Research to inform Caltrans best management practices for reptile and amphibian road crossings
Cheryl S. Brehme, Robert N. Fisher, Tom E. S. Langton, Anthony P. Clevenger, Esther Adelsheim, Stephanie Barnes, Tristan Edgarian, Brittany Ewing, Stacie A. Hathaway, Michael Hobbs, Jennifer Kingston, A. Launer, Tritia A. Matsuda, Jeremy B. Sebes, C. Vaughn, Elise Watson
2021, Report
In October of 2014, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began a 5-year project to conduct research to inform Best Management Practices (BMPs) for amphibian and reptile crossing and barrier systems in California. To inform future conservation and transportation planning, this project involved identification of species at highest risk of...
Broad-scale surface and atmospheric conditions during large fires in south-central Chile
David B. McWethy, Rene Garreaud, Andres Holz, Gregory T. Pederson
2021, Fire (4)
The unprecedented size of the 2017 wildfires that burned nearly 600,000 hectares of central Chile highlight a need to better understand the climatic conditions under which large fires develop. Here we evaluate synoptic atmospheric conditions at the surface and free troposphere associated with anomalously high (active) versus low (inactive) months...
Surface water with more natural temperatures promotes physiological and endocrine changes in landlocked Atlantic salmon smolts
Amy M. Regish, William R. Ardren, Nicholas R Staats, Henry Bouchard, Jonah L. Withers, Theodore R. Castro-Santos, Stephen D. McCormick
William R. Ardren, Larry Greenberg, editor(s)
2021, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (78) 775-786
Hatchery salmonid smolts are often reared using groundwater with elevated temperatures to maximize growth. Previous work has shown that rearing hatchery smolts in surface water with a more natural thermal regime resulted in increased return rates of adult landlocked Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). We evaluated whether landlocked Atlantic salmon reared...
Modeling of future COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, by vaccination rates and nonpharmaceutical intervention scenarios — United States, April–September 2021
Rebecca K. Borchering, Cecile Viboud, Emily Howerton, Claire P. Smith, Shaun Truelove, Michael C. Runge, Nicholas G. Reich, Lucie Contamin, John Levander, Jessica Salerno, Wilbert van Panhuis, Matt Kinsey, Kate Tallaksen, R. Freddy Obrecht, Laura Asher, Cash Costello, Michael Kelbaugh, Shelby Wilson, Lauren Shin, Molly Gallagher, Luke Mullany, Kaitlin Rainwater-Lovett, Joseph Lemaitre, Juan Dent, Kyra Grantz, Joshua Kaminsky, Stephen Lauer, Elizabeth Lee, Hannah Meredith, Javier Perez-Saez, Lindsay T. Keegan, Dean Karlen, Matteo Chinazzi, Jessica Davis, Kunpeng Mu, Xinyue Xiong, Ana Pastore y Piontti, Alessandro Vespignani, Ajitesh Srivastava, Przemyslaw Porebski, Srinivasan Venkatramanan, Aniruddha Adiga, Bryan Lewis, Brian Klahn, Joseph Outten, James Schlitt, Patrick Corbett, Pyrros A. Telionis, Lijing Wang, Akhil S. Peddireddy, Benjamin Hurt, Jiangzhuo Chen, Anil Vullikanti, Madhav Marathe, Jessica Healy, Rachel B. Slayton, Matthew Biggerstaff, Michael A Johansson, Katriona Shea, Justin Lessler
2021, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (70) 719-724
What is already known about this topic?Increases in COVID-19 cases in March and early April occurred despite a large-scale vaccination program. Increases coincided with the spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants and relaxation of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs).What is added by this report?Data from six models indicate that with high vaccination coverage and...
Effects of elk and bison herbivory on narrowleaf cottonwood
Linda C. Zeigenfuss, Kathryn A. Schoenecker
2021, Western North American Naturalist (81) 97-112
Ungulate browsing influences the structure and composition of woody plant communities, including species composition and biomass production as well as age distribution, recruitment, and mortality. We evaluated effects of elk and bison herbivory on narrowleaf cottonwood (Populus angustifolia) communities in a semiarid ecosystem in southern Colorado. Cottonwoods in this ecosystem...
Tectonostratigraphic record of late Miocene–early Pliocene transtensional faulting in the Eastern California shear zone, southwestern USA
Rebecca J. Dorsey, Brennan O’Connell, Kevin Gardner, Mindy B. Homan, Scott E.K. Bennett, Jacob Thacker, Michael H. Darin
2021, Geosphere (17) 1101-1125
The Eastern California shear zone (ECSZ; southwestern USA) accommodates ~20%–25% of Pacific–North America relative plate motion east of the San Andreas fault, yet little is known about its early tectonic evolution. This paper presents a detailed stratigraphic and structural analysis of the uppermost Miocene to lower Pliocene Bouse Formation in...
Expansion of intertidal mussel beds following disease-driven reduction of a keystone predator
Monica Mei Jeen Moritsch
2021, Marine Environmental Research (169)
Disease shapes community composition by removing species with strong interactions. To test whether the absence of keystone predation due to disease produced changes to the species composition of rocky intertidal communities, we leverage a natural experiment involving mass mortality of the keystone predator Pisaster ochraceus from Sea Star Wasting Syndrome....
Emerging dominance of Paratrochammina simplissima (Cushman and McCulloch) in the northern Gulf of Mexico following hydrologic and geomorphic changes
Alisha M. Ellis, Christopher G. Smith
2021, Estuarine, Coastal, and Shelf Science (255)
Grand Bay estuary in coastal Mississippi and Alabama (USA) has undergone significant geomorphic changes over the last few centuries as a result of anthropogenic (bridge, road, and hardened shoreline construction) and climatic (extreme storm events) processes, which reduce freshwater input, sediment supply, and degrade barrier islands. To investigate how geomorphic changes may have altered the Grand Bay...
Heat flux from a vapor-dominated hydrothermal field beneath Yellowstone Lake
Julia E. Favorito, Robert N. Harris, Robert A. Sohn, Shaul Hurwitz, Karen Luttrell
2021, Journal of Geophysical Research (126)
We report results from 149 heat flux measurements made over n ∼2-year interval at sites in and around a vapor-dominated geothermal field located at water depths of ∼100–120 m in Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming. Measurements of both in situ temperature and thermal conductivity as a function of depth were made with a...
The 2018 update of the US National Seismic Hazard Model: Ground motion models in the western US
Peter M. Powers, Sanaz Rezaeian, Allison Shumway, Mark D. Petersen, Nico Luco, Oliver S. Boyd, Morgan P. Moschetti, Arthur D. Frankel, Eric M. Thompson
2021, Earthquake Spectra (37) 2315-2341
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM) is the scientific foundation of seismic design regulations in the United States and is regularly updated to consider the best available science and data. The 2018 update of the conterminous U.S. NSHM includes significant changes to the...
Land conversion and pesticide use degrade forage areas for honey bees in America’s beekeeping epicenter
Dan J. Dixon, Haochi Zheng, Clint Otto
Wolfgang Blenau, editor(s)
2021, PLoS ONE (16) 1-15
A diverse range of threats have been associated with managed bee declines globally. Recent increases of two known threats, land-use change and pesticide use, have resulted from agricultural expansion and intensification notably in the top honey producing state in the United States (U.S.): North Dakota. This study investigated the dual...
Demographic responses to density-dependence by two populations of the Florida Tree Snail, Liguus fasciatus (Gastropoda: Orthalicidae), in Everglades National Park
Walter E. Meshaka, Kenneth G. Rice, Oron L. Bass, Hardin Waddle
2021, The Nautilus (135) 1-10
During May-October 1996, we captured and individually marked and released Florida Tree Snails, Liguus fasciatus, from two sites, a subclimax hammock and a large isolated wild tamarind tree, in the Long Pine Key region of Everglades National Park. Populations shared the same two dominant morphs, castaneozonatus and. cingulatus, both of...
Short-term responses to a human-altered landscape do not affect fat dynamics of a migratory ungulate
Samantha P. H. Dwinnell, Hall Sawyer, Matthew J. Kauffman, Jill E. Randall, Rusty Kaiser, Mark A. Thonhoff, Gary L. Fralick, Kevin L. Monteith
2021, Functional Ecology (35) 1512-1523
According to risk-sensitive foraging theory, animals should make foraging decisions that balance nutritional costs and gains to promote fitness. Human disturbance is a form of perceived risk that can prompt avoidance of risky habitat over acquisition of food. Consequently, behavioural responses to perceived risk could induce nutritional costs.Population declines...
Species and population specific gene expression in blood transcriptomes of marine turtles
Shreya M. Banjeree, Jamie Adkins Stoll, Camryn D. Allen, Jennifer M. Lynch, Heather S. Harris, Lauren Kenyon, Richard E. Connon, Eleanor J. Sterling, Eugenia Naro-Maciel, Kathryn McFadden, Margaret Lamont, James Benge, Nadia B. Fernandez, Jeffrey A. Seminoff, Scott R. Benson, Rebecca L. Lewison, Tomoharu Eguchi, Tammy M. Summers, Jessy R. Hapdei, Marc R. Rice, Summer Martin, T. Todd Jones, Peter H. Dutton, George H. Balazs, Lisa M. Komoroske
2021, BMC Genomics (22)
BackgroundTranscriptomic data has demonstrated utility to advance the study of physiological diversity and organisms’ responses to environmental stressors. However, a lack of genomic resources and challenges associated with collecting high-quality RNA can limit its application for many wild populations. Minimally invasive blood sampling combined with de novo transcriptomic...
What's left before participatory modeling can fully support real-world environmental planning processes: A case study review
B. Hedelin, S. Gray, S. Woehlke, T. K. BenDor, A. Singer, R. Jordan, M. Zellner, P. Giabbanelli, P. Glynn, K. Jenni, A Jetter, N. Kolgani, B. Laursen, K. M. Leong, L. Schmitt Olabisi, E. Sterling
2021, Environmental Modelling & Software (143)
In environmental participatory modeling (PM), both computer and non-computer-based modeling techniques are used to aid participatory problem description, solution, and decision-making actions in environmental contexts. Although many PM case studies have been published, few efforts have sought to systematically describe and understand dominant PM processes or establish best practices for...
Rapid monitoring of the abundance and spread of exotic annual grasses in the western United States using remote sensing and machine learning
Neal Pastick, Bruce Wylie, Matthew B. Rigge, Devendra Dahal, Stephen P. Boyte, Matthew O. Jones, Brady W Allred, Sujan Parajuli, Zhuoting Wu
2021, AGU Advances (2)
Exotic annual grasses (EAG) are one of the most damaging agents of change in western North America. Despite known socio-environmental effects of EAG there remains a need to enhance monitoring capabilities for better informing conservation and management practices. Here, we integrate field observations, remote sensing and climate data with machine-learning...
Trophic transfer efficiency in the Lake Superior food web: Assessing the impacts of non-native species
Bryan G. Mathias, Thomas R. Hrabik, Joel C. Hoffman, Owen Gorman, Michael J. Seider, Michael E. Sierszen, Mark Vinson, Daniel L. Yule, Peder M. Yurista
2021, Journal of Great Lakes Research (47) 1146-1158
Ecosystem-based management relies on understanding how perturbations influence ecosystem structure and function (e.g., invasive species, exploitation, abiotic changes). However, data on unimpacted systems are scarce; therefore, we often rely on impacted systems to make inferences about ‘natural states.’ Among the Laurentian Great Lakes, Lake Superior provides a unique case study to address non-native...
Biogeography and ecology of Ostracoda in the U.S. northern Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas
Laura Gemery, Thomas M. Cronin, Lee W. Cooper, Harry J. Dowsett, Jacqueline M. Grebmeier
2021, PLoS ONE (16)
Ostracoda (bivalved Crustacea) comprise a significant part of the benthic meiofauna in the Pacific-Arctic region, including more than 50 species, many with identifiable ecological tolerances. These species hold potential as useful indicators of past and future ecosystem changes. In this study, we examined benthic ostracodes from...
Dynamic landscapes in northwestern North America structured populations of wolverines (Gulo gulo)
Dianna M Krejsa, Sandra L. Talbot, George K. Sage, Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Thomas S Jung, Audrey J Magoun, Joseph A. Cook
2021, Journal of Mammology (102) 891-908
Cyclic climatic and glacial fluctuations of the Late Quaternary produced a dynamic biogeographic history for high latitudes. To refine our understanding of this history in northwestern North America, we explored geographic structure in a wide-ranging carnivore, the wolverine (Gulo gulo). We examined genetic variation in populations across mainland Alaska, coastal...
Intensity of grass invasion negatively correlated with population density and age structure of an endangered dune plant across its range
Scott Jones, Anna Kennedy, Chase M. Freeman, Karen M. Thorne
2021, Biological Invasions (23) 2451-2471
Invasive species are a global threat to ecosystem biodiversity and function; non-native grass invasion has been particularly problematic in sparsely vegetated ecosystems such as open dunes. Native plant population responses to invasion, however, are infrequently translated to landscape scales, limiting the effectiveness of these data for addressing conservation issues. We...
Cross-ecosystem fluxes of pesticides from prairie wetlands mediated by aquatic insect emergence: Implications for terrestrial insectivores
Johanna M. Kraus, Kathryn Kuivila, Michelle L. Hladik, Neil Shook, David M. Mushet, Kelen Dowdy, Rachel Harrington
2021, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (40) 2282-2296
Contaminants alter the quantity and quality of insect prey available to terrestrial insectivores. In agricultural regions, the quantity of aquatic insects emerging from freshwaters can be impacted by insecticides originating from surrounding croplands. We hypothesized that, in such regions, adult aquatic insects could also act as vectors of pesticide transfer...
Quick and dirty (and accurate) 3-D paleoseismic trench models using coded scale bars
Jaime Delano, Richard W. Briggs, Christopher DuRoss, Ryan D. Gold
2021, Seismological Research Letters (92) 3526-3537
Structure‐from‐motion (SfM) modeling has dramatically increased the speed of generating geometrically accurate orthophoto mosaics of paleoseismic trenches, but some aspects of this technique remain time and labor intensive. Model accuracy relies on control points to establish scale, reduce distortion, and orient 3D models. Traditional SfM...
Freshwater cyanotoxin mixtures in recurring cyanobacterial blooms in Voyageurs National Park
Victoria Christensen
2021, Thesis
Algal and cyanobacterial blooms can foul water systems, inhibit recreation, and produce cyanotoxins, which can be toxic to humans, domestic animals, and wildlife. Blooms that recur yearly present a special challenge, in that chronic effects of most cyanotoxins are unknown. To better understand cyanotoxin timing, possible environmental triggers, and inter-relations...
Exploring the factors controlling the error characteristics of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission discharge estimates
Renato Frasson, Michael T. Durand, Kevin Lanier, Colin Gleason, Konstantinos Andreadis, Mark Hageman, Robert W. Dudley, David M. Bjerklie, Hind Oubanas, Pierre-Andre Garambois, Pierre-Olivier Malaterre, Peirong Lin, Tamlin M. Pavelsky, Jerome Monnier, Craig Binkerhoff, Cedric H. David
2021, Water Resources Research (57)
The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission will measure river width, water surface elevation, and slope for rivers wider than 50-100 m. SWOT observations will enable estimation of river discharge by using simple flow laws such as the Manning-Strickler equation, complementing in-situ streamgages. Several discharge inversion algorithms...
Using uncrewed aerial vehicles for identifying the extent of invasive Phragmites australis in treatment areas enrolled in an adaptive management program
Colin N. Brooks, Charlotte B. Weinstein, Andrew F. Poley, Amanda G. Grimm, Nicholas P. Marion, Laura Bourgeau-Chavez, Dana Hansen, Kurt P. Kowalski
2021, Remote Sensing (13)
Higher spatial and temporal resolutions of remote sensing data are likely to be useful for ecological monitoring efforts. There are many different treatment approaches for the introduced European genotype of Phragmites australis, and adaptive management principles are being integrated in at least some long-term monitoring efforts. In this paper, we...
