Effect of land cover change on snow free surface albedo across the continental United States
J. Wickham, M.S. Nash, Christopher A. Barnes
2016, Global and Planetary Change (146) 1-9
Land cover changes (e.g., forest to grassland) affect albedo, and changes in albedo can influence radiative forcing (warming, cooling). We empirically tested albedo response to land cover change for 130 locations across the continental United States using high resolution (30 m-×-30 m) land cover change data and moderate resolution (~ 500 m-×-500 m) albedo data....
Phenology of the adult angel lichen moth (Cisthene angelus) in Grand Canyon, USA
Anya N. Metcalfe, Theodore A. Kennedy, Jeffrey D. Muehlbauer
2016, Southwestern Naturalist (61) 233-240
We investigated the phenology of adult angel lichen moths (Cisthene angelus) along a 364-km long segment of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, using a unique data set of 2,437 light-trap samples collected by citizen scientists. We found that adults of C. angelus were bivoltine from 2012 to...
Responses of a 58-story RC dual core shear wall and outrigger frame building inferred from two earthquakes
Mehmet Çelebi
2016, Earthquake Spectra (32) 2449-2471
Responses of a dual core shear-wall and outrigger-framed 58-story building recorded during the Mw6.0 Napa earthquake of 24 August 2014 and the Mw3.8 Berkeley earthquake of 20 October 2011 are used to identify its dynamic characteristics and behavior. Fundamental frequencies are 0.28 Hz (NS), 0.25 Hz (EW), and 0.43 Hz...
Landsat 8: The plans, the reality, and the legacy
Thomas R. Loveland, James R. Irons
2016, Remote Sensing of Environment (185) 1-6
Landsat 8, originally known as the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)-U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) partnership that continues the legacy of continuous moderate resolution observations started in 1972. The conception of LDCM to the reality of Landsat 8 followed an arduous path extending...
Water clarity of the Colorado River—Implications for food webs and fish communities
Nicholas Voichick, Theodore A. Kennedy, David J. Topping, Ronald E. Griffiths, Kyrie Fry
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3053
The closure of Glen Canyon Dam in 1963 resulted in drastic changes to water clarity, temperature, and flow of the Colorado River in Glen, Marble, and Grand Canyons. The Colorado River is now much clearer, water temperature is less variable throughout the year, and the river is much colder in...
The use of amino acid indices for assessing organic matter quality and microbial abundance in deep-sea Antarctic sediments of IODP Expedition 318
Stephanie A Carr, Christopher T. Mills, Kevin W Mandernack
2016, Marine Chemistry (186) 72-82
The Adélie Basin, located offshore of the Wilkes Land margin, experiences unusually high sedimentation rates (~ 2 cm yr− 1) for the Antarctic coast. This study sought to compare depthwise changes in organic matter (OM) quantity and quality with changes in microbial biomass with depth at this high-deposition site and an offshore continental margin...
Chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer: Infection, mortality, and implications for heterogeneous transmission
Michael D. Samuel, Daniel J. Storm
2016, Ecology (97) 3195-3205
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease affecting free-ranging and captive cervids that now occurs in 24 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. Despite the potential threat of CWD to deer populations, little is known about the rates of infection and mortality caused by this disease. We used...
Bedrock morphology and structure, upper Santa Cruz Basin, south-central Arizona, with transient electromagnetic survey data
Mark W. Bultman, William R. Page
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1152
The upper Santa Cruz Basin is an important groundwater basin containing the regional aquifer for the city of Nogales, Arizona. This report provides data and interpretations of data aimed at better understanding the bedrock morphology and structure of the upper Santa Cruz Basin study area which encompasses the Rio Rico...
Time-lapse gravity data for monitoring and modeling artificial recharge through a thick unsaturated zone
Jeffrey R. Kennedy, Ty P.A. Ferre, Benjamin Creutzfeldt
2016, Water Resources Research (52) 7244-7261
Groundwater-level measurements in monitoring wells or piezometers are the most common, and often the only, hydrologic measurements made at artificial recharge facilities. Measurements of gravity change over time provide an additional source of information about changes in groundwater storage, infiltration, and for model calibration. We demonstrate that for an artificial...
Bayesian cross-validation for model evaluation and selection, with application to the North American Breeding Bird Survey
William A. Link, John R. Sauer
2016, Ecology (97) 1746-1758
The analysis of ecological data has changed in two important ways over the last 15 years. The development and easy availability of Bayesian computational methods has allowed and encouraged the fitting of complex hierarchical models. At the same time, there has been increasing emphasis on acknowledging and accounting for model uncertainty....
Uncertainty in biological monitoring: a framework for data collection and analysis to account for multiple sources of sampling bias
Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez, Melvin B. Hooten, Evan H. Campbell Grant
2016, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (7) 900-909
Biological monitoring programmes are increasingly relying upon large volumes of citizen-science data to improve the scope and spatial coverage of information, challenging the scientific community to develop design and model-based approaches to improve inference.Recent statistical models in ecology have been developed to accommodate false-negative errors, although current...
Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA analyses of golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos canadensis) from three areas in western North America; initial results and conservation implications
Erica H. Craig, Jennifer R. Adams, Lisette P. Waits, Mark R. Fuller, Diana M. Whittington
2016, PLoS ONE (11)
Understanding the genetics of a population is a critical component of developing conservation strategies. We used archived tissue samples from golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos canadensis) in three geographic regions of western North America to conduct a preliminary study of the genetics of the North American subspecies, and to provide data...
Recurrent hybridization and recent origin obscure phylogenetic relationships within the ‘white-headed’ gull (Larus sp.) complex
Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Robert E. Wilson, Terry Chesser, Jean-Marc Pons, Pierre-Andre Crochet, Amy Driscoll, Carla Dove
2016, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution (103) 41-54
Species complexes that have undergone recent radiations are often characterized by extensive allele sharing due to recent ancestry and (or) introgressive hybridization. This can result in discordant evolutionary histories of genes and heterogeneous genomes, making delineating species limits difficult. Here we examine the phylogenetic relationships among a complex group of...
Spatiotemporal variability of inorganic nutrients during wastewater effluent dominated streamflow conditions in Indian Creek, Johnson County, Kansas, 2012–15
Guy M. Foster, Jennifer L. Graham, Thomas J. Williams, Lindsey R. King
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5147
Nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, are a leading cause of water-quality impairment in Kansas and the Nation. Indian Creek is one of the most urban drainage basins in Johnson County, Kansas, and environmental and biological conditions are affected by contaminants from point and other urban sources. The Johnson County Douglas...
Loads of nitrate, phosphorus, and total suspended solids from Indiana watersheds
Aubrey R. Bunch
2016, Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science (125) 137-150
Transport of excess nutrients and total suspended solids (TSS) such as sediment by freshwater systems has led to degradation of aquatic ecosystems around the world. Nutrient and TSS loads from Midwestern states to the Mississippi River are a major contributor to the Gulf of Mexico Hypoxic Zone, an area of...
Sedimentary exhalative (sedex) zinc-lead-silver deposit model
Poul Emsbo, Robert R. Seal, George N. Breit, Sharon F. Diehl, Anjana K. Shah
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5070-N
This report draws on previous syntheses and basic research studies of sedimentary exhalative (sedex) deposits to arrive at the defining criteria, both descriptive and genetic, for sedex-type deposits. Studies of the tectonic, sedimentary, and fluid evolution of modern and ancient sedimentary basins have also been used to select defining criteria....
Community for Data Integration 2015 annual report
Madison L. Langseth, Michelle Y. Chang, Jennifer Carlino, J. Ryan Bellmore, Daniella D. Birch, Joshua Bradley, R. Sky Bristol, Daniel D. Buscombe, Jeffrey J. Duda, Anthony L. Everette, Tabitha A. Graves, Michelle M. Greenwood, David L. Govoni, Heather S. Henkel, Vivian B. Hutchison, Brenda K. Jones, Tim Kern, Jennifer Lacey, Rynn M. Lamb, Frances L. Lightsom, John L. Long, Ra’ad A. Saleh, Stan W. Smith, Christopher E. Soulard, Roland J. Viger, Jonathan A. Warrick, Katherine E. Wesenberg, Daniel J. Wieferich, Luke A. Winslow
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1165
The Community for Data Integration (CDI) continued to experience success in fiscal year 2015. The CDI community members have been sharing, learning, and collaborating through monthly forums, workshops, working groups, and funded projects. In fiscal year 2015, CDI coordinated 10 monthly forums with 16 different speakers from the U.S. Geological...
High-resolution geophysical data from the Inner Continental Shelf: South of Martha's Vineyard and north of Nantucket, Massachusetts
Seth D. Ackerman, Laura L. Brothers, David S. Foster, Brian D. Andrews, Wayne E. Baldwin, William C. Schwab
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1168
The U.S. Geological Survey and the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management have cooperated to map approximately 185 square kilometers of the inner continental shelf south of Martha’s Vineyard and north of Nantucket, Massachusetts. This report contains geophysical data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey during a survey in 2013....
Collision and displacement vulnerability among marine birds of the California Current System associated with offshore wind energy infrastructure
Josh Adams, Emily C. Kelsey, Jonathan J. Felis, David M. Pereksta
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1154
With growing climate change concerns and energy constraints, there is an increasing need for renewable energy sources within the United States and globally. Looking forward, offshore wind-energy infrastructure (OWEI) has the potential to produce a significant proportion of the power needed to reach our Nation’s renewable energy goal. Offshore...
Environmental factors influence lesser scaup migration chronology and population monitoring
Taylor A. Finger, Alan D. Afton, Michael L. Schummer, Scott A. Petrie, Shannon S. Badzinski, Michael A. Johnson, Michael L. Szymanski, Kevin J. Jacobs, Glenn H. Olsen, M.E. Mitchell
2016, Journal of Wildlife Management (80) 1437-1449
Identifying environmental metrics specific to lesser scaup (Aythya affinis; scaup) spring migration chronology may help inform development of conservation, management and population monitoring. Our objective was to determine how environmental conditions influence spring migration of lesser scaup to assess the effectiveness of the Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey in...
A multi-decade record of high-quality fCO2 data in version 3 of the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT)
Dorothee Bakker, Camilla S. Landa, Benjamin Pfeil, Nicolas Metzl, Kevin O’Brien, Are Olsen, Karl Smith, Cathy Cosca, Sumiko Harasawa, Shin-ichiro Nakaoka, Stephen Jones, Yukihiro Nojiri, Tobias Steinhoff, Colm Sweeney, Ute Schuster, Taro Takahashi, Bronte Tilbrook, Chisato Wada, Rik Wanninkhof, Simone R. Alin, Carlos F. Balestrini, Leticia Barbero, Nicholas Bates, Alejandro A. Bianchi, Frederic Bonou, Jacqueline Boutin, Yann Bozec, Eugene F. Burger, Wei-Jun Cai, Robert D. Castle, Liqi Chen, Melissa Chierici, Kim Currie, Wiley Evans, Charles Featherstone, Richard Feely, Agneta Fransson, Catherine Goyet, Naomi Greenwood, Luke Gregor, Steven C. Hankin, Nick J. Hardman-Mountford, Jerome Harlay, Judith Hauck, Mario Hoppema, Matthew P. Humphreys, Christopher W. Hunt, Betty Huss, J. Severino P. Ibanhez, Truls Johannessen, Ralph F. Keeling, Vassilis Kitidis, Arne Kortzinger, Alex Kozyr, Evangelia Krasakopoulou, Akira Kuwata, Peter Landschutzer, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lefevre, Claire Lo Monaco, Ansley Manke, Jeremy T. Mathis, Liliane Merlivat, Frank J. Millero, Pedro M. S. Monteiro, David R. Munro, Akihiko Murata, Timothy Newberger, Abdirahman M. Omar, Tsuneo Ono, Kristina Paterson, David Pearce, Denis Pierrot, Lisa L. Robbins, Shu Saito, Joe Salisbury, Reiner Schlitzer, Bernd Schneider, Roland Schweitzer, Rainer Sieger, Ingunn Skjelvan, Kevin F. Sullivan, Stewart C. Sutherland, Adrienne J. Sutton, Kazuaki Tadokoro, Maciej Telszewski, Matthias Tuma, Steven M. A. C. van Heuven, Douglas Vandemark, Brian Ward, Andrew J. Watson, Suqing Xu
2016, Earth System Science Data (8) 383-413
The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) is a synthesis of quality-controlled f CO2 (fugacity of carbon dioxide) values for the global surface oceans and coastal seas with regular updates. Version 3 of SOCAT has 14.7 million f CO2 values from 3646 data sets covering the years 1957 to 2014. This...
Alternative approaches to vertebrate ecotoxicity tests in the 21st century: A review of developments over the last 2 decades and current status
Adam Lillicrap, Scott Belanger, Natalie Burden, David Du Pasquier, Michelle Embry, Marlies Halder, Mark Lampi, Lucy Lee, Teresa J. Norberg-King, Barnett A. Rattner, Kristin Schirmer, Paul Thomas
2016, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (35) 2637-2646
The need for alternative approaches to the use of vertebrate animals for hazard assessment of chemicals and pollutants has become of increasing importance. It is now the first consideration when initiating a vertebrate ecotoxicity test, to ensure that unnecessary use of vertebrate organisms is minimized wherever possible. For some regulatory...
Application of dimensionless sediment rating curves to predict suspended-sediment concentrations, bedload, and annual sediment loads for rivers in Minnesota
Christopher A. Ellison, Joel T. Groten, David L. Lorenz, Karl S. Koller
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5146
Consistent and reliable sediment data are needed by Federal, State, and local government agencies responsible for monitoring water quality, planning river restoration, quantifying sediment budgets, and evaluating the effectiveness of sediment reduction strategies. Heightened concerns about excessive sediment in rivers and the challenge to reduce costs and eliminate data gaps...
Water-level data for the Albuquerque Basin and adjacent areas, central New Mexico, period of record through September 30, 2015
Joseph E. Beman, Christina F. Bryant
2016, Data Series 1025
The Albuquerque Basin, located in central New Mexico, is about 100 miles long and 25–40 miles wide. The basin is hydrologically defined as the extent of consolidated and unconsolidated deposits of Tertiary and Quaternary age that encompasses the structural Rio Grande Rift between San Acacia to the south and Cochiti...
Dynamic reusable workflows for ocean science
Richard P. Signell, Filipe Fernandez, Kyle Wilcox
2016, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (4)
Digital catalogs of ocean data have been available for decades, but advances in standardized services and software for catalog search and data access make it now possible to create catalog-driven workflows that automate — end-to-end — data search, analysis and visualization of data from multiple distributed sources. Further, these workflows...
