Contemporary fluvial geomorphology and suspended sediment budget of the partly confined, mixed bedrock-alluvial South River, Virginia, USA
James E. Pizzuto, Michael A. O’Neal, Pramenath Narinesingh, Katherine Skalak, Dajana Jurk, Suzann Collins, Jacquelyn Calder
2018, GSA Bulletin (130) 1859-1874
We developed a conceptual model and suspended sediment budget for a 38 km reach of the fifth-order South River, Virginia, for the past 75 yr. Bedrock, terraces, and alluvial fans confine 64% of the channel’s lateral boundaries, while bedrock exposures impose vertical confinement along 37% of the channel. Bedrock exposures...
Extreme drought alters frequency and reproductive success of floaters in Willow Flycatchers
Tad Theimer, Mark K. Sogge, Suzanne N. Cardinal, Scott L. Durst, Eben H. Paxton
2018, The Auk (135) 647-656
Changes in habitat quality, including those caused by extreme events like droughts and floods, could alter costs and benefits of territoriality and thereby the prevalence and reproductive consequences for individuals capable of breeding that do not do so (floaters). We studied floating behavior in a population of Southwestern Willow Flycatchers...
Groundwater flux estimation in streams: A thermal equilibrium approach
Yan Zhou, Garey A. Fox, Ron B. Miller, Robert Mollenhauer, Shannon K. Brewer
2018, Journal of Hydrology (561) 822-832
Stream and groundwater interactions play an essential role in regulating flow, temperature, and water quality for stream ecosystems. Temperature gradients have been used to quantify vertical water movement in the streambed since the 1960s, but advancements in thermal methods are still possible. Seepage runs are a method commonly used to...
Potential impacts of projected climate change on vegetation-management strategies in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park
Richard J. Camp, S. Paul Berkowitz, Kevin W. Brink, James D. Jacobi, Rhonda Loh, Jonathan Price, Lucas B. Fortini
2018, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5012
Climate change is expected to alter the seasonal and annual patterns of rainfall and temperature in the Hawaiian Islands. Land managers and other responsible agencies will need to know how plant-species habitats will change over the next century in order to manage these resources effectively. This issue is a major...
Limited hatchery introgression into wild brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) populations despite reoccurring stocking
Shannon L. White, William L. Miller, Stephanie A. Dowell, Meredith L. Bartron, Tyler Wagner
2018, Evolutionary Applications (11) 1567-1581
Due to increased anthropogenic pressures on many fish populations, supplementing wild populations with captive‐raised individuals has become an increasingly common management practice. Stocking programs can be controversial due to uncertainty about the long‐term fitness effects of genetic introgression on wild populations. In particular, introgression between hatchery and wild individuals can...
Spatial variability and macro‐scale drivers of growth for native and introduced Flathead Catfish populations
Danielle L. Massie, Geoffrey Smith, Timothy F. Bonvechio, Aaron J. Bunch, David O. Lucchesi, Tyler Wagner
2018, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (147) 554-565
Quantifying spatial variability in fish growth and identifying large‐scale drivers of growth are fundamental to many conservation and management decisions. Although fish growth studies often focus on a single population, it is becoming increasingly clear that large‐scale studies are likely needed for addressing transboundary management needs. This is particularly true...
Small values in big data: The continuing need for appropriate metadata
Craig A. Stow, Katherine E. Webster, Tyler Wagner, Noah R. Lottig, Patricia A. Soranno, YoonKyung Cha
2018, Ecological Informatics (45) 26-30
Compiling data from disparate sources to address pressing ecological issues is increasingly common. Many ecological datasets contain left-censored data – observations below an analytical detection limit. Studies from single and typically small datasets show that common approaches for handling censored data — e.g., deletion or substituting fixed values — result...
Mapping cropland fallow areas in myanmar to scale up sustainable intensification of pulse crops in the farming system
Murali Krishna Gumma, Prasad S. Thenkabail, Kumara Charyulu Deevi, Irshad A. Mohammed, Pardhasaradhi Teluguntla, Adam Oliphant, Jun Xiong, Tin Aye, Anthony M. Whittbread
2018, GIScience and Remote Sensing (55) 926-949
Cropland fallows are the next best-bet for intensification and extensification, leading to increased food production and adding to the nutritional basket. The agronomical suitability of these lands can decide the extent of usage of these lands. Myanmar’s agricultural land (over 13.8 Mha) has the potential to expand by another 50%...
Science at the frontier: Multimethod research to evaluate ecosystem change across multiple scales
Colin Tucker, Dong Yan, Sasha C. Reed, Matthew Dannenberg, William Smith
2018, New Phytologist (218) 1318-1320
Changes in the Earth system occur across the full spectrum of spatial and temporal scales, yet our research approaches to understanding and predicting those changes are typically restricted to a pre-defined window of space and time. For this reason, there is substantial power in integrating different approaches, particularly for research...
The map as knowledge base
Dalia E. Varanka, E. Lynn Usery
2018, International Journal of Cartography (4) 201-223
This paper examines the concept and implementation of a map as a knowledge base. A map as a knowledge base means that the visual map is not only the descriptive compilation of data and design principles, but also involves a compilation of semantic propositions and logical predicates that create a...
Cumulative spring discharge and survey effort influence occupancy and detection of a threatened freshwater mussel, the Suwannee Moccasinshell
Jordan M. Holcomb, Colin P. Shea, Nathan A. Johnson
2018, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (9) 95-105
Freshwater mussels (Unionidae) are among the most imperiled groups of organisms in the world, and the lack of information regarding species distributions, life-history characteristics, and ecological and biological requirements may limit the protection of remaining mussel populations. We examined the influence of hydrologic factors on the occurrence of the Suwannee...
Long-term effects of fire and harvest on carbon stocks of boreal forests in northeastern China
Chao Huang, Hong S. He, Yu Liang, Zhiwei Wu, Todd Hawbaker, Peng Gong, Zhiliang Zhu
2018, Annals of Forest Science (75)
ContextBoreal forests represent about one third of forest area and one third of forest carbon stocks on the Earth. Carbon stocks of boreal forests are sensitive to climate change, natural disturbances, and human activities.AimsThe objectives of this study were to...
Three-dimensional modeling of fine sediment transport by waves and currents in a shallow estuary
Yi-Ju Chou, Kurt S. Nelson, Rusty C. Holleman, Oliver B. Fringer, Mark T. Stacey, Jessica R. Lacy, Stephen G. Monismith, Jeffrey R. Koseff
2018, Journal of Geophysical Research C: Oceans (123) 4177-4199
A suspended sediment transport model is implemented in the unstructured‐grid SUNTANS model and applied to study fine‐grained sediment transport in South San Francisco Bay. The model enables calculation of suspension of bottom sediment based on combined forcing of tidal currents and wind waves. We show that accurate results can be...
Benthic foraminifera from the Carnarvon Ramp reveal variability in Leeuwin Current activity (Western Australia) since the Pliocene
Christian Haller, Pamela Hallock, Albert C. Hine, Christopher G. Smith
2018, Marine Micropaleontology (142) 25-39
Benthic foraminiferal assemblages from a ~300 m deep core from an outer carbonate-ramp site off Western Australia (International Ocean Discovery Program Core U1460A) were examined to reconstruct the paleoceanographic evolution of the Carnarvon Ramp and the warm surficial Leeuwin Current (LC) for the last 3.54 Ma. Of the identified 179...
Site-scale disturbance best predicts moss, vascular plant, and amphibian indices in Ohio wetlands
Martin A. Stapanian, Mick Micacchion, Brian Gara, William Schumacher, Jean V. Adams
2018, Ecological Restoration (36) 145-156
Loss of wetland habitats and their associated biological communities is a major environmental concern. Quality assessment indices (QAIs) and indices of biological integrity (IBIs) are useful for assessing the responses of taxa to wetland habitat quality and land use in the surrounding landscape. We synthesized the results of our previous...
burnr: Fire history analysis and graphics in R
Steven B. Malevich, Christopher H. Guiterman, Ellis Q. Margolis
2018, Dendrochronologia (49) 9-15
We developed a new software package, burnr, for fire history analysis and plotting in the Rstatistical programming environment. It was developed for tree-ring fire-scar analysis, but is broadly applicable to other event analyses (e.g., avalanches, frost rings, or culturally modified trees). Our new package can read, write, and manipulate standard tree-ring fire history FHX...
New insights on scale-dependent surface-groundwater exchange from a floating self-potential Dipole
Scott Ikard, Andrew P. Teeple, Jason Payne, Gregory P. Stanton, J. Ryan Banta
2018, Journal of Environmental & Engineering Geophysics (23) 261-287
In south-central Texas the lower Guadalupe River has incised into the outcrop of the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer. The river and the aquifer are hydraulically connected across the outcrop, although the connectivity is obscured at the surface by alluvium and surface-water and groundwater exchange dynamics are currently poorly understood. To investigate surface-water...
Improving geographically extensive acoustic survey designs for modeling species occurrence with imperfect detection and misidentification
Katharine M. Banner, Kathryn M. Irvine, Thomas J. Rodhouse, Wilson J. Wright, Rogelio M. Rodriguez, Andrea R. Litt
2018, Ecology and Evolution (8) 6144-6156
Acoustic recording units (ARUs) enable geographically extensive surveys of sensitive and elusive species. However, a hidden cost of using ARU data for modeling species occupancy is that prohibitive amounts of human verification may be required to correct species identifications made from automated software. Bat acoustic studies exemplify this challenge because...
Thamnophis sirtalis fitchi (Valley Gartersnake). Coloration.
Alexandria M. Fulton
2018, Herpetological Review (49) 358-358
During surveys for Thamnophis gigas (Giant Gartersnake), I observed an adult T. sirtalis fitchi with unusual coloration— a yellow-cream background color with some typical red coloration laterally, but with very minimal amounts of the dark slate-black (along the sides of the yellow dorsal stripe and on top of the head)...
Flood effects on soil thermal regimes in contrasting cold‐desert river floodplains (Yampa and Green rivers, Colorado)
Douglas C. Andersen
2018, Ecohydrology (11) 1-17
Heat transfer theory suggests that floodplain soils in dryland riverine ecosystems can be cooled by hyporheic flows generated during spring floods. I compared soil temperature cycles and associated hydrologic factors on a free‐flowing river to those on a river where flows and surface water temperatures are now regulated. Spring surface...
Processes and facies relationships in a Lower(?) Devonian rocky shoreline depositional environment, East Lime Creek Conglomerate, south‐western Colorado, USA
James E. Evans, Christopher S. Holm-Denoma
2018, The Depositional Record (4) 133-156
Rocky shorelines are relatively common features along modern coastlines, but few have been recognized in the geological record. The hard substrates of rocky shorelines telescope the width of offshore marine environments, thus the diagnostic deposits observed in such settings today have a low preservation potential due to small accommodation space...
Wildland–urban interface residents’ relationships with wildfire: Variation within and across communities
James R. Meldrum, Hannah Brenkert-Smith, Patricia A. Champ, Lilia C. Falk, Pamela Wilson, Christopher M. Barth
2018, Society and Natural Resources (31) 1132-1148
Social science offers rich descriptions of relationships between wildland–urban interface residents and wildfire, but syntheses across different contexts might gloss over important differences. We investigate the potential extent of such differences using data collected consistently in sixty-eight Colorado communities and hierarchical modeling. We find substantial variation across responses for all...
Environmental controls on the geochemistry of Globorotalia truncatulinoides in the Gulf of Mexico: Implications for paleoceanographic reconstructions
Caitlin E. Reynolds, Julie N. Richey, Jennifer S. Fehrenbacher, Brad E. Rosenheim, Howard J. Spero
2018, Marine Micropaleontology (142) 92-104
Modern observations of planktic foraminifera from sediment trap studies help to constrain the regional ecology of paleoceanographically valuable species. Results from a weekly-resolved sediment trap time series (2008–2014) in the northern Gulf of Mexico demonstrate that 92% of Globorotalia truncatulinoides flux occurs in winter (January, February, and March), and that encrusted and non-encrusted individuals represent calcification in distinct depth habitats....
Prediction uncertainty and data worth assessment for groundwater transport times in an agricultural catchment
Wesley O. Zell, Teresa B. Culver, Ward E. Sanford
2018, Journal of Hydrology (561) 1019-1036
Uncertainties about the age of base-flow discharge can have serious implications for the management of degraded environmental systems where subsurface pathways, and the ongoing release of pollutants that accumulated in the subsurface during past decades, dominate the water quality signal. Numerical groundwater models may be used to estimate groundwater return...
Movement behavior preceding autumn mortality for white-tailed deer in central New York
Brigham J. Whitman, W. F. Porter, Amy C. Dechen Quinn, David M. Williams, Jacqueline L. Frair, H. Brian Underwood, Joanne C. Crawford
2018, Journal of Mammalogy (99) 675-683
A common yet largely untested assumption in the theory of animal movements is that increased rates and a wider range of movements, such as occurs during breeding, make animals more vulnerable to mortality. We examined mortality among 34 white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) wearing GPS collars during the autumn breeding season...