High-throughput sequencing reveals distinct regional genetic structure among remaining populations of an endangered salt marsh plant in California
Elizabeth R. Milano, Margaret R Mulligan, Jon P. Rebman, Amy G. Vandergast
2020, Conservation Genetics (21) 547-559
Conservation of rare species requires careful consideration to both preserve locally adapted traits and maintain genetic diversity, as species’ ranges fluctuate in response to a changing climate and habitat loss. Salt marsh systems in California have been highly modified and many salt marsh obligate species have undergone range reductions and...
Spatial distribution of heavy metals in the West Dongting Lake floodplain, China
Dong Peng, Ziyu Liu, Xinyue Su, Yaquin Xiao, Yuechen Wang, Beth Middleton
2020, Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts (22) 1256-1265
The protection of Dongting Lake is important because it is an overwintering and migration route for many rare and endangered birds of East Asia and Australasia, but an assessment of heavy metal contamination in West Dongting Lake is lacking. A total of 75 sediment samples (five sites x three sediment...
Quantifying interregional flows of multiple ecosystem services – A case study for Germany
Janina Kleeman, Matthias Schroter, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Christian Kuhlicke, Thomas Kastner, Dor Fridman, Catharina J. E. Schulp, Sarah Wolff, Javier Martinez-Lopez, Thomas Koellner, Sebastian Arnhold, Berta Martin-Lopez, Alexandra Marques, Laura Lopez-Hoffman, Jianguo Liu, Meidad Kissinger, Carlos Guerra, Aletta Bonn
2020, Global Environmental Change (61)
Despite a growing number of national-scale ecosystem service (ES) assessments, few studies consider the impacts of ES use and consumption beyond national or regional boundaries. Interregional ES flows – ecosystem services “imported” from and “exported” to other countries – are rarely analyzed and their importance for global sustainability is little...
Consequences of ignoring group association in spatial capture-recapture analysis
Richard Bischof, Pierre Dupont, Cyril Milleret, Joseph Chipperfield, J. Andrew Royle
2020, Wildlife Biology (2020)
Many models in population ecology, including spatial capture–recapture (SCR) models, assume that individuals are distributed and detected independently of one another. In reality, this is rarely the case – both antagonistic and gregarious relationships lead to non-independent spatial configurations, with territorial exclusion at one end of the spectrum and group-living...
Optimal spatial prioritization of control resources for elimination of invasive species under demographic uncertainty
Kim M. Pepin, Timothy J. Smyser, Amy J. Davis, Ryan S. Miller, Sophie McKee, Kurt C. VerCauteren, William L. Kendall, Chris Slootmaker
2020, Ecological Applications (30)
Populations of invasive species often spread heterogeneously across a landscape, consisting of local populations that cluster in space but are connected by dispersal. A fundamental dilemma for invasive species control is how to optimally allocate limited fiscal resources across local populations. Theoretical work based on perfect knowledge of demographic connectivity...
Groundwater quality and geochemistry of West Virginia’s southern coal fields
Mark D. Kozar, Mitchell A. McAdoo, Karl B. Haase
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5059
Coal mining has been the dominant industry and land use in West Virginia’s southern coal fields since the mid-1800s. Mortality rates for a variety of serious chronic conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, and some forms of cancer in Appalachian coal mining regions, are higher than in areas lacking substantial...
Coupling of Indo-Pacific climate variability over the last millennium
Nerilie J. Abram, Nicky M. Wright, Bethany Ellis, Bronwyn C. Dixon, Jennifer B. Wurtzel, Matthew H. England, Caroline C. Ummenhofer, Belle E. Philibosian, Sri Yudawati Cahyarini, Tsai-Luen Yu, Chuan-Chou Shen, Hai Cheng, R. Lawrence Edwards, David Heslop
2020, Nature (579) 385-392
The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) impacts climate and rainfall across the world, and most severely in nations surrounding the Indian Ocean1-4. The frequency and intensity of positive IOD events increased during the 20th Century5 and may continue to intensify in a warming world6; however, confidence in future IOD changes is limited by known...
Estimating population persistence for at-risk species using citizen science data
B.A. Crawford, M. Olds, J.C. Maerz, Clinton T. Moore
2020, Biological Conservation (243)
Population persistence probability is valuable for characterizing risk to species and informing listing and conservation decisions but is challenging to estimate through traditional methods for rare, data-limited species. Modeling approaches have used citizen science data to mitigate data limitations of focal species and better...
Niche partitioning among native ciscoes and nonnative Rainbow Smelt in Lake Superior
Caroline Lynn Rosinski, Mark Vinson, Daniel L. Yule
2020, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (149) 184-203
Several species of ciscoes Coregonus, subgenus Leucichthys that are native to the Laurentian Great Lakes are rare or extirpated. The restoration of Coregonus fishes is being actively pursued through stocking, and success may depend on the availability of unoccupied niche space. We described the spring–summer habitat occupancy and diets of three native cisco species (Bloater Coregonus...
Use of multiple temperature logger models can alter conclusions
Joanna B. Whittier, Jacob T. Westhoff, Craig P. Paukert, Robin M. Rotman
2020, Water (12)
Remote temperature loggers are often used to measure water temperatures for ecological studies and by regulatory agencies to determine whether water quality standards are being maintained. Equipment specifications are often given a cursory review in the methods; however, the effect of temperature logger model is rarely addressed in the discussion....
Quality control and assessment of interpreter consistency of annual land cover reference data in an operational national monitoring program
Bruce Pengra, Stephen V. Stehman, Josephine Horton, Daryn Dockter, Todd A. Schroeder, Zhiqiang Yang, Warren B Cohen, Sean P. Healey, Thomas Loveland
2020, Remote Sensing of Environment (238)
The U.S. Geological Survey Land Change Monitoring, Assessment and Projection (USGS LCMAP) initiative is working toward a comprehensive capability to characterize land cover and land cover change using dense Landsat time series data. A suite of products including annual land cover maps and annual land cover change maps will be...
Evaluating the mineral commodity supply risk of the U.S. manufacturing sector
Nedal T. Nassar, Jamie Brainard, Andrew L. Gulley, Ross Manley, Grecia R. Matos, Graham W. Lederer, Laurence Bird, David G. Pineault, Elisa Alonso, Joseph Gambogi, Steven M. Fortier
2020, Science Advances (6)
Trade tensions, resource nationalism, and various other factors are increasing concerns regarding the supply reliability of nonfuel mineral commodities. This is especially the case for commodities required for new and emerging technologies ranging from electric vehicles to wind turbines. In this analysis, we utilize a conventional risk-modeling framework to develop...
Ichthyophonus sp. Infection in Opaleye (Girella nigricans)
Elise E. B LaDouceur, Judy St. Leger, Alexandria Mena, Ashley MacKenzie, Jacob Gregg, Maureen K. Purcell, William N. Batts, Paul Hershberger
2020, Veterinary Pathology (57) 316-320
Over a 3-year-period, 17 wild-caught opaleye (Girella nigricans) housed in a public display aquarium were found dead without premonitory signs. Grossly, 4 animals had pinpoint brown or black foci on coelomic adipose tissue. Histologically, liver, spleen, heart, and posterior kidney had mesomycetozoan granulomas in all cases; other organs were less...
Timescales of magmatic processes in post-collisional potassic lavas, northwestern Tibet
Haibo Zou, Jorge A. Vazquez, Qicheng Fan
2020, LITHOS (358-359)
Post-collisional potassic volcanic rocks on the Tibetan Plateau are widespread, but geologically young (<375 ka) volcanism suitable for 238U-230Th geochronology is rare on the plateau. The geologically young Ashikule volcanic field from northern Tibet offers an excellent opportunity for studying high-resolution timescales of...
Spatial and temporal trends in Potomac River fish abundance linked to species traits
Nathaniel P. Hitt, Karli Rogers, Zachary A. Kelly, Josh Henesy, John E. Mullican
2020, Ecosphere (11)
Analysis of species abundance trends can inform an understanding of the underlying mechanisms. We evaluated spatial and temporal trends in fish species abundance in the non-tidal Potomac River (USA) from a dataset comprising 2841 seine-hauls with > 250,000 individual fish records across 10 sites and 43 years (1975-2017). The dataset...
Anthropogenic pollutants and biomarkers for the identification of 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami deposits (Japan)
Piero Bellanova, Mike Frenken, Klaus Reicherter, Bruce E. Jaffe, Witold Szczucinski, Jan Schwarzbauer
2020, Marine Geology (422)
Organic geochemistry is commonly used in environmental studies. In tsunami research, however, its applications are in their infancy and it is still rarely used. We present results for two types of organic geochemical markers, biomarkers and anthropogenic markers, present in deposits...
Identification of factors affecting predation risk for juvenile turtles using 3D printed models
S.J. Tetzlaff, A. Estrada, Brett Alexander DeGregorio, J. H. Sperry
2020, Animals (10)
Although it is widely accepted that juvenile turtles experience high levels of predation, such events are rarely observed, providing limited evidence regarding predator identities and how juvenile habitat selection and availability of sensory cues to predators affects predation risk. We placed three-dimensional printed models resembling juvenile box...
Inexpensive, underwater filming of rare fishes in high definition
Scott A. Bonar, Taylor Ulrich
2020, Fisheries Magazine (45) 121-130
Generating public interest in fish and their biology is often challenging. Many aquatic species are cryptic and largely invisible to the public. Therefore, increasing public awareness of cryptic fishes and elevating their visibility to broad audiences requires innovation. Inexpensive technological advancements now provide fisheries biologists, managers,...
Flea sharing among sympatric rodent hosts: implications for potential plague effects on a threatened sciurid
Amanda R. Goldberg, Courtney J. Conway, Dean E. Biggins
2020, Ecosphere (11)
For vector-borne diseases, the abundance and competency of different vector species and their host preferences will impact the transfer of pathogens among hosts. Sylvatic plague is a lethal disease caused by the primarily flea-borne bacterium Yersinia pestis. Sylvatic plague was introduced into the western United States in the...
A weight-of-evidence approach for defining thermal sensitivity in a federally endangered species
Heather Galbraith, Carrie J. Blakeslee, Daniel E. Spooner, William A. Lellis
2020, Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems (30) 540-553
1. Managing for threatened and endangered species under changing environmental conditions is a challenge faced by resource managers worldwide. Lack of basic knowledge of the biology and habitat requirements of these species can contribute to this difficulty, but is confounded by the limitations of working with rare (i.e. few individuals)...
Mapping habitat suitability at range-wide scales: Spatially explicit distribution models to inform conservation and research for marsh birds
Bryan S. Stevens, Courtney J. Conway
2020, Conservation Science and Practice (2)
Habitat Loss is a primary cause of species decline, and predicting the distribution of quality habitats across broad scales is needed for conservation of rare species. Secretive marsh birds are a group of emergent-wetland specialists that include multiple threatened and endangered species whose populations have been impacted by wetland loss...
Throughfall reduction x fertilization: Deep soil water usage in a clay rich ultisol under loblolly pine in the Southeast USA
Jiaguo Qi, Daniel M. Markewitz, Mary Ann McGuire, Lisa Samuelson, Eric Ward
2020, Frontiers in Forests and Global Change (2)
Forests in the Southeast USA are predicted to experience a moderate decrease in precipitation inputs over this century that may result in soil water deficiency during the growing season. The potential impact of a drier climate on the productivity of managed loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) plantations in the Southeast...
Multi-decadal patterns of vegetation succession after tundra fire on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska
Gerald Frost, Rachel A. Loehman, Lisa Saperstein, Matthew J. Macander, Peter Nelson, David Paradis, Sue M. Natali
2020, Environmental Research Letters
Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YKD) is one of the warmest parts of the Arctic tundra biome and tundra fires are common in its upland areas. Here we combine field measurements, Landsat observations, and quantitative cover maps for tundra plant functional types (PFTs) to characterize multi-decadal succession and landscape change after fire in lichen-dominated upland tundra...
Response to terrestrial nest predators among endemic and introduced Hawaiian birds
George C Cummins, Tad C Theimer, Eben H. Paxton
2020, Ecology and Evolution (10) 1949-1958
Birds free from nest predators for long periods may either lose the ability to recognize and respond to predators or retain antipredator responses if they are not too costly. How these alternate scenarios play out has rarely been investigated in an avian community whose members have different evolutionary histories. We...
Breeding and diet of White-tailed Kites (Elanus leucurus) in the Texas panhandle
Katheryn Watson, Daniel U. Greene, Clint W. Boal
2020, Wilson Journal of Ornithology (131) 844-849
White-tailed Kites (Elanus leucurus) are grassland raptors that typically breed along coastal regions, particularly in California, southeastern Texas, and southern Florida. This species is irregular in the Texas panhandle, with few confirmed breeding and sighting records. We describe the first breeding record in Lubbock County, Texas, in which a pair...
