Demographic responses to climate change in a threatened Arctic species
K.D. Dunham, A.M. Tucker, D.N. Koons, A. Abebe, F.S. Dobson, J. Barry Grand
2021, Ecology and Evolution (11) 10627-10643
The Arctic is undergoing rapid and accelerating change in response to global warming, altering biodiversity patterns, and ecosystem function across the region. For Arctic endemic species, our understanding of the consequences of such change remains limited. Spectacled eiders (Somateria fischeri), a large Arctic sea duck, use remote regions in the...
Event scale relationships of DOC and TDN fluxes in throughfall and stemflow diverge from stream exports in a forested catchment
Kevin A. Ryan, Thomas Adler, Ann T. Chalmers, Julia Perdrial, James B. Shanley, Aron Stubbins
2021, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (126)
Aquatic fluxes of carbon and nutrients link terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Within forests, storm events drive both the delivery of carbon and nitrogen to the forest floor and the export of these solutes from the land via streams. To increase understanding of the relationships between hydrologic event character and the...
Comparison of preservation and extraction methods on five taxonomically disparate coral microbiomes
Zoe A. Pratte, Christina A. Kellogg
2021, Frontiers in Marine Science (8)
All animals are host to a multitude of microorganisms that are essential to the animal’s health. Host-associated microbes have been shown to defend against potential pathogens, provide essential nutrients, interact with the host’s immune system, and even regulate mood. However, it can be difficult to preserve and obtain nucleic acids...
Long-term year-round observations of magmatic CO2 emissions on Mammoth Mountain, California, USA
Jennifer L. Lewicki
2021, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (418)
Diffuse emission of magmatic CO2 is one of the main indicators of volcanic unrest at Mammoth Mountain, but the presence of deep seasonal snowpack at the site has hindered year-round CO2 flux observations. A permanent eddy covariance station was established at the largest area of diffuse CO2 degassing...
A reactive transport approach to modeling cave seepage water chemistry I: Carbon isotope transformations
Jennifer Druhan, Corey Lawrence, Aaron Covey, Max Giannetta, Jessica Oster
2021, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (311) 374-400
The majority of Critical Zone research has emphasized silicate lithologies, which are typified by relatively slow rates of reactivity and incongruent weathering. However, the relatively simpler weathering of carbonate-dominated lithology can result in secondary mineral deposits, such as speleothems, which provide a long-term archive for Critical Zone processes. In particular,...
Urbanization impacts on evapotranspiration across various spatio-temporal scales
Amirhossein Mazrooei, Meredith Reitz, Dingbao Wang, A. Sankarasubramanian
2021, Earth's Future (9)
Urbanization has been shown to locally increase the nighttime temperatures creating urban heat islands, which partly arise due to evapotranspiration (ET) reduction. It is unclear how the direction and magnitude of the change in local ET due to urbanization varies globally across different climatic regimes. This knowledge...
A reactive transport approach to modeling cave seepage water chemistry II: Elemental signatures
Jessica Oster, Aaron Covey, Corey Lawrence, Max Giannetta, Jennifer Druhan
2021, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (311) 353-373
Karst systems are useful for examining spatial and temporal variability in Critical Zone processes because they provide a window into the subsurface where waters have interacted with vegetation, soils, regolith, and bedrock across a range of length and timescales. These hydrologic pathways frequently include the precipitation of speleothems, which provide long-term archives of climate and...
Influence of invasive submerged aquatic vegetation (E. densa) on currents and sediment transport in a freshwater tidal system
Jessica R. Lacy, Madeline R. Foster-Martinez, Rachel M. Allen, Judith Z. Drexler
2021, Water Resources Research (57)
We present a field study combining measurements of vegetation density, vegetative drag, and reduction of suspended-sediment concentration (SSC) within patches of the invasive submerged aquatic plant Egeria densa. Our study was motivated by concern that sediment trapping by E. densa, which has proliferated in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, is impacting marsh accretion...
Seismic monitoring during crises at the NEIC in support of the ANSS
Paul S. Earle, Harley M. Benz, William L. Yeck, Gavin P. Hayes, Michelle M. Guy, John Patton, David Kragness, David B. Mason, Brian Shiro, Emily Wolin, John Bellini, Jana Pursley, Robert Lorne Sanders
2021, Seismological Research Letters (5) 2905-2914
Over the past two decades, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) has overcome many operational challenges. These range from minor disruptions, such as power outages, to significant operational changes, including system reconfiguration to handle unique earthquake sequences and the need to...
Spatial and temporal distribution of radio-tagged Lost River (Deltistes luxatus) and shortnose (Chasmistes brevirostris) suckers in Clear Lake Reservoir and associated spawning tributaries, Northern California, 2015–17
Nathan Banet, David A. Hewitt, Amari Dolan-Caret, Alta C. Harris
2021, Open-File Report 2021-1061
Executive SummaryData from a multi-year radio telemetry study were used to assess seasonal distribution patterns for two long-lived, federally endangered catostomids across substantially different water conditions in Clear Lake Reservoir, northern California. Lost River (Deltistes luxatus) and shortnose (Chasmistes brevirostris) suckers, two species endemic to the Klamath Basin, were...
Arizona and Landsat
Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey
2021, Fact Sheet 2021-3039
Arizona is a land of massive grandeur, deep gorges, lofty mountains, immense plains, and elevated mesas—and, without question, its crown jewel is the Grand Canyon. The spectacular canyon, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, was created when the Colorado River carved a channel through northern Arizona, revealing...
Seismic and geodetic analysis of rupture characteristics of the 2020 Mw 6.5 Monte Cristo Range, Nevada, earthquake
Chengli Liu, Thorne Lay, Frederick Pollitz, Jiao Xu, Xiong Xiong
2021, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (111) 3226-3236
The largest earthquake since 1954 to strike the state of Nevada, United States, ruptured on 15 May 2020 along the Monte Cristo range of west‐central Nevada. The Mw 6.5 event involved predominantly left‐lateral strike‐slip faulting with minor normal components on three aligned east–west‐trending faults that vary in strike by 23°....
Evaluation of camera trap-based abundance estimators for unmarked populations
S M Amburgey, Amy A. Yackel Adams, B. Gardner, N.J. Hostetter, S.R. Siers, B.T. McClintock, Sarah J. Converse
2021, Ecological Applications (31)
Estimates of species abundance are critical to understand population processes and to assess and select management actions. However, capturing and marking individuals for abundance estimation, while providing robust information, can be economically and logistically prohibitive, particularly for species with cryptic behavior. Camera traps can be used to collect data at...
An efficient method to calculate depth-integrated, phase-averaged momentum balances in non-hydrostatic models
Renan F. da Silva, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, Jeff E. Hansen, Ryan J. Lowe, Mark L. Buckley, Marcel Zijlema
2021, Ocean Modelling (165)
Analysis of the mean (wave-averaged) momentum balance is a common approach used to explain the physical forcing driving wave set-up and mean currents in the nearshore zone. Traditionally this approach has been applied to phase-averaged models but has more recently been applied...
Maintaining momentum for collaborative working groups in a post-pandemic world
Diane Srivastava, Marten Winter, Louis Gross, Jena Paul Metzger, Jill S. Baron, Nicolas Mouquet, Thomas Meagher, Ben Halpern, Valerio Pillar
2021, Nature Ecology and Evolution (5) 1188-1189
Scientific progress depends in part on our ability to synthesize heterogeneous data and ideas into new models and paradigms. In environmental sciences, such synthesis has been particularly effective when conducted by collaborative working groups: diverse groups of researchers and practitioners brought together for a concentrated period of collaboration on...
NGA-East Ground-Motion Characterization model part I: Summary of products and model development
Christine A. Goulet, Yousef Bozorgnia, Nicolas Kuehn, Linda Al Atik, Robert Youngs, Robert Graves, Gail M. Atkinson
2021, Earthquake Spectra (37) 1231-1282
In this article, we present an overview of the research project NGA-East, Next Generation Attenuation for Central and Eastern North America (CENA), and summarize the key methodology and products. The project was tasked with developing a new ground motion characterization (GMC) model for CENA. The final NGA-East...
Southwestern bats and their external bacteria
Ernest W. Valdez, Emily M. Johnson, Edward W. Strach, Patrick A. Lewis, William C Briggs, Nicole A. Caimi, Ara S. Winter, Diana E. Northup, Jennifer J.M. Hathaway
2021, Western North American Naturalist (81) 207-224
Bat species diversity within the United States is greatest in the Southwest, with approximately 30 species present. At least 16 of these bat species hibernate and are susceptible to white-nose syndrome (WNS), which is caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans. Since 2006, millions of bats from 35 U.S....
Selection of random vibration theory procedures for the NGA-East project and ground-motion modeling
Albert R. Kottke, Norman A. Abrahamson, David Boore, Yousef Bozorgina, Christine A. Goulet, Justin Hollenback, Tadahiro Kishida, Olga-Joan Ktenidou, Ellen Rathje, Walt Silva, Eric M. Thompson, Xiaoyue Wang
2021, Earthquake Spectra (37) 1420-1439
Traditional ground-motion models (GMMs) are used to compute pseudo-spectral acceleration (PSA) from future earthquakes and are generally developed by regression of PSA using a physics-based functional form. PSA is a relatively simple metric that correlates well with the response of several engineering systems and is a metric...
Ecological correlates of fecal corticosterone metabolites in female Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrococercus urophasianus)
Jordan C. Rabon, Cassandra Nunez, Peter S. Coates, Mark A. Ricca, Tracey N. Johnson
2021, Canadian Journal of Zoology (99) 812-822
Measurement of physiological responses can reveal effects of ecological conditions on an animal and correlate with demographic parameters. Ecological conditions for many animal species have deteriorated as a function of invasive plants and habitat fragmentation. Expansion of juniper (Juniperus spp.) trees and invasion of annual grasses into sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems have contributed to...
A case for multiscale habitat selection studies of small mammals
Brittany R. Schweiger, Jennifer K. Frey, James W. Cain III
2021, Journal of Mammalogy (102) 1249-1265
Habitat information for small mammals typically consists of anecdotal descriptions or infrequent analyses of habitat use, which often are reported erroneously as signifying habitat preference, requirements, or quality. Habitat preferences can be determined only by analysis of habitat selection, a behavioral process that results in the disproportionate use of...
Toward climate change refugia conservation at an ecoregion scale
Cathleen Balantic, Andrea Adams, Shana Gross, Rachel Mazur, Sarah Sawyer, Jody Tucker, Marian Vernon, Claudia Mengelt, Jennifer Morales, James Thorne, Timothy Brown, Nicole Athearn, Toni Lyn Morelli
2021, Conservation Science and Practice (3)
Climate change uncertainty poses serious challenges to conservation efforts. One emerging conservation strategy is to identify and conserve climate change refugia: areas relatively buffered from contemporary climate change that enable persistence of valued resources. This management paradigm may be pursued at broad scales by leveraging existing resources and placing them...
Twenty-five essential research questions to inform the protection and restoration of freshwater biodiversity
Meagan Harper, Hebah S. Mejbel, Dylan Longert, Robin Abell, Beard Jr., Joseph R. Bennett, Stephanie M. Carlson, William Darwall, Anthony Dell, Sami Domisch, David Dudgeon, Jörg Freyhof, Ian Harrison, Kathy A. Hughes, Sonja C. Jahnig, Jonathan M. Jeschke, Richard Lansdown, Mark Lintermans, Abigail Lynch, Helen M. R. Meredith, Sanjay Molur, Julian D. Olden, Steve J. Ormerod, Harmony Patricio, Andrea J. Reid, Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber, Michele Thieme, David Tickner, Eren Turak, Olaf L. F. Weyl, Steve J. Cooke
2021, Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems (9) 2632-2653
Freshwater biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate. Freshwater conservationists and environmental managers have enough evidence to demonstrate that action must not be delayed but have insufficient evidence to identify those actions that will be most effective in reversing the current trend.Here, the focus is on identifying essential research...
Responses of soil extracellular enzyme activities and bacterial community composition to seasonal stages of drought in a semiarid grassland
Wenlan Gao, Sasha C. Reed, Seth M. Munson, Yichao Rui, Wenyuan Fan, Zhenzhen Zheng, Linfeng Li, Rongxiao Che, Kai Xue, Jianqing Du, Xiaoyong Cui, Yanfen Wang, Yanbin Hao
2021, Geoderma (401)
Extreme drought can strongly impact belowground communities and biogeochemical processes, including soil microbial community composition and extracellular enzyme activities (EEAs), which are considered key agents in ecosystem carbon (C) and nutrient cycling. However, our understanding of how seasonal timing of drought...
Optimizing preservation for multiple types of historic structures under climate change
Xiao Xiao, Erin Seekamp, Junyu Lu, Mitchell J. Eaton, Max Post van der Burg
2021, Landscape and Urban Planning (214)
Cultural resources in coastal parks and recreation areas are vulnerable to climate change. The US National Park Service (NPS) is facing the challenge of insufficient budget allocations for both maintenance and climate adaptation of historic structures. Research on adaptation planning for cultural resources has predominately focused on vulnerability assessments of...
Leveraging existing technology: Developing a trusted digital repository for the U.S. Geological Survey
Vivian B. Hutchison, Tamar Norkin, Madison Langseth, Drew Ignizio, Lisa Zolly, Ricardo McClees-Funinan, Amanda N. Liford
2021, International Journal of Digital Curation (16)
As Federal Government agencies in the United States pivot to increase access to scientific data (Sheehan, 2016), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has made substantial progress (Kriesberg et al., 2017). USGS authors are required to make federally funded data publicly available in an approved data repository (USGS, 2016b). This type...
