Invasion of annual grasses following wildfire corresponds to maladaptive habitat selection by a sagebrush ecosystem indicator species
Brianne E. Brussee, Peter S. Coates, Shawn T. O’Neil, Michael L. Casazza, Shawn P. Espinosa, John D. Boone, Elisabeth M. Ammon, Scott C. Gardner, David J. Delehanty
2022, Global Ecology and Conservation (37)
Numerous wildlife species within semi-arid shrubland ecosystems across western North America are experiencing substantial habitat loss and fragmentation. These changes in habitat are often attributed to a diverse suite of factors including prolonged and increasingly severe droughts, conifer expansion, anthropogenic...
The impact of future climate on wetland habitat in a critical migratory waterfowl corridor of the Prairie Pothole Region
Owen P. McKenna
2022, Report
Depressional wetlands are extremely sensitive to changes in temperature and precipitation, so understanding how wetland inundation dynamics respond to changes in climate is essential for describing potential effects on wildlife breeding habitat. Millions of depressional basins make up the largest wetland complex in North America known as the Prairie Pothole...
Data-driven prospectivity modelling of sediment-hosted Zn-Pb mineral systems and their critical raw materials
Christopher J. M. Lawley, Anne E. McCafferty, Garth E. Graham, David L. Huston, Karen D. Kelley, Karol Czarnota, Suzanne Paradis, Jan M. Peter, Nathan Hayward, Mike Barlow, Poul Emsbo, Joshua Aaron Coyan, Carma A. San Juan, Michael G. Gadd
2022, Ore Geology Reviews (141) 1-23
Demand for critical raw materials is expected to accelerate over the next few decades due to continued population growth and the shifting consumption patterns of the global economy. Sedimentary basins are important sources for critical raw materials and new discoveries of sediment–hosted Mississippi Valley–type (MVT) and/or clastic–dominated (CD) Zn–Pb deposits...
Shrub influence on soil carbon and nitrogen in a semi-arid grassland is mediated by precipitation and largely insensitive to livestock grazing
Heather L. Throop, Seth M. Munson, Nicole Hornslein, Mitchel P McClaran
2022, Arid Land Research and Management (36) 27-46
Dryland (arid and semi-arid) ecosystems globally provide more than half of livestock production and store roughly one-third of soil organic carbon (SOC). Biogeochemical pools are changing due to shrub encroachment, livestock grazing, and climate change. We assessed how vegetation microsite, grazing, and precipitation interacted to affect SOC and total nitrogen...
SMaRT: A science-based tiered framework for common ravens
Seth J. Dettenmaier, Peter S. Coates, Cali L. Roth, Sarah C. Webster, Shawn T. O’Neil, Kerry L. Holcomb, John C. Tull, Pat J. Jackson
2021, Human–Wildlife Interactions (15) 575-597
Large-scale increases and expansion of common raven (Corvus corax; raven) populations are occurring across much of North America, leading to increased negative consequences for livestock and agriculture, human health and safety, and sensitive species conservation. We describe a science-based adaptive management framework that incorporates recent quantitative analyses and mapping products...
Crater growth and lava-lake dynamics revealed through multitemporal terrestrial lidar scanning at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi
Adam L. LeWinter, Steve W. Anderson, David C. Finnegan, Matthew R. Patrick, Tim R. Orr
2021, Professional Paper 1867-C
Lava lake surfaces display the tops of active magma columns and respond to eruption variables such as magmatic pressure, convection, degassing, and cooling, as well as interactions with the craters that contain them. However, they are challenging to study owing to the numerous hazards that accompany these eruptions, and they...
Spatial modeling of common raven density and occurrence helps guide landscape management within Great Basin sagebrush ecosystems
Sarah C. Webster, Shawn T. O’Neil, Brianne E. Brussee, Peter S. Coates, Pat J. Jackson, John C. Tull, David J. Delehanty
2021, Human–Wildlife Interactions (15)
Common ravens (Corvus corax; ravens) are a behaviorally flexible nest predator of several avian species, including species of conservation concern. Movement patterns based on life history phases, particularly territoriality of breeding birds and transiency of nonbreeding birds, are thought to influence the frequency and efficacy of nest predation. As such,...
Maps of the Arctic Alaska boundary area as defined by the U.S. Arctic Research and Policy Act—Including geospatial characteristics of select marine and terrestrial features
Dee M. Williams, Christopher L. Richmond
2021, Scientific Investigations Map 3484
This pamphlet presents a series of general reference maps showing relevant geospatial features of the U.S. Arctic boundary as defined by the U.S. Congress since 1984. The first generation of the U.S. Arctic Research and Policy Act (ARPA) boundary maps was originally formatted and published in 2009 by a private...
Remotely sensed fine-fuel changes from wildfire and prescribed fire in a semi-arid grassland
Adam Gerhard Wells, Seth M. Munson, Steven Sesnie, Miguel L. Villarreal
2021, Fire (4)
The spread of flammable invasive grasses, woody plant encroachment, and enhanced aridity have interacted in many grasslands globally to increase wildfire activity and risk to valued assets. Annual variation in the abundance and distribution of fine-fuel present challenges to land managers implementing prescribed burns and mitigating wildfire, although methods to...
Groundwater/surface-water interactions in the Partridge River Basin and evaluation of hypothetical future mine pits, Minnesota
Megan J. Haserodt, Randall J. Hunt, Michael N. Fienen, Daniel T. Feinstein
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5038
The Partridge River Basin (PRB) covers 156 square miles in northeastern Minnesota with headwaters in the Mesabi Iron Range. The basin is characterized by extensive wetlands, lakes, and streams in poorly drained and often thin glacial material overlying Proterozoic bedrock. To better understand the interaction between these extensive surface water...
Past, present, and future of Mars Polar Science: Outcomes and outlook from the 7th International Conference on Mars Polar Science and Exploration
Patricio Becerra, Isaac B. Smith, Shannon M Hibbard, Chimira Andres, Jonathan Bapst, Ali Bramson, Peter Buhler, Andrea Coronato, Serina Diniega, Jeremy Emmett, Anna Grau Galofre, Clemence Herny, Melinda Kahre, J. Paul Knightly, Stefano Nerozzi, Alyssa Pascuzzo, Ganna Portyankina, Jorge Rabassa, Leslie Tamppari, Timothy N. Titus, Jennifer L Whitten, Zurine Yoldi
2021, The Planetary Science Journal (2)
Mars Polar Science is a subfield of Mars science that encompasses all studies of the cryosphere of Mars and its interaction with the Martian environment. Every 4 yr, the community of scientists dedicated to this subfield meets to discuss new findings and debate open issues in the...
A novel automatic phenology learning (APL) method of training sample selection using multiple datasets for time-series land cover mapping
Congcong Li, George Z. Xian, Qiang Zhou, Bruce Pengra
2021, Remote Sensing of Environment (266)
The long record of Landsat imagery, which is the cornerstone of Earth observation, provides an opportunity to monitor land use and land cover (LULC) change and understand the interactions between the climate and earth system through time. A few change detection algorithms such...
Integrating socioecological suitability with human-wildlife conflict risk: Case study for translocation of a large ungulate
Nicholas P. McCann, Eric M. Walberg, James D. Forester, Michael W. Schrage, David C. Fulton, Mark A. Ditmer
2021, Journal of Applied Ecology (58) 2810-2820
Translocations are essential for re-establishing wildlife populations. As they sometimes fail, it is critical to assess factors that influence their success pre-translocation.Socioecological suitability models (SESMs) integrate social acceptance and ecological suitability to enable identification of areas where wildlife populations will expand, which makes it likely that SESMs will also...
Identification of the Gulf of Mexico as an important high-use habitat for leatherback turtles from Central America
D.R. Evans, R.A. Valverde, C. Ordonez, Raymond R. Carthy
2021, Ecosphere (12)
Endangered leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) are wide-ranging, long-distance migrants whose movements are often associated with environmental cues. We examined the spatial distribution and habitat use for 33 satellite-tracked leatherbacks from nesting beaches on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and Panama from 2004 to 2018,...
Late Holocene slip rate of the Mojave section of the San Andreas Fault near Palmdale, California
Elaine Young, Eric Cowgill, Katherine M. Scharer, Emery Anderson-Merritt, Amanda Keen-Zebert, Ray J. Weldon
2021, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (111) 3204-3225
The geologic slip rate on the Mojave section of the San Andreas fault is poorly constrained, despite its importance for understanding earthquake hazard, apparent discrepancies between geologic and geodetic slip rates along this fault section, and long‐term fault interactions in southern California. Here, we...
Cape Romain partnership for coastal protection
Mitchell J. Eaton, Fred A. Johnson, Jessica Mikels-Carrasco, David J. Case, Julien Martin, Bradley Stith, Simeon Yurek, Bradley Udell, Laura Villegas, Laura Taylor, Zulquarnain Haider, Hadi Charkhgard, Changhyun Kwon
2021, Open-File Report 2021-1021
This final report summarizes activities, outcomes, and lessons learned from a 3-year project titled “Climate Change Adaptation for Coastal National Wildlife Refuges” with the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) and local partners in the surrounding South Carolina Lowcountry. The Lowcountry is classified as the 10-county area encompassing the coastal...
A roadmap for sampling and scaling biological nitrogen fixation in terrestrial ecosystems
Fiona M. Soper, Benton Taylor, Joy Winbourne, Michelle Wong, Katherine A Dynarski, Carla R. G. Reis, Mark Peoples, Cory Cleveland, Sasha C. Reed, Duncan Menge, Steven S. Perakis
2021, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (12) 1122-1137
Accurately quantifying rates and patterns of biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) in terrestrial ecosystems is essential to characterize ecological and biogeochemical interactions, identify mechanistic controls, improve BNF representation in conceptual and numerical modelling, and forecast nitrogen limitation constraints on future carbon (C) cycling.While many resources address the technical advantages and...
U.S. Geological Survey—Department of the Interior Region 11, Alaska —2020 annual science report
Elizabeth M. Powers, Dee M. Williams, editor(s)
2021, Open-File Report 2021-1010
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mission: The USGS national mission is to monitor, analyze, and predict current and evolving dynamics of complex human and natural Earth-system interactions and to deliver actionable information at scales and timeframes relevant to decision-makers. Consistent with the national mission, the USGS in Alaska provides...
Assessment of water availability in the Osage Nation using an integrated hydrologic-flow model
Jonathan P. Traylor, Shana L. Mashburn, Randall T. Hanson, Steven M. Peterson
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5141
The Osage Nation of northeastern Oklahoma, conterminous with Osage County, covers about 2,900 square miles. The area is primarily rural with 62 percent of the land being native prairie grass, and much of the area is used for cattle ranching and extraction of petroleum and natural gas. Protection of water...
The making of the NEAM Tsunami Hazard Model 2018 (NEAMTHM18)
Roberto Basili, Beatriz Brizuela, Andre Herrero, Sarfraz Iqbal, Stefano Lorito, Francesco Emanuele Maesano, Shane Murphy, Paolo Perfetti, Fabrizio Romano, Antonio Scala, Jacopo Selva, Matteo Taroni, Mara Monica Tiberti, Hong Kie Thio, R. Tonini, Manuela Volpe, Sylfest Glimsdal, Carl B. Harbitz, Finn Lovholt, Maria Ana Baptista, Fernando Carrilho, Luis M. A. Matias, Rachid Omira, Andrey Babeyko, Andreas Hoechner, Mucahit Gurbuz, Onur Pekcan, A. Yalciner, Miquel Canals, Galderic Lastras, Apostolos Agalos, Gerassimo Papadapoulos, Ioanna Triantafyllou, Sabah Benchekroun, Hedi Agrebi Jaouadi, Samir Ben Abdallah, Atef Bouallegue, Hassene Hamdi, Foued Oueslati, A. Amato, Alberto Armigliato, Jorn Behrens, Gareth Davies, Daniela Di Bucci, Mauro Dolce, Eric L. Geist, Jose Manuel Gonzalez Vida, Mauricio Gonzalez, Jorges Macias Sanchez, C. Meletti, Ceren Ozer Sozdinler, Marco Pagani, Tom Parsons, Jascha Polet, William Power, Mathilde B. Sorensen, Andrey Zaytsev
2021, Frontiers in Earth Science (8)
The NEAM Tsunami Hazard Model 2018 (NEAMTHM18) is a probabilistic hazard model for tsunamis generated by earthquakes. It covers the coastlines of the North-eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and connected seas (NEAM). NEAMTHM18 was designed as a three-phase project. The first two phases were dedicated to the model development...
A lagrangian-to-eulerian metric to identify estuarine pelagic habitats
Paul Stumpner, Jon R. Burau, Alexander L. Forrest
2021, Estuaries and Coasts (44) 1231-1249
Estuaries are among the world’s most productive ecosystems, but recent natural and anthropogenic changes have stressed these ecosystems. Tools to assess estuarine pelagic habitats are important to support and maintain healthy ecosystem function. In this work, we demonstrate that estuarine pelagic habitats can be identified by...
Stress gradients interact with disturbance to reveal alternative states in salt marsh: Multivariate resilience at the landscape scale
Scott Jones, Camille Stagg, Erik S. Yando, W. Ryan James, Kevin J. Buffington, Mark W. Hester
2021, Journal of Ecology (109) 3211-3223
Stress gradients influence many ecosystem processes and properties, including ecosystem recovery from and resistance to disturbance. While recent analytical approaches have advanced multivariate metrics of ecosystem resilience that allow quantification of conceptual resilience models and identification of thresholds of state change, these approaches are not often translated to landscape...
Transport and speciation of uranium in groundwater-surface water systems impacted by legacy milling operations
Patrick A. Byrne, Christopher C. Fuller, David L. Naftz, Robert L. Runkel, Niklas J Lehto, William L Dam
2021, Science of the Total Environment (761)
Growing worldwide concern over uranium contamination of groundwater resources has placed an emphasis on understanding uranium transport dynamics and potential toxicity in groundwater-surface water systems. In this study, we utilized novel in-situ sampling methods to establish the location and magnitude of contaminated groundwater entry into a receiving surface water environment,...
Quantifying and mapping inundation regimes within a large river‐floodplain ecosystem for ecological and management applications
Molly Van Appledorn, Nathan R. De Jager, Jason J. Rohweder
2021, River Research and Applications (37) 241-255
Spatial information on the distribution of ecosystem patterns and processes can be a critical component of designing and implementing effective management programs in river‐floodplain ecosystems. For example, translating how flood pulses detected within a stream gauge record are spatially manifested across a river‐valley bottom can be used to evaluate whether...
Recent planform changes in the Upper Mississippi River
James T. Rogala, Faith A. Fitzpatrick, Jon S. Hendrickson
2020, Long Term Resource Monitoring Technical Report LTRM-2019GC8
Geomorphic changes in the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) have long been a concern of river agencies charged with maintaining and restoring river habitat (GREAT 1980; Jackson et al. 1981; USFWS 1992). Large meandering alluvial rivers like the UMR are expected to constantly change and adjust their fluvial landforms within their...
