Piping plovers demonstrate regional differences in nesting habitat selection patterns along the U.S. Atlantic coast
Sara Lynn Zeigler, Benjamin T. Gutierrez, Anne Hecht, Nathaniel Plant, Emily J. Sturdivant
2021, Ecosphere (12)
Habitat studies that encompass a large portion of a species’ geographic distribution can explain characteristics that are either consistent or variable, further informing inference from more localized studies and improving management successes throughout the range. We identified landscape characteristics at Piping Plover nests at 21 sites distributed from Massachusetts to...
A study of marine temperature variations in the northern Gulf of Alaska across years of marine heatwaves and cold spells
Seth L. Danielson, Tyler D. Hennon, Daniel Monson, Rob M. Suryan, Rob W. Campbell, Steven J. Baird, Kristine Holderied, Thomas Weingartner
2021, Report, The Pacific marine heatwave: Monotoring during a major perturbation in the Gulf of Alaska
We use over 100 in situ and remotely sensed temperature datasets to investigate thermal variability within and across the intertidal nearshore, coastal and offshore waters of the northern Gulf of Alaska. For the years 1970 through 2019 we document a warming trend of 0.24±0.10 °C per decade for the coastal...
Pore water exchange-driven inorganic carbon export from intertidal salt marshes
Joseph Tamborski, Meagan J. Eagle, Barret L. Kurylyk, Kevin D. Kroeger, Zhaoihui Wang, Paul Henderson, Matthew Charette
2021, Limnology and Oceanography (66) 1774-1792
Respiration in intertidal salt marshes generates dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) that is exported to the coastal ocean by tidal exchange with the marsh platform. Understanding the link between physical drivers of water exchange and chemical flux is a key to constraining coastal wetland contributions to regional...
Remote sensing inventory and geospatial analysis of brick kilns and clay quarrying in Kabul, Afghanistan
Jessica D. DeWitt, Peter G. Chirico, Marissa A. Alessi, Kathleen M Boston
2021, Minerals (3) 296-316
Reconstruction and urban development in Kabul, Afghanistan, has prompted vast expansion of the clay quarrying and brick making industry. This study identified the extent and distribution of clay quarrying and brick kilns in the greater Kabul area between 1965 and 2018. Very high-resolution satellite imagery was interpreted...
Submarine lava deltas of the 2018 eruption of Kilauea volcano
S. Adam Soule, Michael H. Zoeller, Carolyn Parcheta
2021, Bulletin of Volcanology (83)
Hawaiian and other ocean island lava flows that reach the coastline can deposit significant volumes of lava in submarine deltas. The catastrophic collapse of these deltas represents one of the most significant, but least predictable, volcanic hazards at ocean islands. The volume of lava deposited below...
‘Unscrambling’ the drivers of egg production in Agassiz’s desert tortoise: Climate and individual attributes predict reproductive output
Corey I. Mitchell, Derek Friend, Lauren T. Phillips, Elizabeth A. Hunter, Jeffrey E. Lovich, Mickey Agha, Shellie R. Puffer, Kristy L. Cummings, Philip A. Medica, Todd Esque, Kenneth E. Nussear, Kevin T. Shoemaker
2021, Endangered Species Research (44) 217-230
ABSTRACT: The ‘bet hedging’ life history strategy of long-lived iteroparous species reduces short-term reproductive output to minimize the risk of reproductive failure over a lifetime. For desert-dwelling ectotherms living in variable and unpredictable environments, reproductive output is further influenced by precipitation and temperature via effects on food availability and...
Numerical analysis of the effect of subgrid variability in a physically based hydrological model on runoff, soil moisture, and slope stability
E. Leonarduzzi, R. M. Maxwell, Benjamin B. Mirus, P. Molnar
2021, Water Resources Research (57)
In coarse resolution hydrological modeling we face the problem of subgrid variability, the effects of which are difficult to express and are often hidden in the parameterization and calibration. We present a numerical experiment with the physically based hydrological model ParFlow‐CLM with which we quantify the effect of subgrid heterogeneities...
A chemical and bio‐herbicide mixture increased exotic invaders, both targeted and non‐targeted, across a diversely invaded landscape after fire
Brynne E. Lazarus, Matthew J. Germino
2021, Applied Vegetation Science (24)
QuestionsInvasive‐plant treatments often target a single or few species, but many landscapes are diversely invaded. Exotic annual grasses (EAGs) increase wildfires and degrade native perennial plant communities in cold‐desert rangelands, and herbicides are thus sprayed to inhibit EAG germination and establishment. We asked how EAG target and...
Population density and stream-habitat relations of the Yellowcheek Darter (Nothonotus moorei) among the headwaters of the Little Red River in Arkansas
Lucas Driver, Billy Justus
2021, Southeastern Naturalist (20) 227-244
Nothonotus moorei (Yellowcheek Darter [YCD]) is an endangered species endemic to the headwaters of the Little Red River in north-central Arkansas. Population decline, habitat loss and fragmentation, and threats from land use and seasonal drought necessitate monitoring of population density and distribution to determine ecological and habitat associations. We evaluated YCD...
Expected warning times from the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system for earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest
Jeffrey J. McGuire, Deborah E. Smith, Arthur D. Frankel, Erin A. Wirth, Sara K. McBride, Robert M. de Groot
2021, Open-File Report 2021-1026
The ShakeAlert® earthquake early warning system has been live since October 2019 for the testing of public alerting to mobile devices in California and will soon begin testing this modality in Oregon and Washington. The Pacific Northwest presents new challenges and opportunities for ShakeAlert owing to the different types of...
Sagebrush conservation strategy—Challenges to sagebrush conservation
Thomas E. Remington, Patricia A. Deibert, Steve E. Hanser, Dawn M. Davis, Leslie A. Robb, Justin L. Welty
2021, Open-File Report 2020-1125
The sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) biome, its wildlife, and the services and benefits it provides people and local communities are at risk. Development in the sagebrush biome, for many purposes, has resulted in multiple and often cumulative negative impacts. These impacts, ranging from simple habitat loss to complex, interactive changes in...
Performance of the GenEst Mortality Estimator Compared to The Huso and Shoenfeld Estimators
Paul Rabie, Daniel Riser-Espinoza, Jared Studyvin, Daniel Dalthorp, Manuela Huso
2021, Report
The impacts of wind power development on bat and bird populations are commonly assessed by estimating the number of fatalities at wind power facilities through post-construction monitoring (PCM) studies. Standard methodology involves periodic carcass searches on plots beneath turbines (Strickland et al. 2011, US Fish and Wildlife Service 2012). The...
Seasonal movements of muskellunge in the St. Clair – Detroit River System: Implications for multi-jurisdictional fisheries management
Jan-Michael Hessenauer, Cleyo Harris, Stephen Marklevitz, Matthew D. Faust, Michael W. Thorn, Brad Utrup, Darryl W. Hondorp
2021, Journal of Great Lakes Research (47) 475-485
The St. Clair-Detroit River System contains a world-class Great Lakes muskellunge (Esox masquinongy) fishery that has avoided the declines observed in many Great Lakes muskellunge populations. Muskellunge are an upper trophic level predator, and therefore a naturally low-density species. Limited fishery-independent data exist on which to base management decisions. To...
Inclusion of pesticide transformation products is key to estimating pesticide exposures and effects in small U.S. streams
Barbara Mahler, Lisa H. Nowell, Mark W. Sandstrom, Paul M. Bradley, Kristin M. Romanok, Christopher Konrad, Peter Van Metre
2021, Environmental Science and Technology (55) 4740-4752
Improved analytical methods can quantify hundreds of pesticide transformation products (TPs), but understanding of TP occurrence and potential toxicity in aquatic ecosystems remains limited. We quantified 108 parent pesticides and 116 TPs in more than 3 700 samples from 442 small streams in mostly urban basins across five major regions of...
Commentary: The role of geodetic algorithms for earthquake early warning in Cascadia
Jeffrey J. McGuire, Sarah E. Minson, Jessica R. Murray, Benjamin A. Brooks
2021, Geophysical Research Letters (48)
The ShakeAlert earthquake early warning (EEW) system issues public alerts in California and will soon extend to Oregon and Washington. The Cascadia subduction zone presents significant new challenges and opportunities for EEW. Initial publications suggested that EEW algorithms based on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data could provide improved warning...
Partitioning and transformation of organic and inorganic phosphorus among dissolved, colloidal and particulate phases in a hypereutrophic freshwater estuary
Bin Yang, Hui Lin, Sarah L Bartlett, Erin M Houghton, Dale M. Robertson, Laodong Guo
2021, Water Research (196)
Phosphorus (P) loadings to the Great Lakes have been regulated for decades, but re-eutrophication and seasonal hypoxia have recently been increasingly reported. It is of paramount importance to better understand the fate, transformation, and biogeochemical cycling processes of different P species across the river-lake interface....
Argentine Black and White Tegu (Salvator merianae) can survive the winter under semi-natural conditions well beyond their current invasive range
Scott Michael Goetz, David A. Steen, Melissa A. Miller, Craig Guyer, Jack Kottwitz, John F. Roberts, Emmett Blankenship, Phillip R. Pearson, Daniel A. Warner, Robert Reed
2021, PLoS ONE (16)
The Argentine Black and White Tegu (Salvator merianae, formerly Tupinambis merianae) is a large lizard from South America. Now established and invasive in southern Florida, and it poses threats to populations of many native species. Models suggest much of the southern United States may contain suitable temperature regimes for this species,...
Efficacy of detection canines for avian botulism surveillance and mitigation
Michelle H Reynolds, Kyoko N Johnson, Eleni Schvaneveldt, Dan L Dewy, Kim J Uyehara, Steven C. Hess
2021, Conservation Science and Practice (3)
Hawai'i's endangered waterbirds have experienced epizootics caused by ingestion of prey that accumulated a botulinum neurotoxin produced by the anaerobic bacterium Clostridium botulinum (avian botulism; Type C). Waterbird carcasses, necrophagous flies, and their larvae initiate and spread avian botulism, a food-borne paralytic disease lethal to waterbirds. Each new carcass has potential to...
Probabilities of detecting submersed aquatic vegetation species using a rake method may vary with biomass
Brian R. Gray
2021, Aquatic Botany (171)
Levels of submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV) are commonly assessed using a modified garden rake. However, the utility of the rake sampling method relative to methods that are typically viewed as more definitive (and expensive) such as snorkeling and coring remains a matter of debate. This study explores whether probabilities of...
Development and validation of a spatially-explicit agent-based model for space utilization by African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) based on determinants of movement
Stephanie G. Diaz, Donald L. DeAngelis, Michael S. Gaines, Andrew Purdon, Michael A. Mole, Rudi J. van Aarde
2021, Ecological Modelling (447)
African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are well-studied and inhabit diverse landscapes that are being transformed by both humans and natural forces. Most tools currently in use are limited in their ability to predict how elephants will respond to novel changes in the environment. Individual-, or agent-based modeling (ABM), may extend current methods in...
UAV-based estimate of snow cover dynamics: Optimizing semi-arid forest structure for snow persistence
Adam Belmonte, Temuulen T. Sankey, Joel Biedermann, John B. Bradford, Scott J Goetz, Thomas Kolb
2021, Remote Sensing (13)
Seasonal snow cover in the dry forests of the American West provides essential water resources to both human and natural systems. The structure of trees and their arrangement across the landscape are important drivers of snow cover distribution across these forests, varying widely in both space and time. We used...
Characterizing stress orientations in southern Kansas
Robert Skoumal, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Kayla A. Kroll, Justin Rubinstein, Devin McPhillips
2021, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (3) 1445-1454
Induced seismicity predominantly occurs along faults that are optimally oriented to the local principal compressive stress direction, and the characterization of these stress orientations is an important component of understanding seismic hazards. The seismicity rate in southern Kansas rapidly increased in 2013 primarily due to the disposal of large volumes...
Fish habitat use and food web structure following pond and plug restoration of a Montane Meadow in the Sierra Nevada, California
Lora Tennant, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, James Willacker, Matthew Johnson
2021, Northwest Naturalist (102) 30-42
Montane meadows are areas of high biodiversity and provide many important ecosystem services; however, degradation of 40–60% of these habitats in the Sierra Nevada region of California has left many of these areas impaired. The “pond-and-plug” meadow-restoration technique is 1 type of treatment implemented...
Temperature‐associated decreases in demographic rates of Afrotropical bird species over 30 years
Monte Neate-Clegg, Thomas Stanley, Cagen Sekerciouglu, William Newmard
2021, Global Change Biology (27) 2254-2268
Tropical mountains harbor globally significant levels of biodiversity and endemism. Climate change threatens many tropical montane species, yet little research has assessed the effects of climate change on the demographic rates of tropical species, particularly in the Afrotropics. Here, we report on the demographic rates of...
Augmented normalized difference water index for improved monitoring of surface water
Arash Modaresi Rad, Jason R. Kreitler, Mojitaba Sadegh
2021, Environmental Modeling and Software (140)
We present a comprehensive critical review of well-established satellite remote sensing water indices and offer a novel, robust Augmented Normalized Difference Water Index (ANDWI). ANDWI employs an expanded set of spectral bands, RGB, NIR, and SWIR1-2, to maximize the contrast between water and non-water pixels. Further, we implement a dynamic thresholding method, the...
