Patterning emergent marsh vegetation assemblages in coastal Louisiana, USA, with unsupervised artificial neural networks
Gregg A. Snedden
2019, Applied Vegetation Science (22) 213-229
QuestionAre self‐organizing maps (SOMs) useful for patterning coastal wetland vegetation communities? Do SOMs provide robust alternatives to traditional classification methods, particularly when underlying species response functions are unknown or difficult to approximate, or when a need exists to continuously classify new samples obtained under ongoing long‐term...
Assessment of operational and structural factors influencing performance of fish collectors in forebays of high-head dams
Tobias J. Kock, Nicholas E Verretto, Nicklaus K Ackerman, Russell W. Perry, John W Beeman, Michael C Garello, Scott D Fielding
2019, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (148) 464-479
Providing efficient downstream passage is critical for improving populations of migratory fishes in impounded river systems. High‐head dams, such as those used for water storage or flood‐risk management, pose unique passage challenges requiring unique solutions. Systems to collect fish in dam forebays (“forebay collectors”) for transport to downstream release locations...
Modeling effects of crop production, energy development and conservation-grassland loss on avian habitat
Jill A. Shaffer, Cali L. Roth, David M. Mushet
2019, PLoS ONE (14) 1-17
Birds are essential components of most ecosystems and provide many services valued by society. However, many populations have undergone striking declines as their habitats have been lost or degraded by human activities. Terrestrial grasslands are vital habitat for birds in the North American Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), but grassland conversion...
A seascape-scale habitat model to support management of fishing impacts on benthic ecosystems
T. Scott Smeltz, Bradley Harris, John Olson, Suresh Sethi
2019, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (76) 1836-1844
Minimizing fishing impacts on seafloor ecosystems is a growing focus of ocean management; however, few quantitative tools exist to guide seascape-scale habitat management. To meet these needs, we developed a model to assess benthic ecosystem impacts from fishing gear contact. The habitat impacts model is cast in discrete time and...
Improving estimates and forecasts of lake carbon dynamics using data assimilation
Jacob Aaron Zwart, Oleksandra Hararuk, Yves Prairie, Stuart E. Jones, Christopher T. Solomon
2019, Limnology and Oceanography: Methods (17) 97-111
Lakes are biogeochemical hotspots on the landscape, contributing significantly to the global carbon cycle despite their small areal coverage. Observations and models of lake carbon pools and fluxes are rarely explicitly combined through data assimilation despite successful use of this technique in other fields. Data assimilation...
Early-warning signals of individual tree mortality based on annual radial growth
Maxime Cailleret, Vasilis Dakos, Steven Jansen, Elisabeth M. R. Robert, Tuomas Aakala, Mariano M. Amoroso, Joe A. Antos, Christof Bigler, Harald Bugmann, Marco Caccianaga, Jesus-Julio Camarero, Paolo Cherubini, Marie R. Coyea, Katarina Cufar, Adrian J. Das, Hendrik Davi, Guillermo Gea-Izquierdo, Sten Gillner, Laurel J. Haavik, Henrik Hartmann, Ana-Maria Heres, Kevin R. Hultine, Pavel Janda, Jeffrey M. Kane, Viachelsav I. Kharuk, Thomas Kitzberger, Tamir Klein, Tom Levanic, Juan-Carlos Linares, Fabio Lombardi, Harri Makinen, Ilona Mészáros, Juha M. Metsaranta, Walter Oberhuber, Andreas Papadopoulos, Any Mary Petritan, Brigitte Rohner, Gabriel Sanguesa-Barreda, Jeremy M. Smith, Amanda B. Stan, Dejan B. Stojanovic, Maria-Laura Suarez, Miroslav Svoboda, Volodymyr Trotsiuk, Ricardo Villalba, Alana R. Westwood, Peter H. Wyckoff, Jordi Martínez-Vilalta
2019, Frontiers in Plant Science (9) 1-14
Tree mortality is a key driver of forest dynamics and its occurrence is projected to increase in the future due to climate change. Despite recent advances in our understanding of the physiological mechanisms leading to death, we still lack robust indicators of mortality risk that could be applied at the...
Short-term effects of ambient air pollution and cardiovascular events in Shiraz, Iran, 2009 to 2015
Zahra Soleimani, Ali Darvishi Boloorani, Reza Khalifeh, Dale W. Griffin, Alireza Mesdaghinia
2019, Environmental Science and Pollution Research (26) 6359-6367
Air pollution and dust storms are associated with increased cardiovascular hospital admissions. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between short-term exposure to ambient air pollutants and CVD (cardiovascular disease) events in a long-term observational period. The study included the events of cardiovascular diseases (namely coronary artery...
A comparison of age- and size-structured assessment models applied to a stock of cisco in Thunder Bay, Ontario
Nicholas C Fisch, James R. Bence, Jared T. Myers, Eric K. Berglund, Daniel L. Yule
2019, Fisheries Research (209) 86-100
Stock assessments are critical to modern fisheries management, supporting the calculation of key reference variables used to make informed management decisions. However, there is still considerable uncertainty as to which class of assessment models is appropriate to use under different circumstances. A common class of models used when age data...
Main stem and off-channel habitat use by juvenile Chinook salmon in a sub-Arctic riverscape
Brock M. Huntsman, Jeffrey A. Falke
2019, Freshwater Biology (64) 433-446
Poor growth and survival in freshwater and marine environments have been implicated as responsible for Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) declines across Alaska.Lateral connectivity of river main stems with off-channel habitats may play an integral role in sustaining Alaskan salmonid populations because off-channel habitats commonly provide greater growth opportunities than...
Landscape evolution of a fluvial sediment-rich Avicennia marina mangrove forest: Insights from seasonal and inter-annual surface-elevation dynamics
Andrew Swales, Glen Reeve, Donald R. Cahoon, Catherine Lovelock
2019, Ecosystems (22) 1232-1255
Mangrove forests are vulnerable to accelerated sea-level rise associated with climate warming because they occupy a relatively narrow zone on the mid-to-upper-intertidal flats. The fate of these ecosystems largely depends on their capacity to accrete sediment at a rate sufficient to maintain their elevation relative to sea level. We investigated...
Quarterly wildlife mortality report January 2019
Bryan J. Richards, Barbara L. Bodenstein, Robert J. Dusek, Tonie E. Rocke, Katherine L. D. Richgels
2019, Wildlife Disease Association Newsletter 22-23
The USGS National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC) Quarterly Mortality Report provides brief summaries of epizootic mortality and morbidity events by quarter. The write-ups, highlighting epizootic events and other wildlife disease topics of interest, are published in the Wildlife Disease Association quarterly newsletter. A link is provided in this WDA newsletter...
Thermal, deformation, and degassing remote sensing time-series (A.D. 2000-2017) at the 47 most active volcanoes in Latin America: Implications for volcanic systems
Kevin Reath, Matthew Pritchard, Michael P. Poland, F. Delgado, S. Carn, D. Coppola, B. J. Andrews, S.K. Ebmeier, M. Elise Rumpf, S. Henderson, S. Baker, P. Lundgren, R. Erik Wright, J. Biggs, T. Lopez, C. Wauthier, S. Moruzzi, A. Alcott, Rick Wessels, Julia P. Griswold, Sarah E. Ogburn, S. C. Loughlin, F. Meyer, R. Greg Vaughan, M. Bagnardi
2019, Journal of Geophysical Research (124) 195-218
Volcanoes are hazardous to local and global populations, but only a fraction are continuously monitored by ground-based sensors. For example, in Latin America, more than 60% of Holocene volcanoes are unmonitored, meaning long-term multi-parameter datasets of volcanic activity are rare and sparse. We use satellite observations of degassing, thermal anomalies,...
Exploring relationships of spring green-up to moisture and temperature across Wyoming, U.S.A
Jesslyn F. Brown, Lei Ji, Alisa L. Gallant, Matthew J. Kauffman
2019, International Journal of Remote Sensing (40) 956-984
Vegetation green-up signals the timing of available nutritious plants and shrubs providing high-quality forage for ungulates. In this study, we characterized spatial and temporal patterns of spring phenology and explored how they were related to preceding temperature and moisture conditions. We tested correlations between late winter weather and indicators of...
Perspectives and challenges for the use of radar in biological conservation
Ommo Huppop, Michal Ciach, Robert H. Diehl, Don Reynolds, Phillip Stepanian, Myles Menz
2019, Ecography (42) 912-930
Radar is at the forefront for the study of broad‐scale aerial movements of birds, bats and insects and related issues in biological conservation. Radar techniques are especially useful for investigating species which fly at high altitudes, in darkness, or which are too small for applying electronic...
Data sharing in magnetotellurics
Anna Kelbert, Svetlana Erofeeva, Chad Trabant, Rich Karstens, Mickey C. Van Fossen
2019, Eos, Earth and Space Science News (99)
Here, we introduce the first openly available comprehensive database of magnetotelluric (MT) and related electromagnetic data that we developed and matured over the past decade, explain how to access the data, and describe the challenges that had to be overcome to make MT data sharing possible. The database is a...
Global sea-level contribution from Arctic land ice: 1971 to 2017
Jason E. Box, William T. Colgan, Bert Wouters, David Burgess, Shad O’Neel, Laura Thomson, Sebastian H Mernild
2019, Environmental Research Letters (13)
The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) (AMAP, 2017) identifies the Arctic as the largest regional source of land ice to global sea-level rise in the 2003 to 2014 period. Yet, this contextualization ignores the longer perspective from in-situ records of glacier mass balance. Here, using 18 (> 55 °N latitude) glacier and...
Long-term soil-water tension measurements in semi-arid environments: A method for automated tensiometer refilling
Joel B. Smith, Jason W. Kean
2019, Vadose Zone Journal (17)
Tensiometer-equipped data acquisition systems measure and record positive and negative soil-water pressures. These data contribute to studies in hillslope hydrology, including analyses of rainfall runoff, near-surface hydrologic response, and slope stability. However, the unique ability of a tensiometer to rapidly and accurately measure pre- and post-saturation subsurface pressures requires maintenance...
UZIG research: Measurement and characterization of unsaturated zone processes under wide-ranging climates and changing conditions
Jared J. Trost, Benjamin B. Mirus, Kimberlie Perkins, Wesley R. Henson, John R. Nimmo, Rafael Munoz-Carpena
2019, Vadose Zone Journal (17)
Unsaturated zone properties and processes are central to understanding the interacting effects of land-use change, contamination, and hydroclimate on our ability to grow food, sustain clean water supplies, and minimize loss of life and property. Advances in unsaturated zone science are being achieved through collaborations across traditional boundaries where information...
Estimating occurrence, prevalence, and detection of amphibian pathogens: Insights from occupancy models
B. A. Mosher, Adrianne Brand, ANM Wiewel, D. A. W. Miller, MT Gray, Debra L. Miller, Evan H. Campbell Grant
2019, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (55) 563-575
Understanding the distribution of pathogens across landscapes and their prevalence within host populations is a common aim of wildlife managers. Despite the need for unbiased estimates of pathogen occurrence and prevalence for planning effective management interventions, many researchers fail to account for imperfect pathogen detection. Instead raw data are often...
Evaluating consumptive and nonconsumptive predator effects on prey density using field times series data
John A. Marino, Scott D. Peacor, David Bunnell, Henry A. Vanderploeg, Steven A. Pothoven, Ashley K. Elgin, James R. Bence, J. Jiao, Edward L. Ionides
2019, Ecology (100)
Determining the degree to which predation affects prey abundance in natural communities constitutes a key goal of ecological research. Predators can affect prey through both consumptive effects (CEs) and nonconsumptive effects (NCEs), although the contributions of each mechanism to the density of prey populations remain largely hypothetical in most systems....
Congruent population genetic structure but differing depths of divergence for three alpine stoneflies with similar ecology and geographic distributions
Scott Hotaling, J. Joseph Giersch, Debra S. Finn, Lusha M. Tronstad, Steve Jordan, Larry Serpa, Ronald Call, Clint C. Muhlfeld, David W. Weisrock
2019, Freshwater Biology (64) 335-347
Comparative population genetic studies provide a powerful means for assessing the degree to which evolutionary histories may be congruent among taxa while also highlighting the potential for cryptic diversity within existing species.In the Rocky Mountains, three confamilial stoneflies (Zapada glacier , Lednia tumana , and Lednia tetonica ; Plecoptera, Nemouridae) occupy cold alpine streams...
Characterization and occurrence of confined and unconfined aquifers in Quaternary sediments in the glaciated conterminous United States
Richard M. Yager, Leon J. Kauffman, David R. Soller, Adel E. Haj, Paul M. Heisig, Cheryl A. Buchwald, Stephen, M. Westenbroek, James E. Reddy
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5091
The glacial aquifer system, which is a collection of aquifers within Quaternary sediments in the glaciated conterminous United States, is a principal aquifer that supplies groundwater that serves about 42 million people and accounts for about 5 percent of the Nation’s drinking water. This aquifer system (the area of maximum...
Delineation of selected lithologic units using airborne electromagnetic data near Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Joshua F. Valder, Adel E. Haj, Emilia L. Bristow, Kristen J. Valseth
2019, Scientific Investigations Map 3423
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the City of Cedar Rapids, began a study in 2013 to better understand the effects of drought stress on the Cedar River alluvial aquifer. After an evaluation of the existing groundwater-flow models for the alluvial aquifer, a plan was begun to construct an...
Optimization of salt marsh management at the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge, Delaware, through use of structured decision making
Hilary A. Neckles, James E. Lyons, Jessica L. Nagel, Susan C. Adamowicz, Toni Mikula, Susan T. Guiteras, Laura R. Mitchell
2019, Open-File Report 2018-1160
Structured decision making is a systematic, transparent process for improving the quality of complex decisions by identifying measurable management objectives and feasible management actions; predicting the potential consequences of management actions relative to the stated objectives; and selecting a course of action that maximizes the total benefit achieved and balances...
Seismology with dark data: Image-based processing of analog records using machine learning for the rangely earthquake control experiment
Kaiwen Wang, William L. Ellsworth, Gregory C. Beroza, Gordon Williams, Miao Zhang, Dustin Schroeder, Justin L. Rubinstein
2019, Seismological Research Letters (90) 553-562
Before the digital era, seismograms were recorded in analog form and read manually by analysts. The digital era represents only about 25% of the total time span of instrumental seismology. Analog data provide important constraints on earthquake processes over the long term, and in some cases are the only data...
