Annual-cycle movements and phenology of black scoters in eastern North America
Juliet S. Lamb, Scott G. Gilliland, Jean-Pierre L. Savard, Pamela H. Loring, Scott R. McWilliams, Glenn H. Olsen, Jason E. Osenkowski, Peter W. C. Paton, Matthew Perry, Timothy D. Bowman
2021, Journal of Wildlife Management (85) 1628-1645
Sea ducks exhibit complex movement patterns throughout their annual cycle; most species use distinct molting and staging sites during migration and disjunct breeding and wintering sites. Although research on black scoters (Melanitta americana) has investigated movements and habitat selection during winter, little is known about their annual-cycle movements. We used...
Global biotic events evident in the Paleogene marine strata of the eastern San Francisco Bay area, California
Kristin McDougall-Reid
2021, Geological Society of America Memoir 229-268
Paleogene marine strata in the eastern San Francisco Bay area are exposed in discontinuous outcrops in the various tectonic blocks. Although there are many missing intervals, the strata were previously thought to...
Simulated effects of sea-level rise on the shallow, fresh groundwater system of Assateague Island, Maryland and Virginia
Brandon J. Fleming, Jeff P. Raffensperger, Phillip J. Goodling, John P. Masterson
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5104
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the National Park Service, developed a three-dimensional groundwater-flow model for Assateague Island in eastern Maryland and Virginia to assess the effects of sea-level rise on the groundwater system. Sea-level rise is expected to increase the altitude of the water table in barrier island...
Watershed sediment yield following the 2018 Carr Fire, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, northern California
Amy E. East, Joshua B. Logan, Peter Dartnell, Oren Lieber-Kotz, David B. Cavagnaro, Scott W. McCoy, Donald N. Lindsay
2021, Earth and Space Science (8)
Wildfire risk has increased in recent decades over many regions, due to warming climate and other factors. Increased sediment export from recently burned landscapes can jeopardize downstream infrastructure and water resources, but physical landscape response to fire has not been quantified for some at-risk areas, including much...
Unexpected diversity of Endozoicomonas in deep-sea corals
Christina A. Kellogg, Zoe A. Pratte
2021, Marine Ecology Progress Series (673) 1-15
ABSTRACT: The deep ocean hosts a large diversity of azooxanthellate cold-water corals whose associated microbiomes remain to be described. While the bacterial genus Endozoicomonas has been widely identified as a dominant associate of tropical and temperate corals, it has rarely been detected in deep-sea corals. Determining microbial baselines for these cold-water...
Historical changes in plant water use and need in the continental United States
Michael T Terck, David Thoma, John E. Gross, Kirk R. Sherrill, Stefanie Kagone, Gabriel B. Senay
2021, PLoS ONE (16)
A robust method for characterizing the biophysical environment of terrestrial vegetation uses the relationship between Actual Evapotranspiration (AET) and Climatic Water Deficit (CWD). These variables are usually estimated from a water balance model rather than measured directly and are often more representative of ecologically-significant changes than...
Demography of the Appalachian Spotted Skunk (Spilogale putorius putorius)
Andrew R. Butler, Andrew J. Edelman, Robin Y. Y. Eng, Stephen N. Harris, Colleen Olfenbuttel, Emily D. Thorne, W. Mark Ford, David S. Jachowski
Erin Hewett Ragheb, editor(s)
2021, Southeastern Naturalist (20) 95-109
Spilogale putorius (Eastern Spotted Skunk) is a small, secretive carnivore that has substantially declined throughout the eastern United States since the mid-1900s. To better understand the current status of Eastern Spotted Skunks, we studied survival and reproduction of the S. p. putorius (Appalachian Spotted Skunk) subspecies across 4 states in the central and...
Flooding duration and volume more important than peak discharge in explaining 18 years of gravel–cobble river change
Arielle Gervasi, Gregory Pasternack, Amy E. East
2021, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (46) 3194-3212
Floods play a critical role in geomorphic change, but whether peak magnitude, duration, volume, or frequency determines the resulting magnitude of erosion and deposition is a question often proposed in geomorphic effectiveness studies. This study investigated that question using digital elevation model differencing to compare and...
Pollinator communities vary with vegetation structure and time since management within regenerating timber harvests of the Central Appalachian Mountains
Codey L. Mathis, Darin J. McNeil Jr., Monica R. Lee, Christina M. Grozinger, David I. King, Clint Otto, Jeffery A. Larkin
2021, Forest Ecology and Management (495)
Native pollinator populations across the United States are increasingly threatened by a multitude of ecological stressors. Although the drivers behind pollinator population declines are varied, habitat loss/degradation remains one of the most important threats. Forested landscapes, where the impacts of habitat loss/degradation are minimized, are known to support robust pollinator...
Divergence in salinity tolerance of northern Gulf of Mexico eastern oysters under field and laboratory exposure
D.A. Marshall, S.M. Casas, W.C. Walton, F.S. Rikard, T.A. Palmer, N. Breaux, Megan K. La Peyre, J.B. Pollack, M.A. Kelly, J.F. LaPeyre
2021, Conservation Physiology (9)
The eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, is a foundation species within US Gulf of Mexico (GoM) estuaries that has experienced substantial population declines. As changes from management and climate are expected to continue to impact estuarine salinity, understanding how local oyster populations might respond and identifying populations with adaptations to more extreme...
Wetland selection by female Ring-Necked Ducks (Aythya collaris) in the Southern Atlantic Flyway
Tori D. Mezebish, Richard B. Chandler, Glenn H. Olsen, Michele Goodman, Frank C. Rohwer, Nicholas J. Meng
2021, Wetlands (41)
On the wintering grounds, wetland selection by waterfowl is influenced by spatiotemporal resource distribution. The ring-necked duck (Aythya collaris) winters in the southeastern United States where a disproportionate amount of Atlantic Flyway ring-necked duck harvest occurs. We quantified female ring-necked duck selection for wetland characteristics during and after the 2017-2018...
Structured decision making and optimal bird monitoring in the northern Gulf of Mexico
Auriel Fournier, R. Randy Wilson, James E. Lyons, Jeffrey S. Gleason, Evan M. Adams, Laurel M. Barnhill, Janell M. Brush, Robert J. Cooper, Stephen J. DeMaso, Melanie J.L. Driscoll, Mitchell J. Eaton, Peter C. Frederick, Michael G. Just, Michael A. Seymour, John M. Tirpak, Mark S. Woodrey
2021, Open-File Report 2020-1122
The avian conservation community struggles to design and implement large scale, long-term coordinated bird monitoring programs within the northern Gulf of Mexico due to the complexity of the conservation enterprise in the region; this complexity arises from the diverse stakeholders, multiple jurisdictions, complex ecological processes, myriad habitats, and over 500...
Ten years on from the quake that shook the nation’s capital
Thomas L. Pratt, Martin C. Chapman, Anjana K. Shah, J. Wright Horton, Jr., Oliver S. Boyd
2021, EOS, Transactions AGU
No abstract available....
Validation of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Land Change Monitoring, Assessment and Projection (LCMAP) collection 1.0 annual land cover products 1985–2017
Stephen V. Stehman, Bruce Pengra, Josephine Horton, Danika F. Wellington
2021, Remote Sensing of Environment (265)
The U.S. Geological Survey Land Change Monitoring, Assessment and Projection (USGS LCMAP) has released a suite of annual land cover and land cover change products for the conterminous United States (CONUS). The accuracy of these products was assessed using an independently collected land cover reference sample dataset produced by analysts...
Oyster model inventory: Identifying critical data and modeling approaches to support restoration of oyster reefs in coastal U.S. Gulf of Mexico waters
Megan K. La Peyre, Danielle A. Marshall, Shaye E. Sable
2021, Open-File Report 2021-1063
Executive SummaryAlong the coast of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) plays important ecological and economic roles. Commercial landings from this region account for more than 50 percent of all U.S. landings; these oyster reefs also provide varied ecosystem services, including nursery habitat for many fish...
Optimization of a suite of flathead catfish (Pylodictis olivaris) microsatellite markers for understanding the population genetics of introduced populations in the northeast United States
Shannon L. White, Michael S. Eackles, Tyler Wagner, Megan K. Schall, Geoffrey Smith, Julian Avery, David C. Kazyak
2021, BMC Research Notes
Flathead catfish are rapidly expanding into nonnative waterways throughout the United States. Once established, flathead catfish may cause disruptions to the local ecosystem through consumption and competition with native fishes, including species of conservation concern. Flathead catfish often become a popular sport fish in their introduced range, and so management...
Multiple coping strategies maintain stability of a small mammal population in a resource-restricted environment
Anne Y Polyakov, William D Tietje, Arjun Srivathsa, Virginie Rolland, James E. Hines, Madan K. Oli
2021, Ecology and Evolution (11) 12529-12541
In semi-arid environments, aperiodic rainfall pulses determine plant production and resource availability for higher trophic levels, creating strong bottom-up regulation. The influence of climatic factors on population vital rates often shapes the dynamics of small mammal populations in such resource-restricted environments. Using a 21-year biannual capture–recapture...
Predicted spatial distribution of the Eastern Spotted Skunk (Spilogale putorius) in Virginia using detection and non-detection records
Emily D. Thorne, W. Mark Ford
2021, Southeastern Naturalist (20) 39-51
The geographic distribution of a species is a fundamental component in understanding its ecology and is necessary for forming effective conservation plans. For rare and elusive species of conservation concern, accurate maps of predicted occurrence are particularly problematic and often highly subjective. Spilogale putorius (Eastern Spotted Skunk) populations have...
Wetland selection by female Ring-Necked Ducks (Aythya collaris) in the Southern Atlantic Flyway
Tori D. Mezebish, Richard Chandler, Glenn H. Olsen, Michele Goodman, Frank C. Rohwer, Nicholas J. Meng, Mark D. McConnell
2021, Wetlands (41)
On the wintering grounds, wetland selection by waterfowl is influenced by spatiotemporal resource distribution. The ring-necked duck (Aythya collaris) winters in the southeastern United States where a disproportionate amount of Atlantic Flyway ring-necked duck harvest occurs. We quantified female ring-necked duck selection for wetland characteristics during...
Tolerance of northern Gulf of Mexico eastern oysters to chronic warming at extreme salinities
D.A. Marshall, N.C. Coxe, Megan K. La Peyre, W.C. Walton, F. Scott Rikard, J. Beseres Pollack, M.A. Kelly, J.F. La Peyre
2021, Journal of Thermal Biology (100)
The eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, provides critical ecosystem services and supports valuable fishery and aquaculture industries in northern Gulf of Mexico (nGoM) subtropical estuaries where it is grown subtidally. Its upper critical thermal limit is not well defined, especially when combined with extreme salinities. The cumulative mortalities of the progenies of wild C....
Optimization of salt marsh management at the Long Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex, New York, through use of structured decision making
Hilary A. Neckles, James E. Lyons, Jessica L. Nagel, Susan C. Adamowicz, Toni Mikula, Monica R. Williams
2021, Open-File Report 2021-1070
Structured decision making is a systematic, transparent process for improving the quality of complex decisions by identifying measurable management objectives and feasible management actions; predicting the potential consequences of management actions relative to the stated objectives; and selecting a course of action that maximizes the total benefit achieved and balances...
Estimates of abundance and harvest rates of female black bears across a large spatial extent
Jacob Humm, Joseph D. Clark
2021, Journal of Wildlife Management (85) 1321-1331
American black bears (Ursus americanus) are an iconic wildlife species in the southern Appalachian highlands of the eastern United States and have increased in number and range since the early 1980s. Given an increasing number of human-bear conflicts in the region, many management agencies have liberalized harvest...
Changes in organic carbon source and storage with sea level rise-induced transgression in a Chesapeake Bay marsh
Rachel Van Allen, Kathryn M. Schreiner, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Joseph A. Carlin
2021, Estuaries and Coasts (261)
Organic matter (OM) accumulation in marsh soils affects marsh survival under rapid sea-level rise (SLR). This work describes the changing organic geochemistry of a salt marsh located in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay that has transgressed inland with SLR over the past 35–75 years. Marsh soils and vegetation were...
Evaluating the migration mortality hypothesis using monarch tagging data
Orley R. Taylor, John M. Pleasants, Ralph Grundel, Samuel Pecoraro, James P. Lovett, Ann Ryan
2021, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (8)
The decline in the eastern North American population of the monarch butterfly population since the late 1990s has been attributed to the loss of milkweed during the summer breeding season and the consequent reduction in the size of the summer population that migrates to central Mexico to overwinter (milkweed limitation...
Groundwater quality and age of secondary bedrock aquifers in the glaciated portion of eastern Nebraska, 2016–18
Christopher M. Hobza, Amanda T. Flynn
2021, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5055
The Eastern Nebraska Water Resources Assessment (ENWRA) project was initiated in 2006 to assist water managers by developing a hydrogeologic framework and water budget for the glaciated portion of eastern Nebraska. Within the ENWRA area, the primary groundwater sources for municipal, domestic, and irrigation water needs are provided by withdrawals...
