Latitude and daily-weather effects on gobbling activity of wild turkeys in Mississippi
Matthew D. Palumbo, Francisco Vilella, Guiming Wang, Bronson K. Strickland, Dave Godwin, P. Grady Dixon, Benjamin D. Rubin, Marcus A. Lashley
2019, International Journal of Biometeorology (63) 1059-1067
Weather has been recognized as a density independent factor influencing the abundance, distribution, and behavior of vertebrates. Male wild turkeys’ (Meleagris gallopavo) breeding behavior includes vocalizations and courtship displays to attract females, the phenology of which can vary with latitude. State biologists design spring turkey-hunting season frameworks centered...
The dependence of hydroclimate projections in snow‐dominated regions of the western United States on the choice of statistically downscaled climate data
Jay R. Alder, Steven W. Hostetler
2019, Water Resources Research (55) 2279-2300
We assess monthly temperature and precipitation data produced by four statistically based techniques that were used to downscale general circulation models (GCMs) in the Climate Model Intercomparison Program Phase 5 (CMIP5) (Taylor et al., 2012). We drive a simple water-balance model with the downscaled data to demonstrate the effect of...
Geochemical and mineralogical maps, with interpretation, for soils of the conterminous United States
David B. Smith, Federico Solano, Laurel G. Woodruff, William F. Cannon, Karl J. Ellefsen
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5118
Between 2007 and 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted a low-density (1 site per 1,600 square kilometers, 4,857 sites) geochemical and mineralogical survey of soils in the conterminous United States. The sampling protocol for the national-scale survey included, at each site, a sample from a depth of 0 to 5...
Arsenic concentrations after drinking water well installation: Time-varying effects on arsenic mobilization
Melinda L. Erickson, Helen F. Malenda, Emily C. Berquist, Joseph D. Ayotte
2019, Science of the Total Environment (678) 681-691
Chronic exposure to geogenic arsenic via drinking water is a worldwide health concern. However, effects of well installation and operation on arsenic concentrations and mobilization are not well understood. This knowledge gap impacts both reliable detection of arsenic in drinking water and effective public health recommendations to reduce exposure to...
Cloud cover and delayed herbivory relative to timing of spring onset interact to dampen climate change impacts on net ecosystem exchange in a coastal Alaskan wetland
Josh Leffler, Karen H. Beard, Katharine C. Kelsey, Ryan T. Choi, Joel A. Schmutz, Jeffrey Welker
2019, Environmental Research Letters (14)
Rapid warming in northern ecosystems over the past four decades has resulted in earlier spring, increased precipitation, and altered timing of plant–animal interactions, such as herbivory. Advanced spring phenology can lead to longer growing seasons and increased carbon (C) uptake. Greater precipitation coincides with greater cloud cover possibly suppressing photosynthesis....
Calcrete uranium deposits in the Southern High Plains, USA
Susan Hall, Bradley S. Van Gosen, James B. Paces, Robert A. Zielinski
2019, Ore Geology Reviews (109) 50-78
The Southern High Plains (SHP) is a new and emerging U.S. uranium province. Here, uranyl vanadates form deposits in Pliocene to Pleistocene sandstone, dolomite, and limestone. Fifteen calcrete uranium occurrences are identified; two of these, the Buzzard Draw and Sulfur Springs Draw deposits, have...
Estimation bias in water-quality constituent concentrations and fluxes: A synthesis for Chesapeake Bay rivers and streams
Qian Zhang, Joel D. Blomquist, Douglas L. Moyer, Jeffrey G. Chanat
2019, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (7)
Flux quantification for riverine water-quality constituents has been an active area of research. Statistical approaches are often employed to make estimation for days without observations. One such approach is the Weighted Regressions on Time, Discharge, and Season (WRTDS) method. While WRTDS has been used in many investigations, there is...
Modeling barrier island habitats using landscape position information
Nicholas Enwright, Lei Wang, Hongqing Wang, Michael Osland, Laura Feher, Sinéad M. Borchert, Richard Day
2019, Remote Sensing (11)
Barrier islands are dynamic environments because of their position along the marine–estuarine interface. Geomorphology influences habitat distribution on barrier islands by regulating exposure to harsh abiotic conditions. Researchers have identified linkages between habitat and landscape position, such as elevation and distance from shore, yet these linkages have not been fully...
Calibration of Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) to simulate prefire and postfire hydrologic response in the upper Rio Hondo Basin, New Mexico
Kyle R. Douglas-Mankin, C. David Moeser
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5022
The Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) is widely used to simulate the effects of climate, topography, land cover, and soils on landscape-level hydrologic responses and streamflow. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, developed procedures to apply the PRMS model...
Efficacy of eDNA as an early detection indicator for Burmese pythons in the ARM Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in the Greater Everglades Ecosystem
Margaret Hunter, Gaia Meigs-Friend, Jason Ferrante, Brian Smith, Kristen Hart
2019, Ecological Indicators (102) 617-622
Environmental DNA (eDNA) detection of invasive species can be used to delimited occupied ranges and estimate probabilities to inform management decisions. Environmental DNA is shed into the environment through skin cells and bodily fluids and can be detected in water samples collected from lakes, rivers, and swamps. In south Florida,...
A review of machine learning applications to coastal sediment transport and morphodynamics
Evan Goldstein, Giovanni Coco, Nathaniel G. Plant
2019, Earth-Science Reviews (194) 97-108
A range of computer science methods under the heading of machine learning (ML) enables the extraction of insight and quantitative relationships from multidimensional datasets. Here, we review some common ML methods and their application to studies of coastal morphodynamics and sediment transport. We examine aspects of ‘what’ and ‘why’ ML...
Fault slip associated with the 2 September 2017 M 5.3 Sulphur Peak, Idaho, earthquake and aftershock sequence
Frederick Pollitz, Charles Wicks, William L. Yeck, James E. Evans
2019, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (109) 875-887
The 2 September 2017 M 5.3 Sulphur Peak, Idaho, earthquake is one of the largest earthquakes in southern Idaho since the 1983 M 6.9 Borah Peak earthquake. It was followed by a vigorous aftershock sequence for nearly two weeks that included five events above M 4.5. The coseismic and early postseismic deformation was...
Ordovician Point Pleasant/Utica-Lower Paleozoic Total Petroleum System—Revisions to the Utica-Lower Paleozoic Total Petroleum System in the Appalachian Basin Province
Catherine B. Enomoto, Michael H. Trippi, Debra K. Higley
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5025
Hydrocarbon reserves and technically recoverable undiscovered resources in continuous accumulations are present in Upper Ordovician strata in the Appalachian Basin Province. The province includes parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. The Upper Ordovician strata are part of the previously defined Utica-Lower...
Evaluation of a Chicken 600K SNP genotyping array in non-model species of grouse
Piotr Minias, Peter O. Dunn, Linda A. Whittingham, Jeff A. Johnson, Sara J. Oyler-McCance
2019, Scientific Reports (9)
The use of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays to generate large SNP datasets for comparison purposes have recently become an attractive alternative to other genotyping methods. Although most SNP arrays were originally developed for domestic organisms, they can be effectively applied to wild relatives to obtain...
Adaptive management of flows from R.L. Harris Dam (Tallapoosa River, Alabama)—Stakeholder process and use of biological monitoring data for decision making
Elise R. Irwin, Mary Freeman, James T. Peterson, Kathryn D.M. Kennedy, M. Clint Lloyd, Kristie M. Ouellette Coffman, Ely Kosnicki, Tom Hess
Elise R. Irwin, editor(s)
2019, Open-File Report 2019-1026
Adaptive management has been applied to problems with multiple conflicting objectives in various natural resources settings to learn how management actions affect divergent values regarding system response. Hydropower applications have only recently begun to emerge in the field, yet in the specific example reported herein, stakeholders invested in determining the...
It’s about time: A synthesis of changing phenology in the Gulf of Maine ecosystem
Michelle Staudinger, Katherine E. Mills, Karen Stamieszkin, Nicholas R. Record, Christine A. Hudak, Andrew Allyn, Antony Diamond, Kevin Friedland, Walt Golet, Elisabeth Henderson, Christina M. Hernandez, Thomas G. Huntington, Rubao Ji, Catherine L. Johnson, David Samuel Johnson, Adrian Jordaan, John Kocik, Yun Li, Matthew Liebman, Owen C. Nichols, Daniel Pendleton, R. Anne Richards, Thomas Robben, Andrew C. Thomas, Harvey J. Walsh, Keenan Yakola
2019, Fisheries Oceanography (28) 532-566
The timing of recurring biological and seasonal environmental events is changing on a global scale relative to temperature and other climate drivers. This study considers the Gulf of Maine ecosystem, a region of high social and ecological importance in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and synthesizes current knowledge of 1) key...
Selected water-quality data from the Cedar River and Cedar Rapids well fields, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 2008–17
Shannon M. Meppelink, Erin A. Stelzer, Emilia L. Bristow, Gregory R. Littin
2019, Data Series 1110
The Cedar River alluvial aquifer is the primary source of municipal water in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Municipal wells are completed in the alluvial aquifer about 40 to 80 feet below land surface. The City of Cedar Rapids and the U.S. Geological Survey have led a cooperative study of the groundwater-flow...
Multiscale habitat factors explain variability in stream fish occurrence in the Ozark Highlands ecoregion, USA
Robert Mollenhauer, Yan Zhou, Shannon K. Brewer
2019, Copeia (107) 219-231
The dynamic, multiscale nature of stream systems makes it challenging to establish basic ecological principles to guide stream fish conservation and management. For example, finer-scale instream habitat is often constrained by coarser-scale characteristics driving observed species distributions. Additionally, instream environmental variability can result in patchy species distributions within general upstream–downstream...
Tracking legacy mercury in the Hackensack River Estuary using mercury stable isotopes
John R Reinfelder, Sarah E. Janssen
2019, Journal of Hazardous Materials (375) 121-129
Spatial redistribution of legacy mercury (Hg) contamination in the Hackensack River estuary (New Jersey, USA) was evaluated using mercury stable isotopes. Total Hg varied from 0.06 to 3.8 µg g-1 in sediment from the tidal Hackensack River and from 15 to 154 µg g-1 near historically contaminated sites in...
Risks of hydroclimatic regime shifts across the western United States
Subhrendu Gangopadhyay, Gregory J. McCabe, Gregory T. Pederson, Justin T. Martin, Jeremy S. Littell
2019, Nature Scientific Reports (9 p.)
Paleohydrologic reconstructions of water-year streamflow for 105 sites across the western United States (West) were used to compute the likelihood (risk) of regime (wet/dry state) shifts given the length of time in a specific regime and for a specified time in the future. The spatial variability...
Analysis and visualization of coastal ocean model data in the cloud
Richard P. Signell, Dharhas Pothina
2019, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (7)
The traditional flow of coastal ocean model data is from High Performance Computing (HPC) centers to the local desktop, or to a file server where just the data needed can be extracted via services such as OPeNDAP. Analysis and visualization is then conducted using local hardware and software. This...
Seasonal patterns in hydrochemical mixing in three Great Lakes rivermouth ecosystems
Martha Carlson-Mazur, Jeff Schaeffer, Jennifer E. Granneman, Natalie Goldstrohm, Faith A. Fitzpatrick, James H. Larson, Paul Reneau, Kurt P. Kowalski, Paul W. Seelbach
2019, Journal of Great Lakes Research (45) 651-663
Rivermouth ecosystems in the Laurentian Great Lakes represent complex hydrologic mixing zones where lake and river water combine to form biologically productive areas that are functionally similar to marine estuaries. As urban, industrial, shipping, and recreational centers, rivermouths are the focus of human interactions with the Great Lakes and, likewise,...
Evaluating and using existing models to map probable suitable habitat for rare plants to inform management of multiple-use public lands in the California desert
Gordon Reese, Sarah K. Carter, Christina Lunch, Steve Walterscheid
2019, PLoS ONE (14)
Multiple-use public lands require balancing diverse resource uses and values across landscapes. In the California desert, there is strong interest in renewable energy development and important conservation concerns. The Bureau of Land Management recently completed a land-use plan for the area that provides protection for modeled suitable habitat for multiple...
Drinking water health standards comparison and chemical analysis of groundwater for 72 domestic wells in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, 2016
John W. Clune, Charles A. Cravotta III
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5170
Pennsylvania has the second highest number of residential wells of any state in the Nation with approximately 2.4 million residents that depend on groundwater for their domestic water supply. Despite the widespread reliance on groundwater in rural areas of the state, publicly available data to characterize the quality of private...
Use of a Numerical Model to Simulate the Hydrologic System and Transport of Contaminants Near Joint Base Cape Cod, Western Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Donald A. Walter, Timothy D. McCobb, Michael N. Fienen
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5139
Historical training and operational activities at Joint Base Cape Cod (JBCC) on western Cape Cod, Massachusetts, have resulted in the release of contaminants into an underlying glacial aquifer that is the sole source of water to the surrounding communities. Remedial systems have been installed to contain and remove contamination from...
