A method for quantifying cloud immersion in a tropical mountain forest using time-lapse photography
Maoya Bassiouni, Martha A. Scholl, Angel J. Torres-Sanchez, Sheila F. Murphy
2017, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology (243) 100-112
Quantifying the frequency, duration, and elevation range of fog or cloud immersion is essential to estimate cloud water deposition in water budgets and to understand the ecohydrology of cloud forests. The goal of this study was to develop a low-cost and high spatial-coverage method to detect occurrence of cloud immersion...
Groundwater declines are linked to changes in Great Plains stream fish assemblages
Joshuah S. Prekins, Keith B. Gido, Jeffrey A. Falke, Kurt D. Fausch, Harry Crockett, Eric R. Johnson, John Sanderson
2017, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (114) 7373-7378
Groundwater pumping for agriculture is a major driver causing declines of global freshwater ecosystems, yet the ecological consequences for stream fish assemblages are rarely quantified. We combined retrospective (1950–2010) and prospective (2011–2060) modeling approaches within a multiscale framework to predict change in Great Plains stream fish assemblages associated with groundwater...
An evaluation of the efficacy of using environmental DNA (eDNA) to detect giant gartersnakes (Thamnophis gigas)
Brian J. Halstead, Dustin A. Wood, Lizabeth Bowen, Shannon C. Waters-Dynes, Amy G. Vandergast, Julia S. Ersan, Shannon M. Skalos, Michael L. Casazza
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1123
Detecting populations of rare or cryptic species is essential for their conservation. For species like giant gartersnakes (Thamnophis gigas), conventional survey methods can be expensive and inefficient. These sampling difficulties might be overcome by modern techniques that detect deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) shed by organisms into the environment (eDNA). We evaluated...
Assessment of critical minerals: Updated application of an early-warning screening methodology
Erin A. McCullough, Nedal Nassar
2017, Mineral Economics (30) 257-272
Increasing reliance on non-renewable mineral resources reinforces the need for identifying potential supply constraints before they occur. The US National Science and Technology Council recently released a report that outlines a methodology for screening potentially critical minerals based on three indicators: supply risk (R), production growth (<i class="EmphasisTypeItalic...
Facultative parasitism by the bivalve Kurtiella pedroana in the sand crab Emerita analoga
Ritin Bhaduri, Paul Valentich-Scott, Mark Hilgers, Rajvir Singh, Mikaila Hickman, Kevin D. Lafferty
2017, Journal of Parasitology (103) 646-651
It is rare that an organism capable of independent or commensalistic existence can also become endoparasitic on a host. In this study, we documented a potential step toward parasitism in the commensal clam Kurtiella pedroana (Bivalvia: Galeommatoidea). Galeommatoideans are known commensals of various invertebrates, including crustaceans. Emerita analoga (Decapoda: Hippidae)...
A rare and cryptic endemic of the Central Rocky Mountains, U.S.A: The distribution of the Arapahoe snowfly, Arsapnia arapahoe (Nelson & Kondratieff, 1988) (Plecoptera: Capniidae)
Matthew P. Fairchild, Thomas P. Belcher III, Robert E. Zuellig, Nicole M. K. Vieira, Boris C. Kondratieff
2017, Illiesia (13) 50-58
The Arapahoe snowfly, Arsapnia arapahoe (Nelson & Kondratieff, 1988) (Plecoptera: Capniidae) is a candidate species warranted for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Prior to this study, A. arapahoe was known from only two tributaries of the Cache la Poudre River in Larimer...
Atoll groundwater movement and its response to climatic and sea-level fluctuations
Ferdinand K. J. Oberle, Peter W. Swarzenski, Curt D. Storlazzi
2017, Water (9)
Groundwater resources of low-lying atoll islands are threatened due to short-term and long-term changes in rainfall, wave climate, and sea level. A better understanding of how these forcings affect the limited groundwater resources was explored on Roi-Namur in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. As part of a 16-month study,...
Abundant carbon in the mantle beneath Hawai`i
Kyle R. Anderson, Michael P. Poland
2017, Nature Geoscience (10) 704-708
Estimates of carbon concentrations in Earth’s mantle vary over more than an order of magnitude, hindering our ability to understand mantle structure and mineralogy, partial melting, and the carbon cycle. CO2 concentrations in mantle-derived magmas supplying hotspot ocean island volcanoes yield our most direct constraints on mantle carbon, but are...
Landscape- and local-scale habitat influences on occupancy and detection probability of stream-dwelling crayfish: Implications for conservation
Daniel D. Magoulick, Robert J. DiStefano, Emily M. Imhoff, Matthew S. Nolen, Brian K. Wagner
2017, Hydrobiologia (799) 217-231
Crayfish are ecologically important in freshwater systems worldwide and are imperiled in North America and globally. We sought to examine landscape- to local-scale environmental variables related to occupancy and detection probability of a suite of stream-dwelling crayfish species. We used a quantitative kickseine method to sample crayfish presence at 102...
Contact and contagion: Probability of transmission given contact varies with demographic state in bighorn sheep
Kezia R. Manlove, E. Frances Cassirer, Raina K. Plowright, Paul C. Cross, Peter J. Hudson
2017, Journal of Animal Ecology (86) 908-920
Understanding both contact and probability of transmission given contact are key to managing wildlife disease. However, wildlife disease research tends to focus on contact heterogeneity, in part because the probability of transmission given contact is notoriously difficult to measure. Here, we present a first step towards empirically...
Comparing efficiency of American Fisheries Society standard snorkeling techniques to environmental DNA sampling techniques
Roy M. Ulibarri, Scott A. Bonar, Christopher B. Rees, Jon J. Amberg, Bridget Ladell, Craig Jackson
2017, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (37) 644-651
Analysis of environmental DNA (eDNA) is an emerging technique used to detect aquatic species through water sampling and the extraction of biological material for amplification. Our study compared the efficacy of eDNA methodology to American Fisheries Society (AFS) standard snorkeling surveys with regard to detecting the presence of rare fish...
Lessons from the Tōhoku tsunami: A model for island avifauna conservation prioritization
Michelle H. Reynolds, Paul Berkowitz, John Klavitter, Karen Courtot
2017, Ecology and Evolution (7) 5873-5890
Earthquake-generated tsunamis threaten coastal areas and low-lying islands with sudden flooding. Although human hazards and infrastructure damage have been well documented for tsunamis in recent decades, the effects on wildlife communities rarely have been quantified. We describe a tsunami that hit the world's largest remaining tropical seabird rookery and estimate...
Detection of diazotrophy in the acetylene-fermenting anaerobe Pelobacter sp. strain SFB93
Denise M. Akob, Shaun Baesman, John M. Sutton, Janna L. Fierst, Adam C. Mumford, Yesha Shrestha, Amisha T. Poret-Peterson, Stacy C. Bennett, Darren S. Dunlap, Karl B. Haase, Ronald S. Oremland
2017, Applied and Environmental Microbiology (17) 1-10
Acetylene (C2H2) is a trace constituent of the present Earth's oxidizing atmosphere, reflecting a mixture of terrestrial and marine emissions from anthropogenic, biomass-burning, and unidentified biogenic sources. Fermentation of acetylene was serendipitously discovered during C2H2 block assays of N2O reductase, and Pelobacter acetylenicus was shown to grow on C2H2 via...
Surface morphology of caldera-forming eruption deposits revealed by lidar mapping of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon- Implications for emplacement and surface modification
Joel E. Robinson, Charles R. Bacon, Jon J. Major, Heather M. Wright, James W. Vallance
2017, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (342) 61-78
Large explosive eruptions of silicic magma can produce widespread pumice fall, extensive ignimbrite sheets, and collapse calderas. The surfaces of voluminous ignimbrites are rarely preserved or documented because most terrestrial examples are heavily vegetated, or severely modified by post-depositional processes. Much research addresses the internal sedimentary characteristics, flow processes, and...
Hierarchical population monitoring of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) in Nevada and California—Identifying populations for management at the appropriate spatial scale
Peter S. Coates, Brian G. Prochazka, Mark A. Ricca, Gregory T. Wann, Cameron L. Aldridge, Steven E. Hanser, Kevin Doherty, Michael S. O’Donnell, David R. Edmunds, Shawn P. Espinosa
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1089
Population ecologists have long recognized the importance of ecological scale in understanding processes that guide observed demographic patterns for wildlife species. However, directly incorporating spatial and temporal scale into monitoring strategies that detect whether trajectories are driven by local or regional factors is challenging and rarely implemented. Identifying the...
Intra‐annual variability of Silver Carp populations in the Des Moines River, USA
Christopher J. Sullivan, Carlos A. Camacho, Michael J. Weber, Clay Pierce
2017, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (37) 836-849
Since their introduction in the 1970s, Silver Carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix have spread throughout the Mississippi River basin. Management of any species relies on an accurate understanding of population characteristics and dynamics. However, Silver Carp seasonal sampling variation is unknown. Sampling during periods of peak catch rates would facilitate Silver Carp assessment and...
Group inverse sampling: An economical approach to inverse sampling
Bardia Panahbehagh, David R. Smith
2017, Environmetrics (28)
Inverse sampling is an adaptive design in the sense that the final sampling effort during a search for rare events will depend on what is found during the survey. Conventional inverse sampling (CIS) designs successively select individual sampling units to find, for example, the k th rare event. In real...
Application of at-site peak-streamflow frequency analyses for very low annual exceedance probabilities
William H. Asquith, Julie E. Kiang, Timothy A. Cohn
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5038
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has investigated statistical methods for probabilistic flood hazard assessment to provide guidance on very low annual exceedance probability (AEP) estimation of peak-streamflow frequency and the quantification of corresponding uncertainties using streamgage-specific data. The term “very low AEP”...
Ecohydrological role of biological soil crusts across a gradient in levels of development
Kristen M. Whitney, Enrique R. Vivoni, Michael C. Duniway, John B. Bradford, Sasha C. Reed, Jayne Belnap
2017, Ecohydrology (10)
Though biological soil crusts (biocrusts) form abundant covers in arid and semiarid regions, their competing effects on soil hydrologic conditions are rarely accounted for in models. This study presents the modification of a soil water balance model to account for the presence of biocrusts at different levels of development (LOD)...
Using mineral geochemistry to decipher slab, mantle, and crustal input in the generation of high-Mg andesites and basaltic andesites from the northern Cascade Arc
May Sas, Susan DeBari, Michael A. Clynne, Brian G. Rusk
2017, American Mineralogist (102) 948-965
To better understand the role of slab melt in the petrogenesis of North Cascades magmas, this study focuses on petrogenesis of high-Mg lavas from the two northernmost active volcanoes in Washington. High-Mg andesites (HMA) and basaltic andesites (HMBA) in the Cascade Arc have high Mg# [molar Mg/(Mg+Fe2+)] relative to their...
Plant diversity increases with the strength of negative density dependence at the global scale
Joseph A. LaManna, Scott A. Mangan, Alfonso Alonso, Norman Bourg, Warren Y. Brockelman, Sarayudh Bunyavejchewin, Li-Wan Chang, Jyh-Min Chiang, George B. Chuyong, Keith Clay, Richard Condit, Susan Cordell, Stuart J. Davies, Tucker J. Furniss, Christian P. Giardina, I.A.U. Nimal Gunatilleke, C.V. Savitri Gunatilleke, Fangliang He, Robert W. Howe, Stephen P. Hubbell, Chang-Fu Hsieh, Faith M. Inman-Narahari, David Janik, Daniel J. Johnson, David Kenfack, Lisa Korte, Kamil Kral, Andrew J. Larson, James A. Lutz, Sean M. McMahon, William J. McShea, Herve R. Memiaghe, Anuttara Nathalang, Vojtech Novotny, Perry S. Ong, David A. Orwig, Rebecca Ostertag, Geoffrey G. Parker, Richard P. Phillips, Lawren Sack, I-Fang Sun, J. Sebastian Tello, Duncan W. Thomas, Benjamin L. Turner, Dilys M. Vela Diaz, Tomas Vrska, George D. Weiblen, Amy Wolf, Sandra Yap, Jonathan A. Myers
2017, Science (356) 1389-1392
Theory predicts that higher biodiversity in the tropics is maintained by specialized interactions among plants and their natural enemies that result in conspecific negative density dependence (CNDD). By using more than 3000 species and nearly 2.4 million trees across 24 forest plots worldwide, we show that global patterns in tree...
Morphological and molecular characterization of Sarcocystis arctica-like sarcocysts from the Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) from Alaska, USA
Camila K. Cerqueira-Cezar, Peter C. Thompson, Shiv K. Verma, Joseph Mowery, Rafael Calero-Bernal, Fernando H. Antunes Murata, David R. Sinnett, Caroline R. Van Hemert, Benjamin M. Rosenthal, Jitender P. Dubey
2017, Parasitology Research (116) 1871-1878
The muscles of herbivores commonly harbor sarcocysts of parasites belonging to species in the genus Sarcocystis, but such muscle parasites are rare in carnivores. Here, we report Sarcocystis arctica-like sarcocysts in muscles of Arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) from Alaska, USA, for the first time. The tongues of...
Gradients in Catostomid assemblages along a reservoir cascade
Leandro E. Miranda, Kevin R. Keretz, Chelsea R. Gilliland
2017, River Research and Applications (33) 983-990
Serial impoundment of major rivers leads to alterations of natural flow dynamics and disrupts longitudinal connectivity. Catostomid fishes (suckers, family Catostomidae) are typically found in riverine or backwater habitats yet are able to persist in impounded river systems. To the detriment of conservation, there is limited information about distribution of...
Estimating incision healing rate for surgically implanted acoustic transmitters from recaptured fish
Abby Schoonyan, Richard T. Kraus, Matthew D. Faust, Christopher Vandergoot, Steven J. Cooke, H. Andrew Cook, Todd A. Hayden, Charles C. Krueger
2017, Animal Biotelemetry (5)
Background Intracoelomic implantation of electronic tags has become a common method in fishery research, but rarely are fish examined by scientists after release to understand the extent that surgical incisions have healed. Walleye (Sander vitreus) are a valuable, highly exploited fishery resource in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Here, fishery capture...
Rare earth mineral potential in the southeastern U.S. Coastal Plain from integrated geophysical, geochemical, and geological approaches
Anjana K. Shah, Carleton R. Bern, Bradley S. Van Gosen, David L. Daniels, William Benzel, James R. Budahn, Karl J. Ellefsen, Adam T. Karst, Richard Davis
2017, GSA Bulletin (129) 1140-1157
We combined geophysical, geochemical, mineralogical, and geological data to evaluate the regional presence of rare earth element (REE)−bearing minerals in heavy mineral sand deposits of the southeastern U.S. Coastal Plain. We also analyzed regional differences in these data to determine probable sedimentary provenance. Analyses of heavy mineral separates covering the...
