Land use change influences ecosystem function in headwater streams of the Lowland Amazon Basin
Kathi Jo Jankowski, Linda A. Deegan, Christopher Neill, HIllary L. Sullivan, Paulo Ilha, Leonardo Maracahipes-Santos, Nubia C.S. Marques, Marcia N. Macedo
2021, Water (13)
Intensive agriculture alters headwater streams, but our understanding of its effects is limited in tropical regions where rates of agricultural expansion and intensification are currently greatest. Riparian forest protections are an important conservation tool, but whether they provide adequate protection of stream function in these areas of rapid tropical agricultural...
Burbot (Lota lota) exhibit plasticity in life-history traits in a small drainage at the southwestern-most extent of the species’ native range
Jeff Glaid, Christopher S. Guy, Paul C. Gerrity
2021, Journal of Applied Ichthyology (37) 875-884
Little is known about the life-history traits exhibited by burbot (Lota lota) throughout their circumpolar range. Monitoring PIT-tagged burbot between lentic and lotic habits and collection of demographic data (length, age, sex, and maturity) were used to answer the following questions in the Torrey Creek drainage of west-central Wyoming,...
Cyanotoxin occurrence in the United States: A 20 year retrospective
Jennifer L. Graham
2021, Lakeline (41) 8-11
Cyanobacterial blooms, and associated cyanotoxin occurrence, are a concern because of the potential harms posed to humans, wildlife, and aquatic ecosystem health. Evidence suggests the magnitude, frequency, and duration of cyanobacterial blooms are increasing, and these events represent a significant challenge to freshwaters and, increasingly, marine waters, worldwide. Cyanobacterial blooms...
Movement of sediment through a burned landscape: Sediment volume observations and model comparisons in the San Gabriel Mountains, California, USA
Francis K. Rengers, Luke A. McGuire, Jason W. Kean, Dennis M. Staley, Mariana Dobre, Peter R. Robichaud, Tyson Swetnam
2021, Journal of Geophysical Research (126)
Post-wildfire changes to hydrologic and geomorphic systems can lead to widespread sediment redistribution. Understanding how sediment moves through a watershed is crucial for assessing hazards, developing debris flow inundation models, engineering sediment retention solutions, and quantifying the role that disturbances play in landscape evolution. In this study,...
Sea otter population collapse in southwest Alaska: Assessing ecological covariates, consequences, and causal factors
M. Tim Tinker, James L. Bodkin, Lizabeth Bowen, Brenda Ballachey, Gena Bentall, Alexander Burdin, Heather Coletti, George G. Esslinger, Brian B. Hatfield, Michael C. Kenner, Kimberly A. Kloecker, Brenda Konar, A. Keith Miles, Daniel Monson, Michael J. Murray, Ben Weitzman, James A. Estes
2021, Ecological Monographs (91)
Sea otter (Enhydra lutris) populations in southwest Alaska declined substantially between about 1990 and the most recent set of surveys in 2015. Here we report changes in the distribution and abundance of sea otters, and covarying patterns in reproduction, mortality, body size and condition, diet and...
Is there an urban pesticide signature? Urban streams in five U.S. regions share common dissolved-phase pesticides but differ in predicted aquatic toxicity
Lisa H. Nowell, Patrick W. Moran, Laura M. Bexfield, Barbara Mahler, Peter C. Van Metre, Paul M. Bradley, Travis S. Schmidt, Daniel T. Button, Sharon L. Qi
2021, Science of the Total Environment (793)
Pesticides occur in urban streams globally, but the relation of occurrence to urbanization can be obscured by regional differences. In studies of five regions of the United States, we investigated the effect of region and urbanization on the occurrence and potential toxicity of dissolved...
Citizen science data collection for integrated wildlife population analyses
Catherine C. Sun, Jeremy E. Hurst, Angela K. Fuller
2021, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (9)
Citizen science, or community science, has emerged as a cost-efficient method to collect data for wildlife monitoring. To inform research and conservation, citizen science sampling designs should collect data that match the robust statistical analyses needed to quantify species and population patterns. Further increasing the contributions of citizen...
A new species of tree hyrax (Procaviidae: Dendrohyrax) from West Africa and the significance of the Niger–Volta interfluvium in mammalian biogeography
John F. Oates, Neal Woodman, Philippe Gaubert, Eric J. Sargis, Edward D. Wiafe, Emilie Lecompte, Francoise Dowsett-Lemaire, Robert J. Dowsett, Sery Gonedele Bi, Rachel A. Ikemeh, Chabi Djagoun, Louise Tomsett, Simon K. Bearder
2021, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
Tree hyraxes (Dendrohyrax) are one of only three genera currently recognized in Procaviidae, the only extant family in the mammalian order Hyracoidea. Their taxonomy and natural history have received little attention in recent decades. All tree hyrax populations of Guineo-Congolian forests of Africa are currently treated as a single species, Dendrohyrax...
Effects of tidally varying river flow on entrainment of juvenile salmon into Sutter and Steamboat Sloughs
Jason G. Romine, Russell Perry, Paul Stumpner, Aaron R. Blake, Jon R. Burau
2021, San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science (19) 1-17
Survival of juvenile salmonids in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta (Delta) varies by migration route, and thus the proportion of fish that use each route affects overall survival through the Delta. Understanding factors that drive routing at channel junctions along the Sacramento River...
Processing coastal imagery with Agisoft Metashape Professional Edition, version 1.6—Structure from motion workflow documentation
Jin-Si R. Over, Andrew C. Ritchie, Christine J. Kranenburg, Jenna A. Brown, Daniel D. Buscombe, Tom Noble, Christopher R. Sherwood, Jonathan A. Warrick, Phillipe A. Wernette
2021, Open-File Report 2021-1039
IntroductionStructure from motion (SFM) has become an integral technique in coastal change assessment; the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) used Agisoft Metashape Professional Edition photogrammetry software to develop a workflow that processes coastline aerial imagery collected in response to storms since Hurricane Florence in 2018. This report details step-by-step instructions to...
Streambank erosion and related geomorphic change in Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park, California
Stephen B. DeLong, Alexandra J. Pickering, Timothy Kuhn
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5025
Landscape change in Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park, California, was characterized using data derived from four lidar surveys: one airborne survey in 2006 and three terrestrial surveys in 2016, 2017, and 2018. These surveys were used to generate a better quantitative understanding of changes associated with fluvial processes along the...
Monitoring and assessing urban heat island variations and effects in the United States
George Z. Xian
2021, Fact Sheet 2021-3031
Landsat surface temperature and land cover products have been used to estimate surface temperatures in urban and surrounding nonurban areas and to quantify urban heat island intensity. Understanding the intensity and long-term temporal trends of urban heat islands enables the heat-related health challenges associated with heat waves to be monitored...
Hippopotamus movements structure the spatiotemporal dynamics of an active anthrax outbreak
Keenan Stears, Melissa H. Schmitt, Wendy Christine Turner, Douglas J. McCauley, Epaphras A. Muse, Halima Kiwango, Daniel Matheyo, Benezeth M. Mutayoba
2021, Ecosphere (12)
Globally, anthrax outbreaks pose a serious threat to people, livestock, and wildlife. Furthermore, environmental change can exacerbate these outbreak dynamics by altering the host–pathogen relationship. However, little is known about how the quantitative spatial dynamics of host movement and environmental change may affect the spread of Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent...
Seasonal controls on sediment delivery and hydrodynamics in a vegetated tidally influenced interdistributary island
Richard Styles, Gregg Snedden, S. Jarrell Smith, Duncan B. Bryant, Brandon M. Boyd, Joseph Z. Gailani, Brady Couvillion, Edward Race
2021, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans (126)
River deltas are maintained by a continuous supply of terrestrial sediments that provide critical land building material to help sustain and protect vulnerable ecological communities and serve as natural storm protection barriers. Local hydrodynamics are important in determining the degree to which fluvial sediments are removed from...
Teleseismic waves reveal anisotropic poroelastic response of wastewater disposal reservoir
Andrew J. Barbour, Nicholas M. Beeler
2021, Earth and Planetary Physics (5) 1-12
Connecting earthquake nucleation in basement rock to fluid injection in basal, sedimentary reservoirs, depends heavily on choices related to the poroelastic properties of the fluid-rock system, thermo-chemical effects notwithstanding. Direct constraints on these parameters outside of laboratory settings are rare, and it is commonly assumed that the rock layers are...
Spatial Gaussian processes improve multi-species occupancy models when range boundaries are uncertain and nonoverlapping
Wilson Wright, Kathryn M. Irvine, Tom Rodhouse, Andrea R. Litt
2021, Ecology and Evolution (11) 8516-8527
Species distribution models enable practitioners to analyze large datasets of encounter records and make predictions about species occurrence at unsurveyed locations. In omnibus surveys that record data on multiple species simultaneously, species ranges are often nonoverlapping and misaligned with the administrative unit defining the spatial domain of interest (e.g.,...
Use of the MODFLOW 6 water mover package to represent natural and managed hydrologic connections
Eric D. Morway, Christian D. Langevin, Joseph D. Hughes
2021, Groundwater (59) 913-924
The latest release of MODFLOW 6, the current core version of the MODFLOW groundwater modeling software, debuted a new package dubbed the “mover” (MVR). Using a generalized approach, MVR facilitates the transfer of water among any arbitrary combination of simulated features (i.e., pumping wells, stream, drains,...
Advancing estuarine ecological forecasts: Seasonal hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay
Donald Scavia, Isabella Bertani, Jeremy M. Testa, Aaron J. Bever, Joel Blomquist, Marjorie A. M. Friedrichs, Lewis C. Linker, Bruce Michael, Rebecca Murphy, Gary W. Shenk
2021, Ecological Applications (31)
Ecological forecasts are quantitative tools that can guide ecosystem management. The coemergence of extensive environmental monitoring and quantitative frameworks allows for widespread development and continued improvement of ecological forecasting systems. We use a relatively simple estuarine hypoxia model to demonstrate advances in addressing some of the...
Effects of climate and land-use change on thermal springs recharge—A system-based coupled surface-water and groundwater-flow model for Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas
Rheannon M. Hart, Scott J. Ikard, Phillip D. Hays, Brian R. Clark
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5045
A three-dimensional hydrogeologic framework of the Hot Springs anticlinorium beneath Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas, was constructed to represent the complex hydrogeology of the park and surrounding areas to depths exceeding 9,000 feet below ground surface. The framework, composed of 6 rock formations and 1 vertical fault emplaced beneath the...
Identifying metabolic alterations associated with coral growth anomalies using 1H NMR metabolomics
Erik R. Andersson, Rusty D. Day, Thierry M. Work, Paul E. Anderson, Cheryl M. Woodley, Tracey B. Schock
2021, Coral Reefs (40) 1195-1209
Coral growth anomalies (GAs) are tumor-like protrusions that are detrimental to coral health, affecting both the coral skeleton and soft tissues. These lesions are increasingly found throughout the tropics and are commonly associated with high human population density, yet little is known about the molecular pathology of the disease. Here,...
Low MSP-1 haplotype diversity in the West Palearctic population of the avian malaria parasite Plasmodium relictum
Olof Hellgren, Victor Kelbskopf, Vincenzo A Ellis, Arif Ciloglu, Melanie Duc, Xi Huang, Ricardo J. Lopes, Vanessa A Mata, Sargis A. Aghayan, Abdullah Inci, Serguei Vyacheslavovich Drovetski
2021, Malaria Journal (20)
BackgroundAlthough avian Plasmodium species are widespread and common across the globe, limited data exist on how genetically variable their populations are. Here, the hypothesis that the avian blood parasite Plasmodium relictum exhibits very low genetic diversity in its Western Palearctic transmission area (from Morocco to Sweden in the north and Transcaucasia in...
Response of fish assemblages to restoration of rapids habitat in a Great Lakes connecting channel
A. Molina-Moctezuma, N. Godby, K. Kapuscinski, Edward F. Roseman, K. Skubik, A. Moerke
2021, Journal of Great Lakes Research (47) 1182-1191
Rapids habitats are critical spawning and nursery grounds for multiple Laurentian Great Lakes fishes of ecological importance such as lake sturgeon, walleye, and salmonids. However, river modifications have destroyed important rapids habitat in connecting channels by modifying flow profiles and removing large quantities of cobble and gravel that are preferred...
Integrating thermal infrared stream temperature imagery and spatial stream network models to understand natural spatial thermal variability in streams
Matthew R. Fuller, Joseph L. Ebersole, Naomi Detenbeck, Rochelle Labisoa, Peter Leinenbach, Christian E. Torgersen
2021, Journal of Thermal Biology (100)
Under a warmer future climate, thermal refuges could facilitate the persistence of species relying on cold-water habitat. Often these refuges are small and easily missed or smoothed out by averaging in models. Thermal infrared (TIR) imagery can provide empirical water surface...
Recency of faulting and subsurface architecture of the San Diego Bay pull-apart basin, California, USA
Drake Moore Singleton, Jillian M. Maloney, Daniel S. Brothers, Shannon Klotsko, Neal W. Driscoll, Thomas K. Rockwell
2021, Frontiers in Earth Science (9)
In southern California, plate boundary motion between the North American and Pacific plates is distributed across several sub-parallel fault systems. The offshore faults of the California Continental Borderland (CCB) are thought to accommodate ~10-15% of the total plate boundary motion, but the exact distribution of slip and the mechanics of...
Magnetotelluric sampling and geoelectric hazard estimation: Are national-scale surveys sufficient?
Benjamin Scott Murphy, Greg M. Lucas, Jeffrey J. Love, Anna Kelbert, Paul A. Bedrosian, E. Joshua Rigler
2021, AGU Space Weather (19)
At present, the most reliable information for inferring storm-time ground electric fields along electrical transmission lines comes from coarsely sampled, national-scale magnetotelluric (MT) data sets, such as that provided by the EarthScope USArray program. An underlying assumption in the use of such data is that they adequately sample the spatial...
