West Florida shelf pipeline serves as sea turtle benthic habitat based on in-situ towed camera observations
Heather A. Broadbent, Sarah E. Grasty, Robert F. Hardy, Margaret M. Lamont, Kristen M. Hart, Chad Lembke, Jennifer L. Brizzolara, Steven A. Murawski
2019, Aquatic Biology (29) 17-31
The use of marine offshore benthic habitats by sea turtles is poorly characterized due to the difficulty of obtaining in situ data. Understanding benthic habitat use that is important to the species’ reproduction, foraging, and migrations is critical for guiding management decisions. A towed camera-based assessment survey system (C-BASS) equipped...
Compounding effects of climate change reduce population viability of a montane amphibian
Amanda M. Kissel, Wendy J. Palen, Maureen E. Ryan, Michael J. Adams
2019, Ecological Applications (29) 1-12
Anthropogenic climate change presents challenges and opportunities to the growth, reproduction, and survival of individuals throughout their life cycles. Demographic compensation among life‐history stages has the potential to buffer populations from decline, but alternatively, compounding negative effects can lead to accelerated population decline and extinction. In montane ecosystems of the...
Behavioral effects of copper on larval white sturgeon
Holly J. Puglis, Robin D. Calfee, Edward E. Little
2019, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (38) 132-144
Early–life stage white sturgeon are sensitive to copper (Cu), with adverse behavioral responses observed during previous studies. The objectives of the present study were to quantify the effects of Cu exposure on white sturgeon swimming and feeding behaviors and determine their time to response. Larval sturgeon (1–2, 28, or 35...
Iterative models for early detection of invasive species across spread pathways
Gericke Cook, Catherine S. Jarnevich, Melissa Warden, Marla Downing, John Withrow, I. Leinwand
2019, Forests (10)
Species distribution models can be used to direct early detection of invasive species, if they include proxies for invasion pathways. Due to the dynamic nature of invasion, these models violate assumptions of stationarity across space and time. To compensate for issues of stationarity, we iteratively update regionalized species distribution models...
Size distributions of Arctic waterbodies reveal consistent relations in their statistical moments in space and time
Sina Muster, William J. Riley, Kurt Roth, Moritz Langer, Fabio Cresto Aleina, Charles D. Koven, Stephan Lange, Annett Bartsch, Guido Grosse, C. J. Wilson, Benjamin M. Jones, Julia Boike
2019, Frontiers Earth Science Journal (7)
Arctic lowlands are characterized by large numbers of small waterbodies, which are known to affect surface energy budgets and the global carbon cycle. Statistical analysis of their size distributions has been hindered by the shortage of observations at sufficiently high spatial resolutions. This situation has now changed with the high-resolution...
Elevated manganese concentrations in United States groundwater, role of land surface–soil–aquifer connections
Peter B. McMahon, Kenneth Belitz, James E. Reddy, Tyler D. Johnson
2019, Environmental Science & Technology (53) 29-38
Chemical data from 43 334 wells were used to examine the role of land surface–soil–aquifer connections in producing elevated manganese concentrations (>300 μg/L) in United States (U.S.) groundwater. Elevated concentrations of manganese and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in groundwater are associated with shallow, anoxic water tables and soils enriched in organic...
Investigating lake-area dynamics across a permafrost-thaw spectrum using airborne electromagnetic surveys and remote sensing time-series data in Yukon Flats, Alaska
David M. Rey, Michelle Ann Walvoord, Burke Minsley, Jennifer Rover, Kamini Singha
2019, Environmental Research Letters (14) 1-13
Lakes in boreal lowlands cycle carbon and supply an important source of freshwater for wildlife and migratory waterfowl. The abundance and distribution of these lakes are supported, in part, by permafrost distribution, which is subject to change. Relationships between permafrost thaw and lake dynamics remain poorly known in most boreal...
Ecosystem service flows from a migratory species: Spatial subsidies of the northern pintail
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Darius J. Semmens, James E. Diffendorfer, Brady J. Mattsson, James A. Dubovsky, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Ruscena Wiederholt, John B. Loomis, Joanna A. Bieri, Christine Sample, Joshua Goldstein, Laura Lopez-Hoffman
2019, Ambio (48) 61-73
Migratory species provide important benefits to society, but their cross-border conservation poses serious challenges. By quantifying the economic value of ecosystem services (ESs) provided across a species’ range and ecological data on a species’ habitat dependence, we estimate spatial subsidies—how different regions support ESs provided by a species across...
Landscape genetics reveal broad and fine‐scale population structure due to landscape features and climate history in the northern leopard frog (Rana pipiens) in North Dakota
Justin M. Waraniak, Justin D. L. Fisher, Kevin Purcell, David M. Mushet, Craig A. Stockwell
2019, Ecology and Evolution (9) 1041-1060
Prehistoric climate and landscape features play large roles structuring wildlife populations. The amphibians of the northern Great Plains of North America present an opportunity to investigate how these factors affect colonization, migration, and current population genetic structure. This study used 11 microsatellite loci to genotype 1,230 northern leopard frogs (Rana...
Evidence for interactions among environmental stressors in the Laurentian Great Lakes
Sigrid D. P. Smith, David B. Bunnell, G.A. Burton Jr., Jan J. H. Ciborowski, Alisha D. Davidson, Caitlin E. Dickinson, Lauren A. Eaton, Peter C. Esselman, Mary Anne Evans, Donna R. Kashian, Nathan F. Manning, Peter B. McIntyre, Thomas F. Nalepa, Alicia Perez-Fuentetaja, Alan D. Steinman, Donald G. Uzarski, J. David Allan
2019, Ecological Indicators (101) 203-211
Co-occurrence of environmental stressors is ubiquitous in ecosystems, but cumulative effects are difficult to predict for effective indicator development. Individual stressors can amplify (synergies) or lessen (antagonisms) each other's impacts or have fully independent effects (additive). Here we use the Laurentian Great Lakes, where a multitude of stressors have been...
Estimating lake–climate responses from sparse data: An application to high elevation lakes
Kyle R. Christianson, Brett M. Johnson, Mevin Hooten, James J. Roberts
2019, Limnology and Oceanography (64) 1371-1385
Although many studies demonstrate lake warming, few document trends from lakes with sparse data. Diel and seasonal variability of surface temperatures limit conventional trend analyses to datasets with frequent repeated observations. Thus, remote lakes, including many high elevation lakes, are underrepresented in trend analyses. We used...
The future is now: Amplicon sequencing and sequence capture usher in the conservation genomics era
Mariah Meek, Wesley Larson
2019, Molecular Ecology Resources (19) 795-803
The genomics revolution has initiated a new era of population genetics where genome-wide data are frequently used to understand complex patterns of population structure and selection. However, the application of genomic tools to inform management and conservation has been somewhat rare outside a few well studied...
Beneath the arctic greening: Will soils lose or gain carbon or perhaps a little of both?
Jennifer W. Harden, J.A. O’Donnell, K.A. Heckman, B.N. Sulman, C.D. Koven, C.L. Ping, G.J. Michaelson
2019, SOIL
Ecosystem shifts related to climate change are anticipated for the next decades to centuries based on a number of conceptual and experimentally derived models of plant structure and function. Belowground, the potential responses of soil systems are less well known. We used geochemical steady state models, soil density fractionation, and...
Dynamic wildlife occupancy models using automated acoustic monitoring data
Cathleen Balantic, Therese M. Donovan
2019, Ecological Applications (29)
Automated acoustic monitoring of wildlife has been used to characterize populations of sound-producing species across large spatial scales. However, false negatives and false positives produced by automated detection systems can compromise the utility of these data for researchers and land managers, particularly for research programs endeavoring to describe colonization and...
Estimating river discharge with swath altimetry: A proof of concept using AirSWOT observations
Stephen Tuozzolo, Greg D. Lind, Brandon Overstreet, Joseph F. Mangano, Mark A Fonstad, M. Hagemann, R.P.M. Frasson, K Larnier, P.-A. Garambois, J. Monnier, M. Durand
2019, Geophysical Research Letters (46) 1459-1466
The forthcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission will provide global measurements of the free surface of large rivers, providing new opportunities for remote sensing‐derived estimates of river discharge in gaged and ungaged basins. SWOT discharge algorithms have been developed and benchmarked using synthetic data but remain untested...
Does incorporating gear selectivity during macroscale investigations of fish growth reduce size-selective sampling bias in parameter estimates?
Tyler Wagner, Yan Li
2019, Canadian Journal Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (76) 2089-2101
Understanding of fish growth, the spatial variability in individual growth, and the potential drivers of such variability is a fundamental component of many ecological investigations. However, sampling gears are always size-selective, and this selectivity can result in biased parameter estimates that can lead to, for example, biased stock assessments that...
The influence of depth and velocity on age-0 Scaphirhynchus sturgeon prey consumption: Implications for aquatic habitat restoration
T. R. Gemeinhardt, N. J. C. Gosch, A. P. Civiello, N. Chrisman, H. Shaughnessy, T. L. Brown, James M. Long, J. L. Bonneau
2019, River Research and Applications (35) 205-215
After the pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) was listed as endangered in 1990, a variety of management actions focusing on early life history needs have been implemented to aid species recovery. Given the scarcity of age-0 pallid sturgeon, managers and scientists have relied on sympatric congeners to evaluate the effectiveness of...
Temporal variability in nitrate – discharge relationships in large rivers as revealed by high frequency data
Margaret Zimmer, Brian A. Pellerin, Douglas A. Burns, Gregory Paul Petrochenkov
2019, Water Resources Research (55) 973-989
Little is known about temporal variability in nitrate concentration responses to changes in discharge on intraannual time scales in large rivers. To investigate this knowledge gap, we used a six‐year data set of daily surface water nitrate concentration and discharge averaged from near‐continuous monitoring at U.S. Geological Survey gaging stations...
Sediment oxygen demand: A review of in situ methods
Erin N. Coenen, Victoria G. Christensen, Lynn Bartsch, Rebecca M. Kreiling, William B. Richardson
2019, Journal of Environmental Quality (48) 403-411
Sediment oxygen demand (SOD) plays a fundamental role in biological and chemical processes within the benthic layer of a water body. Land use, including agricultural land use, can affect SOD. However, a wide variety of approaches have been used for in situ SOD chamber construction and data collection, and modelers...
Absence of PCB hot spot effect in walleye Sander vitreus from lower Green Bay of Lake Michigan
Charles P. Madenjian, Daniel J. Dembkowski, Daniel A. Isermann, Stuart A. Batterman, Sergei C. Chernyak, Stewart F. Cogswell, Mark E. Holey
2019, Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (76) 442-452
Under certain conditions, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentration in individuals of one sex of an adult fish population may exceed that of the other sex by more than a factor of two. This phenomenon, known as the PCB hot spot effect, has been postulated to be contingent upon the following...
Reconstructing precipitation in the tropical South Pacific from dinosterol 2H/1H ratios in lake sediment
Ashley E. Maloney, Daniel B. Nelson, Julie N. Richey, Matthew Prebble, David A. Sear, Jonathan D. Hassall, Peter G. Langdon, Ian W. Croudace, Atun Zawadzki, Julian P. Sachs
2019, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (245) 190-206
The South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) is the Southern Hemisphere’s largest precipitation feature supplying freshwater to 11 million people. Despite its significance, little is known about the location and intensity of SPCZ precipitation prior to instrumental records, hindering attempts to predict precipitation changes in a warming world. Here we use...
Vertical habitat use of adult Walleye conflicts with expectations from fishery-independent surveys
Ann Marie Gorman, Richard T. Kraus, Lee Gutowsky, Christopher Vandergoot, Yingming Zhao, Carey Knight, Matt Faust, Todd Hayden, Charles Krueger
2019, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (148) 592-604
Stock assessments of Walleyes Sander vitreus in Lake Erie rely on a combination of suspended and bottom overnight gill‐net surveys to provide population and demographic information. However, the assumption that Walleyes undertake diel vertical migrations and become available to the suspended gill nets at night has never been validated. To...
Simulating runoff quality with the highway-runoff database and the Stochastic Empirical Loading and Dilution Model
Gregory E. Granato, Susan C. Jones
2019, Transportation Research Record (2673) 136-142
Stormwater practitioners need quantitative information about the quality and volume of highway runoff to assess and mitigate potential adverse effects of runoff on the Nation’s receiving waters. The U.S. Geological Survey developed the Highway Runoff Database (HRDB) in cooperation with the FHWA to provide practice-ready information to...
The expectations and challenges of wildlife disease research in the era of genomics: Forecasting with a horizon scan-like exercise
Robert R. Fitak, Jennifer D. Antonides, Eric J. Baitchman, Elisa Bonaccorso, Josephine Braun, Steven Kubiski, Elliott Chiu, Anna C. Fagre, Roderick B. Gagne, Justin S. Lee, Jennifer L. Malmberg, Mark D. Stenglein, Robert J. Dusek, David Forgacs, Nicholas M. Fountain-Jones, Marie L. J. Gilbertson, Katherine E. L. Worsley-Tonks, W. Chris Funk, Daryl R. Trumbo, Bruno M. Ghersi, Wray Grimaldi, Sara E. Heisel, Claire M. Jardine, Pauline L. Kamath, Dibesh Karmacharya, Christopher P. Kozakiewicz, Simona Kraberger, Dagan A. Loisel, Cait McDonald, Steven Miller, Devon O’Rourke, Caitlin N. Ott-Conn, Mónica Páez-Vacas, Alison J. Peel, Wendy C. Turner, Meredith C. VanAcker, Sue VandeWoude, Jill Pecon-Slattery
2019, Journal of Heredity (110) 261-274
The outbreak and transmission of disease-causing pathogens are contributing to the unprecedented rate of biodiversity decline. Recent advances in genomics have coalesced into powerful tools to monitor, detect, and reconstruct the role of pathogens impacting wildlife populations. Wildlife researchers are thus uniquely positioned to merge ecological and evolutionary studies with...
Distribution of modern salt-marsh Foraminifera from the eastern Mississippi Sound, U.S.A.
Christian Haller, Christopher G. Smith, Pamela Hallock, Albert C. Hine, Lisa Osterman, Terrence McCloskey
2019, Journal of Foraminiferal Research (49) 29-47
This study documented surface distributions of live and dead foraminiferal assemblages in the low-gradient tidal marshes of the barrier island and estuarine complex of the eastern Mississippi Sound (Grand Bay, Pascagoula River, Fowl River, Dauphin Island). A total of 71,833 specimens representing 38 species were identified from a gradient of...
