Yellowstone grizzly bear investigations 2020 - Annual report of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team
Frank T. van Manen, Mark A. Haroldson, Bryn Karabensh, editor(s)
2021, Report
This Annual Report summarizes results of grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) research and monitoring conducted in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) during 2020. The research and monitoring program is focused on population estimation and demographics, food monitoring, and habitat monitoring. This report also...
Adult survival probability and body size affect parental risk-taking across latitudes
Juan C. Oteyza, James C. Mouton, Thomas E. Martin
2021, Ecology Letters (24) 20-26
Parents faced with a predator must choose between their own safety versus taking care of their offspring. Each choice can have fitness costs. Life-history theory predicts that longer-lived species should be less willing than shorter-lived species to return to care for their offspring after a predator disturbance because they have...
Karachi effects of the Makran earthquake and tsunami of November 1945: Mercury spilled, tide gauge impaired, seawalls overrun, boats displaced, mosque flooded
Brian F. Atwater, Haider Hasan, Ghazala Naeem, Din Mohammad Kakar, Asaf Humayun, Seshachalam Srinivasalu, Julia Elton, Noorul Ayen Hasan, Abdullah Usman, Hira Ashfaq Lodhi, Shoaib Ahmed, Lindsey M. Wright, Loyce M. Adams
2021, IOC Brochure 2020-7
An earthquake and tsunamiI on November 28, 1945, sourced near the Makran coast of the Arabian Sea, disturbed port facilities and fishing villages to the east at Karachi Harbour. Seismic waves, some 300 kilometers from their Makran source, spilled mercury high in a lighthouse at Manora. One liter of the...
Regional crop water use assessment using Landsat-derived evapotranspiration
Arun Bawa, Gabriel B. Senay, Sandeep Kumar
2021, Hydrologic Processes (35)
Reliable information on water use and availability at basin and field scales are important to ensure the optimized constructive uses of available water resources. This study was conducted with the specific objective to estimate Landsat-based actual evapotranspiration (ETa) using the Operational Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEBop) model across the state...
Shaking is almost always a surprise: The earthquakes that produce significant ground motion
Sarah E. Minson, Annemarie S. Baltay Sundstrom, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Sara K. McBride, Kevin R. Milner
2021, Seismological Research Letters (92) 460-468
Although small earthquakes are expected to produce weak shaking, ground motion is highly variable and there are outlier earthquakes that generate more shaking than expected—sometimes significantly more. We explore datasets of M 0.5–8.3 earthquakes to determine the relative impact of frequent, smaller-magnitude earthquakes that rarely produce strong ground motion, to...
Investigation of land surface phenology detections in shrublands using multiple scale satellite data
Dailiang Peng, Yan Wang, George Z. Xian, Alfredo R Huete, Wenjiang Huang, Miaogen Shen, Fumin Wang, Le Yu, Liangyun Liu, Qiaoyun Xie, Lingling Liu, Xiaoyang Zhang
2021, Remote Sensing of Environment (252)
Shrublands occupy about 13% of the global land surface, contain about one-third of the biodiversity, store about half of the global terrestrial carbon, and provide many ecosystem services to a large amount of world's human population and livestock. Because phenology is...
The case for a long-lived and robust Yellowstone hotspot
Victor E. Camp, Ray Wells
2021, GSA Today (31) 4-10
The Yellowstone hotspot is recognized as a whole-mantle plume with a history that extends to at least 56 Ma, as recorded by offshore volcanism on the Siletzia oceanic plateau. Siletzia accreted onto the North American plate at 51–49 Ma, followed by repositioning of the Farallon trench west of Siletzia from...
An update on the 2020 activities of the Landsat Science Team
Jeffery Masek, Christopher J. Crawford
2021, Newsletter
No abstract available....
Particle tracer analysis for submerged berm placement of dredged material near South Padre Island, Texas
Jens Figlus, Youn-Kyung Song, Coraggio K. Maglio, Patrick L. Friend, Jack Poleykett, Frank L. Engel, Douglas James Schnoebelen, Kristina Boburka
2021, Journal of Dredging (19) 14-31
The fate of unconfined dredged sediment placed as a submerged “feeder” berm in the nearshore region of South Padre Island (SPI), Texas, was investigated through a particle tracer study over the duration of 15 months. Unconfined sediment feeder systems can be a desirable alternative to traditional direct beach placement of...
Identification of Global Priorities for New Mountain Protected and Conserved Areas
Peter Jacobs, Erik A. Beever, Clinton Carbutt, Marc Foggin, Diego Juffe-Bignoli, Madeline Thomas Martin, Shane Orchard, Roger Sayre
2021, Report
Mountain ecosystems are extremely diverse and fragile. They include astonishing biodiversity in terms of number of taxa and endemicity, and globally provide the most diverse range of ecosystem services. The world’s system of protected and conserved areas includes many outstanding areas within the earth’s mountainous landscape: about 19% of mountain...
Mapping the global threat of land subsidence
Gerardo Herrera, Pablo Ezquerro, Roberto Tomas, Marta Bejar-Pizarro, Juan Lopez-Vinielles, Mauro Rossi, Rosa M. Mateos, Dora Carreon-Freyre, John Lambert, Pietro Teatini, Enrique Cabral-Cano, Gilles Erkens, Devin Galloway, Wei-Chia Hung, Najeebullah Kakar, Michelle Sneed, Luigi Tosi, Hanmei Wang, Shujun Ye
2021, Science (371) 34-36
Subsidence, the lowering of Earth's land surface, is a potentially destructive hazard that can be caused by a wide range of natural or anthropogenic triggers but mainly results from solid or fluid mobilization underground. Subsidence due to groundwater depletion (1) is a slow and gradual...
Using seasonal rainfall clusters to explain the interannual variability of the rain belt over the Greater Horn of Africa
Larisa Seregina, Andreas Fink, Roderick van der Linden, Chris Funk, Joaquim Pinto
2021, International Journal of Climatology (41) E1717-E1737
The seasonal cycle of rainfall over the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) is dominated by the latitudinal migration and activity of the tropical rain belt (TRB). The TRB exhibits high interannual variability in the GHA and the reasons for the recent dry period in the Long...
Global response of terrestrial gross primary productivity to climate extremes
Minshu Yuan, Qiuan Zhu, Jiang Zhang, Jinxun Liu, Huai Chen, Changhui Peng, Peng Li, Mingxu Li, Meng Wang, Pengxiang Zhao
2021, Science of the Total Environment (750)
Extreme climate events undoubtedly have essential impacts on ecosystem gross primary productivity (GPP), but the global spatio-temporal patterns of GPP responses to climate extremes are unclear. In this study, we analyzed the responses of GPP to temperature and precipitation extremes during historical (1901–2016) and future (2006–2100) periods using climate extreme...
Movement, recruitment, and abundance relationships of Prairie Chub: An endemic Great Plains cyprinid
Shannon K. Brewer, Robert M. Mollenhauer, Joshua Perkin, Zachary D. Steffensmeier, Maeghen Wedgeworth
2021, Report
The Prairie Chub Macrhybopsis australis is a poorly studied endemic cyprinid of the upper Red River basin and is listed as threatened in Texas and of greatest conservation need in Oklahoma. Hypothesized mechanisms have been proposed to explain the decline of pelagic broadcast spawning...
Arsenic release to the environment from hydrocarbon production, storage, transportation, use and waste management
Madeline Schreiber, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli
2021, Journal of Hazardous Materials (411)
Arsenic (As) is a toxic trace element with many sources, including hydrocarbons such as oil, natural gas, oil sands, and oil- and gas-bearing shales. Arsenic from these hydrocarbon sources can be released to the environment through human activities of hydrocarbon production, storage, transportation and use. In addition, accidental release of...
Oases: Finding hidden biodiversity gems in the southern Sonoran Desert
Michael T. Bogan, Carlos Ballesteros-Cordova, S. Bennett, Michael H. Darin, Lloyd T. Findley, Alejandro Varela-Romero
2021, Book chapter, Standing between life and extinction: Ethics and ecology of conserving aquatic species in North American deserts
In the arid southern Sonoran Desert, the rugged canyons of the Sierra El Aguaje contain numerous freshwater oases. These habitats are supported by small springs which are usually located along geologic faults in volcanic and granitic bedrock. Genetic evidence from freshwater-obligate species (e.g., fish and frogs) suggests these or similar...
River terrace evidence of tectonic processes in the eastern North American plate interior, South Anna River, Virginia
Frank J. Pazzaglia, Helen F. Malenda, Matthew L. McGavick, Cody Raup, Mark W. Carter, Claudio Berti, Shannon A. Mahan, Michelle S. Nelson, Tammy M. Rittenour, Ron Counts, Jane K Willenbring, Dru Germanoski, Stephen C. Peters, William D. Holt
2021, Journal of Geology (129) 595-624
We show that long-recognized seismicity in the central Virginia seismic zone of the eastern North American intraplate setting arises primarily from tectonic processes predicted by new, fully coupled plate tectonic geodynamic models. The study leverages much new geophysical and geologic data following the 2011 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake that ruptured a...
Biological and practical tradeoffs in planting techniques for submerged aquatic vegetation
C.B. Rohal, L.K. Reynolds, C.R. Adams, C.W. Martin, E. Latimer, Stephen Walsh, J. Slater
2021, Aquatic Botany (170)
Global loss of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) and associated ecosystem function has prompted an interest in SAV revegetation, particularly where underlying stressors such as nutrient enrichment are mitigated, yet natural recruitment remains low. Typically, SAV is hand-planted, but alternative reliable and practically...
Yearly temperature fluctuations and survey speed influence road counts of wintering raptors
Christopher J W McClure, Brian W. Rolek, Gregory W Grove, Todd E. Katzner
2021, Ibis (163) 593-606
Globally, evaluation of population trends is the most pressing research need for many species of conservation concern. Road counts for birds of prey are useful for monitoring long‐term population trends and examining year‐to‐year variations in abundance. We examined data from 2155 road surveys conducted from 2001...
Modeling round goby growth in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron with multi-model inference
Youjian Duan, Charles P. Madenjian, Yingming Zhao, Bin Huo
2021, Fisheries Research (236)
Although the round goby Neogobius melanostomus has become established throughout the Laurentian Great Lakes, a multi-model inference (MMI) approach toward characterizing round goby growth in the Laurentian Great Lakes has yet to applied using otolith-derived data. Further, spatial variation in round goby growth among...
Evaluation of simulated ground motions using probabilistic seismic demand analysis: CyberShake (ver. 15.12) simulations for Ordinary Standard Bridges
Jawad Fayaz, Sanaz Rezaeian, Farzin Zareian
2021, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering Journal (141)
There is a need for benchmarking and validating simulated ground motions in order for them to be utilized by the engineering community. Such validation may be geared towards a specific ground motion simulation method, a target engineering application, and a specific location; the validation presented herein focuses on a bridge...
Correcting the historical record for Kīlauea Volcano's 1832, 1868, and 1877 summit eruptions
Tim R. Orr, Richard W. Hazlett, Liliana G. DeSmither, James P. Kauahikaua, Ben Gaddis
2021, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (410)
Three fissure eruptions are known to have occurred along the northeastern edge of Kīlauea's summit caldera in the 19th century—in the years 1832, 1868, and 1877. Modern portrayal of these eruptions on maps and in written sources indicates that the 1832...
Mangroves and people: Impacts and interactions
Daniel A Freiss, Siew Chin Chua, Zeehan Jaafer, Ken Krauss, Erik S. Yando
2021, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (248)
Mangroves have long been associated with human populations, as coastal communities rely on the various ecosystem services that mangroves provide. However, human degradation and destruction of mangrove forests is common, despite and because of our reliance on them as valuable ecosystems. Mangrove research and management must elucidate and reconcile these...
Forest responses to last-millennium hydroclimate variability are governed by spatial variations in ecosystem sensitivity
Christine R. Rollinson, Andria Dawson, Ann M. Raiho, John W. Williams, Michael C. Dietze, Thomas Hickler, Stephen T. Jackson, Jason S. McLachlan, David J.P. Moore, Benjamin Poulter, Tristan Quaife, Jorg Steinkamp, Mathias Trachsel
2021, Ecology Letters (24) 498-508
Forecasts of future forest change are governed by ecosystem sensitivity to climate change, but ecosystem model projections are under-constrained by data at multidecadal and longer timescales. Here, we quantify ecosystem sensitivity to centennial-scale hydroclimate variability, by comparing dendroclimatic and pollen-inferred reconstructions of drought, forest composition and...
Movement ecology
Stephen Blake, Charles B. Yackulic, Freddy Cabrera, Sharon L. Deem, Diego Ellis-Soto, James P. Gibbs, Franz Kummeth, Martin Wikelski, Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau
2021, Book chapter, Galapagos giant tortoises—Biodiversity of world—Conservation from genes to landscapes
(Yackulic) At first glance, the decision to study movement in Galapagos tortoises seems curious. Given the slow speed of tortoises and tendency to forage and rest as they move, it seems implausible that tortoises would string their slow bursts of activity together to accomplish large-scale movements. Nonetheless, as early as...
