, Remote Sensing (11)
The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2016 provides a suite of data products, including land cover and land cover change of the conterminous United States from 2001 to 2016, at two- to three-year intervals. The development of this product is part of an effort to meet the growing demand...
Is the timing, pace and success of the monarch migration associated with sun angle?
Orley R. Taylor, James P Lovett, David L Gibo, Emily L. Weiser, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Darius J. Semmens, James E. Diffendorfer, John M. Pleasants, Samuel Pecoraro, Ralph Grundel
2019, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (7)
A basic question concerning the monarch butterfly’s fall migration is which monarchs succeed in reaching overwintering sites in Mexico, which fail—and why. We document the timing and pace of the fall migration, ask whether the sun’s position in the sky is associated with the pace of the migration, and whether...
Trends in streamflow and concentrations and flux of nutrients and total suspended solids in the Upper White River at Muncie, near Nora, and near Centerton, Indiana
G. F. Koltun
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5119
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with The Nature Conservancy, completed a study to estimate and assess trends in streamflow and annual mean concentrations and flux of nutrients (nitrate plus nitrite, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, and total phosphorus) and total suspended solids at three USGS streamgages (hereafter referred to as “study...
Multi-resource analysis: A proof of concept study of natural resource tradeoffs in the Piceance Basin, Colorado, using the net resources assessment (NetRA) decision support tool
Richard Bernknopf, Craig Broadbent, Dadhi Adhikari, Saleh Mamun, Vince Tidwell, Christopher Babis, Emily Pindilli
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5086
Executive SummaryThe U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is developing a multi-resource analysis (MRA) line of products to inform land-use decision makers. Specifically, MRA products will integrate scientific information, include considerations for natural resource interrelations, and quantify the effects of resource management decisions in biophysical, economic, and societal terms. As part of...
A comparison of hydrocarbon-related landscape disturbance patterns along the New York-Pennsylvania border, 2004–2013
Coral M. Howe, Lesley E. Milheim, E. Terrence Slonecker, Siddiq Kalaly, Joseph Chestnut
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5096
Executive SummaryThe New York-Pennsylvania area has a long history of hydrocarbon extraction, and the addition of shale gas extraction methods contributes to landscape disturbance borne by previously developed oil and non-shale gas resources. The main unconventional extraction method used to extract shale gas from the Marcellus Shale located in New...
Slug-test analysis of selected wells at an earthen dam site in southern Westchester County, New York
Michael L. Noll, Anthony Chu, William D. Capurso
2019, Open-File Report 2019-1102
In 2005, the U.S. Geological Survey began a cooperative study with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection to characterize the local groundwater-flow system and identify potential sources of seeps on the southern embankment of the Hillview Reservoir in southern Westchester County, New York. The earthen embankment comprises low-permeability...
Using incidental mark-encounter data to improve survival estimation
Seth M. Harju, SM Cambrin, R.C. Averill-Murray, Melia G. Nafus, Kimberleigh J Field, Linda J. Allison
2019, Ecology and Evolution (10) 360-370
Obtaining robust survival estimates is critical, but sample size limitations often result in imprecise estimates or the failure to obtain estimates for population subgroups. Concurrently, data are often recorded on incidental reencounters of marked individuals, but these incidental data are often unused in survival analyses.We evaluated the utility of...
The tangled tale of Kīlauea’s 2018 eruption as told by geochemical monitoring
Cheryl Gansecki, R. Lopaka Lee, Tom Shea, Steven P. Lundblad, Ken Hon, Carolyn E. Parcheta
2019, Science (366)
Changes in magma chemistry that affect eruptive behavior occur during many volcanic eruptions, but typical analytical techniques are too slow to contribute to hazard monitoring. We used rapid energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis to measure diagnostic elements in lava samples within a few hours of collection during the 2018 Kīlauea eruption....
Cyclic lava effusion during the 2018 eruption of Kīlauea Volcano
Matthew R. Patrick, Hannah R. Dietterich, John J. Lyons, Angela K. Diefenbach, Carolyn Parcheta, Kyle R. Anderson, Atsuko Namiki, Ikuro Sumita, Brian Shiro, James P. Kauahikaua
2019, Science (366)
Lava flows present a recurring threat to communities on active volcanoes, and volumetric eruption rate is one of the primary factors controlling flow behavior and hazard. The timescales and driving forces of eruption rate variability, however, remain poorly understood. In 2018, a highly destructive eruption occurred on the lower flank...
Pesticide mixtures in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, 2016–17: Results from year 2 of the Delta Regional Monitoring Program
Matthew D. De Parsia, Emily E. Woodward, James L. Orlando, Michelle L. Hladik
2019, Data Series 1120
The Delta Regional Monitoring Program was developed by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board in response to the decline of pelagic fish species in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta that was observed in the early 2000s. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Delta Regional Monitoring Program, has...
On the use of indices to study extreme precipitation on sub-daily and daily timescales
Lisa Alexander, Hayley Fowler, Margot Bador, Ali Behrangi, Markus G. Donat, Robert Dunn, Chris Funk, James Goldie, Elizabeth Lewis, Marine Roge, Sonia I Seneviratne, V Vengupal
2019, Environmental Research Letters (14)
While there are obstacles to the exchange of long-term high temporal resolution precipitation data, there have been few barriers to the exchange of so-called ‘indices’ which are derived from daily and sub-daily data and measure aspects of precipitation frequency, duration and intensity that could be used for the study of...
Flood-frequency comparison from 1995 to 2016 and trends in peak streamflow in Arkansas, water years 1930–2016
Paul A. Ensminger, Brian K. Breaker
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5131
In 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, began a study in Arkansas to investigate possible increasing trends in annual peak streamflow data and the possible resulting increase in the annual exceedance probability flood (AEPF) predictions. Temporal...
Hydrogeologic framework of the Virginia Eastern Shore
E. Randolph McFarland, Todd A. Beach
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5093
The Yorktown-Eastover aquifer system of the Virginia Eastern Shore consists of upper, middle, and lower confined aquifers overlain by correspondingly named confining units and underlain by the Saint Marys confining unit. Miocene- to Pliocene-age marine-shelf sediments observed in 205 boreholes include medium- to coarse-grained sand and shells that compose the...
Identifying and characterizing extrapolation in multivariate response data
Meridith L. Bartley, Ephraim M. Hanks, Erin M. Schliep, Patricia A. Soranno, Tyler Wagner
2019, PLoS ONE (14)
Faced with limitations in data availability, funding, and time constraints, ecologists are often tasked with making predictions beyond the range of their data. In ecological studies, it is not always obvious when and where extrapolation occurs because of the multivariate nature of the data. Previous work on identifying extrapolation has...
BbsAssistant: An R package for downloading and handling data and information from the North American Breeding Bird Survey
Jessica Leigh Burnett, Lyndsie S. Wszola, Gabriela Palomo-Munoz
2019, Journal of Open Source Software (4) 1768
This R package contains functions for downloading and munging data from the U.S. Geological Surveys North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) via file transfer protocol (FTP) (Pardieck, Ziolkowski Jr, Lutmerding, & Hudson, 2018; J. R. Sauer et al., 2017). This package was created to allow the user to bulk-download the BBS...
Improving predictions of fine particle immobilization in streams
Jennifer D. Drummond, Noah M. Schmadel, Christa Kelleher, Aaron I. Packman, Adam S Ward
2019, Geophysical Research Letters (46) 13,853-13,861
Fine particles are critical to stream ecosystem functioning, influencing in-stream processes from pathogen transmission to carbon cycling, all of which depend on particle immobilization. However, our ability to predict particle immobilization is limited by: (1) availability of combined solute and particle tracer data and (2) identifying parameters that appropriately...
Measurement of cyanobacteria bloom magnitude using satellite remote sensing
Sachidananda Mishra, Richard P. Stumpf, Blake Schaeffer, P. Jeremy Werdell, Keith A. Loftin, Andrew Meredith
2019, Scientific Reports
Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) are a serious environmental, water quality and public health issue worldwide because of their ability to form dense biomass and produce toxins. Models and algorithms have been developed to detect and quantify cyanoHABs biomass using remotely sensed data but not for quantifying bloom magnitude, information...
Environmental and biological factors influence migratory Sea Lamprey catchability: Implications for tracking abundance in the Laurentian Great Lakes
Sean A. Lewandoski, Gale A Bravener, Peter J. Hrodey, Scott M. Miehls
2019, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (11) 68-79
Sea Lamprey Petromyzon marinus population trends in the Great Lakes are tracked by trapping migratory adults in tributaries and using mark and recapture techniques to estimate abundance. Understanding what environmental and biological factors influence Sea Lamprey capture in tributaries is crucial to developing efficient trapping methods and reliable abundance...
Assessment of the American woodcock singing-ground survey zone timing and coverage
J. D. Moore, Thomas R. Cooper, Rebecca D. Rau, David E. Andersen, J. P Duguay, C. Alan Stewart, David G. Krementz
2019, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the eleventh American woodcock symposium
The American woodcock (Scolopax minor; hereafter, woodcock) Singing-Ground Survey (SGS) was developed to inform management decisions by monitoring changes in the relative abundance of woodcock. The timing of the designated survey windows was designed to count resident woodcock while minimizing counting of migrating woodcock. Since the implementation of the SGS...
Estimating density and effective area surveyed for American woodcock
Stefanie M. Bergh, David E. Andersen
2019, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the eleventh American woodcock symposium
The American Woodcock (Scolopax minor; hereafter, woodcock) Singing-ground Survey (SGS) is conducted annually during the woodcock breeding season, and survey points along survey routes are set 0.4 mile (0.65 km) apart to avoid counting individual birds from >1 listening location. The effective area surveyed (EAS) at a listening point is...
Detection probability and occupancy of American woodcock during Singing-ground surveys
Stefanie M. Bergh, David E. Andersen
2019, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the eleventh American woodcock symposium
The Singing-ground Survey (SGS) was designed to exploit the conspicuous breeding-season display of male American woodcock (Scolopax minor; hereafter, woodcock) to monitor these otherwise inconspicuous birds. The SGS was standardized in 1968 and has since been conducted annually to derive an index of abundance and population trend. Counts of singing...
Reach-scale monitoring and modeling of rivers--Expanding hydraulic data collection beyond the cross section
Brandon T. Forbes, Claire E. Bunch, Geoffrey DeBenedetto, Corey J. Shaw, Bruce Gungle
2019, Fact Sheet 2019-3073
For over 125 years, the U.S. Geological Survey streamgage network has provided important hydrologic information about rivers and streams throughout the Nation. Traditional streamgage methods provide reliable stage and streamflow data but typically only monitor stage at a single location in a river and require frequent calibration streamflow measurements. Direct measurements are...
Estimating the degree to which distance and temperature differences drive changes in fish community composition over time in the upper Mississippi River
James H. Larson, Jonathan M. Vallazza, Brent C. Knights
2019, PLoS ONE (14)
Similarity in community composition declines as distance between locations increases, a phenomenon that has been observed in a wide variety of freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems. One driver of the distance-similarity relationship is the presence of environmental gradients that alter the suitability of sites for particular species. Although...
Asian swamp eels in North America linked to the live-food trade and prayer-release rituals
Leo Nico, Jay V. Kilian, Andrew J. Ropicki, Matthew Harper
2019, Aquatic Invasions (14) 775-814
We provide a history of swamp eel (family Synbranchidae) introductions around the globe and report the first confirmed nonindigenous records of Amphipnous cuchia in the wild. The species, native to Asia, is documented from five sites in the USA: the Passaic River, New Jersey (2007), Lake Needwood, Maryland (2014), a...
Nutrient scarcity as a selective pressure for mast seeding
M. Fernández-Martínez, Ian S. Pearse, Jordi Sardans, F. Sayol, W. D. Koenig, J. M. LaMontagne, M. Bogdziewicz, A. Collalti, Andrew Hacket-Pain, Giorgio Vacchiano, J. M. Espelta, J. Penuelas, I. A. Janssens
2019, Nature Plants (5) 1222-1228
Mast seeding is one of the most intriguing reproductive traits in nature. Despite its potential drawbacks in terms of fitness, the widespread existence of this phenomenon suggests that it should have evolutionary advantages under certain circumstances. Using a global dataset of seed production time series for 219 plant species from...
