A management-oriented framework for selecting metrics used to assess habitat- and path-specific quality in spatially structured populations
Sam Nicol, Ruscena Wiederholt, James E. Diffendorfer, Brady J. Mattsson, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Darius J. Semmens, Laura Lopez-Hoffman, Ryan Norris
2016, Ecological Indicators (69) 792-802
Mobile species with complex spatial dynamics can be difficult to manage because their population distributions vary across space and time, and because the consequences of managing particular habitats are uncertain when evaluated at the level of the entire population. Metrics to assess the importance of habitats and pathways connecting habitats...
Model selection and assessment for multi-species occupancy models
Kristin M. Broms, Mevin Hooten, Ryan M. Fitzpatrick
2016, Ecology (97) 1759-1770
While multi-species occupancy models (MSOMs) are emerging as a popular method for analyzing biodiversity data, formal checking and validation approaches for this class of models have lagged behind. Concurrent with the rise in application of MSOMs among ecologists, a quiet regime shift is occurring in Bayesian statistics where predictive model...
Sedimentologic characteristics of recent washover deposits from Assateague Island, Maryland
Julie Bernier, Nicholas J. Zaremba, Cathryn J. Wheaton, Alisha M. Ellis, Marci E. Marot, Christopher G. Smith
2016, Data Series 999
The U.S. Geological Survey has a long history of responding to and documenting the impacts of storms along the Nation’s coasts and incorporating these data into storm impact and coastal change vulnerability assessments. Although physical changes caused by tropical and extratropical storms to the sandy beaches and dunes fronting barrier...
Post-release survival and movement of Western Grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis) implanted with intracoelomic satellite transmitters
Kyra L. Mills, Joseph K. Gaydos, Christine V. Fiorello, Emily Whitmer, Susan De La Cruz, Daniel M. Mulcahy, L. Ignacio Vilchis, Michael H. Ziccardi
2016, Waterbirds (39) 175-186
The main goal of this study was to gain knowledge on post-release survival and movement of Western Grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis) using a modified technique for implanting satellite transmitters. This technique had improved post-surgical survival in an earlier study. Nine Western Grebes, implanted with intracoelomic (within the body cavity) satellite transmitters...
Long-term lesser prairie-chicken nest ecology in response to grassland management
Sarah R. Fritts, Blake A. Grisham, David A. Haukos, Clint W. Boal, Michael Patten, Don H. Wolfe, Charles Dixon, Robert D. Cox, Willard R. Heck
2016, Journal of Wildlife Management (80) 527-539
Long-term population and range declines from habitat loss and fragmentation caused the lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) to be a species of concern throughout its range. Current lesser prairie-chicken range in New Mexico and Texas is partially restricted to sand shinnery oak (Quercus havardii; hereafter shinnery oak) prairies, on which cattle...
Management decision making for fisher populations informed by occupancy modeling
Angela K. Fuller, Daniel W. Linden, J. Andrew Royle
2016, Journal of Wildlife Management (80) 794-802
Harvest data are often used by wildlife managers when setting harvest regulations for species because the data are regularly collected and do not require implementation of logistically and financially challenging studies to obtain the data. However, when harvest data are not available because an area had not previously supported a...
Understanding landowner intentions to create early successional forest habitat in the northeastern United States
Ashley A. Dayer, Richard C. Stedman, Shorna B. Allred, Kenneth V. Rosenberg, Angela K. Fuller
2016, Wildlife Society Bulletin (40) 59-68
Early successional forest habitat (ESH) and associated wildlife species in the northeastern United States are in decline. One way to help create early successional forest conditions is engaging private forest landowners in even-aged forest management because their limited participation may have contributed to declines in ESH for wildlife species of...
Estimating population density and connectivity of American mink using spatial capture-recapture
Angela K. Fuller, Christopher S. Sutherland, J. Andrew Royle, Matthew P. Hare
2016, Ecological Applications (26) 1125-1135
Estimating the abundance or density of populations is fundamental to the conservation and management of species, and as landscapes become more fragmented, maintaining landscape connectivity has become one of the most important challenges for biodiversity conservation. Yet these two issues have never been formally integrated together in a model that...
Seeing the forest through the trees: Considering roost-site selection at multiple spatial scales
David S. Jachowski, Christopher T. Rota, Christopher A. Dobony, W. Mark Ford, John W. Edwards
2016, PLoS ONE (11)
Conservation of bat species is one of the most daunting wildlife conservation challenges in North America, requiring detailed knowledge about their ecology to guide conservation efforts. Outside of the hibernating season, bats in temperate forest environments spend their diurnal time in day-roosts. In addition to simple shelter, summer roost availability...
Age-specific survival of reintroduced swift fox in Badlands National Park and surrounding lands
Indrani Sasmal, Robert W. Klaver, Jonathan A. Jenks, Greg M. Schroeder
2016, Wildlife Society Bulletin (40) 217-223
In 2003, a reintroduction program was initiated at Badlands National Park (BNP), South Dakota, USA, with swift foxes (Vulpes velox) translocated from Colorado and Wyoming, USA, as part of a restoration effort to recover declining swift fox populations throughout its historical range. Estimates of age-specific survival are necessary to evaluate...
Flood-Inundation Maps for Sugar Creek at Crawfordsville, Indiana
Zachary W. Martin
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5043
Digital flood-inundation maps for a 6.5-mile reach of Sugar Creek at Crawfordsville, Indiana, were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs. The flood-inundation maps, which can be accessed through the USGS Flood Inundation Mapping Science Web site at <a...
Wolf (Canis lupus) generation time and proportion of current breeding females by age
L. David Mech, Shannon M. Barber-Meyer, John Erb
2016, PLoS ONE (11) 1-13
Information is sparse about aspects of female wolf (Canis lupus) breeding in the wild, including age of first reproduction, mean age of primiparity, generation time, and proportion of each age that breeds in any given year. We studied these subjects in 86 wolves (113 captures) in the Superior National Forest...
The Montaguto earth flow: nine years of observation and analysis
L. Guerriero, R Revellino, G. Grelle, N Diodato, F.M. Guadagno, Jeffrey A. Coe
2016, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Landslides
This paper summarizes the methods, results, and interpretation of analyses carried out between 2006 and 2015 at the Montaguto earth flow in southern Italy. We conducted a multi-temporal analysis of earth-flow activity to reconstruct the morphological and structural evolution of...
Origin and dynamics of depositionary subduction margins
Paola Vannucchi, Jason P. Morgan, Eli Silver, Jared W. Kluesner
2016, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (17) 1966-1974
Here we propose a new framework for forearc evolution that focuses on the potential feedbacks between subduction tectonics, sedimentation, and geomorphology that take place during an extreme event of subduction erosion. These feedbacks can lead to the creation of a “depositionary forearc,” a forearc structure that extends the...
Flexible characterization of animal movement pattern using net squared displacement and a latent state model
Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau, Jonathan Potts, Charles B. Yackulic, Jacqueline L. Frair, Hance Ellington, Stephen Blake
2016, Movement Ecology (4)
Background Characterizing the movement patterns of animals is an important step in understanding their ecology. Various methods have been developed for classifying animal movement at both coarse (e.g., migratory vs. sedentary behavior) and fine (e.g., resting vs. foraging) scales. A popular approach for classifying movements at...
Integrating biology, field logistics, and simulations to optimize parameter estimation for imperiled species
Wendy E. Lanier, Larissa L. Bailey, Erin L. Muths
2016, Ecological Modelling (335) 16-23
Conservation of imperiled species often requires knowledge of vital rates and population dynamics. However, these can be difficult to estimate for rare species and small populations. This problem is further exacerbated when individuals are not available for detection during some surveys due to limited access, delaying surveys and creating mismatches...
Geometric quality assessment of lidar data based on swath overlap
Aparajithan Sampath, Hans K. Heidemann, Gregory L. Stensaas
2016, Conference Paper
This paper provides guidelines on quantifying the relative horizontal and vertical errors observed between conjugate features in the overlapping regions of lidar data. The quantification of these errors is important because their presence quantifies the geometric quality of the data. A data set can be said to have good geometric...
Hydrogeology and water quality of the Floridan aquifer system and effect of Lower Floridan aquifer withdrawals on the Upper Floridan aquifer at Barbour Pointe Community, Chatham County, Georgia, 2013
Gerard Gonthier, John S. Clarke
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5028
Two test wells were completed at the Barbour Pointe community in western Chatham County, near Savannah, Georgia, in 2013 to investigate the potential of using the Lower Floridan aquifer as a source of municipal water supply. One well was completed in the Lower Floridan aquifer at a depth of 1,080...
A software tool for rapid flood inundation mapping
James Verdin, Kristine Verdin, Melissa L. Mathis, Tamuka Magadzire, Eric Kabuchanga, Mark Woodbury, Hussein Gadain
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1038
The GIS Flood Tool (GFT) was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance to provide a means for production of reconnaissance-level flood inundation mapping for data-sparse and resource-limited areas of the world. The GFT has also...
Field survey of earthquake effects from the magnitude 4.0 southern Maine earthquake of October 16, 2012
Amy L. Radakovich, Alex J. Fergusen, John Boatwright
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1071
The magnitude 4.0 earthquake that occurred on October 16, 2012, near Hollis Center and Waterboro in southwestern Maine surprised and startled local residents but caused only minor damage. A two-person U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) team was sent to Maine to conduct an intensity survey and document the damage. The only...
Finally, the magic of Bayesian model notation revealed
Kathryn M. Irvine
2016, Ecology (97) 1629-1630
Book review of Hobbs and Hooten 2015 Bayesian models: a statistical primer for ecologists....
A fault-based model for crustal deformation, fault slip-rates and off-fault strain rate in California
Yuehua Zeng, Zheng-Kang Shen
2016, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (106) 766-784
We invert Global Positioning System (GPS) velocity data to estimate fault slip rates in California using a fault‐based crustal deformation model with geologic constraints. The model assumes buried elastic dislocations across the region using Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast Version 3 (UCERF3) fault geometries. New GPS velocity and geologic slip‐rate...
Changes to extreme wave climates of islands within the Western Tropical Pacific throughout the 21st century under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, with implications for island vulnerability and sustainability
James B. Shope, Curt D. Storlazzi, Li H. Erikson, Christie Hegermiller
2016, Global and Planetary Change (141) 25-38
Waves are the dominant influence on coastal morphology and ecosystem structure of tropical Pacific islands. Wave heights, periods, and directions for the 21st century were projected using near-surface wind fields from four atmosphere-ocean coupled global climate models (GCM) under representative concentration pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5. GCM-derived wind fields forced...
Baseline and projected future carbon storage and greenhouse-gas fluxes in ecosystems of Alaska
Zhiliang Zhu, A. David McGuire, editor(s)
2016, Professional Paper 1826
This assessment was conducted to fulfill the requirements of section 712 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and to contribute to knowledge of the storage, fluxes, and balance of carbon and methane gas in ecosystems of Alaska. The carbon and methane variables were examined for major terrestrial...
Body size distributions signal a regime shift in a lake ecosystem
Trisha Spanbauer, Craig R. Allen, David G. Angeler, Tarsha Eason, Sherilyn C. Fritz, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Kirsty L. Nash, Jeffery R. Stone, Craig A. Stow, Shana M. Sundstrom
2016, Proceedings of the Royal Society B (283)
Communities of organisms, from mammals to microorganisms, have discontinuous distributions of body size. This pattern of size structuring is a conservative trait of community organization and is a product of processes that occur at multiple spatial and temporal scales. In this study, we assessed whether body size patterns serve as...
