Search Results

We examine how soil moisture variability and trends affect the simulation of temperature and precipitation extremes in six global climate models using the experimental protocol of the Global Land-Atmosphere Coupling Experiment of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 5 (GLACE-CMIP5). This protocol enables separate examinations of the influences of soil moisture...

Over the last decade, the abundance of Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides has increased in many northern Wisconsin lakes, causing concern among anglers and biologists regarding the potential for Largemouth Bass to negatively affect populations of Walleye Sander vitreus through predation or competition for prey. Our objectives were to determine whether...

Tectonic, geologic, geochemical, geochronologic, and ore deposit data from the U.S. Geological Survey-led assessment of 26 porphyry belts identified in the central Tethys region of Turkey, the Caucasus, Iran, western Pakistan, and southern Afghanistan relate porphyry mineralization to the...

We provide a simple framework for diagnosing the impairment of stream water temperature for coldwater fishes across broad spatial extents based on a weight-of-evidence approach that integrates biological criteria, species distribution models, and geostatistical models of stream temperature. As a test case, we applied our approach to identify stream reaches...

State-space models offer researchers an objective approach to modeling complex animal location data sets, and state-space model behavior classifications are often assumed to have a link to animal behavior. In this study, we evaluated the behavioral classification accuracy of a Bayesian state-space model in Pacific walruses using Argos satellite tags...

In Pennsylvania, Lepus americanus (Snowshoe Hare) is near the southern limits of its range and at risk of range contraction because of loss of early-successional forest and impacts of climate change. We used hunter-harvest data to investigate changes in the distribution of Snowshoe Hare in Pennsylvania (1983–2011), forest inventory and...

The San Luis Basin encompasses the largest structural and hydrologic basin of the Rio Grande rift. On this field trip, we will examine the timing of transition of the San Luis Basin from hydrologically closed, aggrading subbasins to a continuous fluvial system that eroded the basin, formed the Rio Grande...

1. Combining landscape demographic and genetics models offers powerful methods for addressing questions for eco-evolutionary applications.2. Using two illustrative examples, we present Cost–Distance Meta-POPulation, a program to simulate changes in neutral and/or selection-driven genotypes through time as a function of individual-based movement, complex spatial population dynamics, and multiple and...

Avian habitat selection occurs at multiple spatial scales to incorporate life history requirements. Breeding habitat of Golden-winged Warblers (Vermivora chrysoptera) is characterized by largely forested landscapes containing natural or anthropogenic disturbance elements that maintain forest patches in early stages of succession. Breeding habitat occurs in a variety of settings, including...

The ONSR is a karst park, containing many springs and caves. The “jewels” of the park are large springs, several of first magnitude, that contribute significantly to the flow and water quality of the Current River and its tributaries. Completion of 1:24,000-scale geologic mapping of the park and surrounding river...

Effective management of water resources requires accurate information on the mass, or load of water-quality constituents transported from upstream watersheds to downstream receiving waters. Despite this need, no single method has been shown to consistently provide accurate load estimates among different water-quality constituents, sampling sites, and sampling regimes. We evaluate...

Phosphorus (P) is essential for life. It is the backbone of our DNA, provides energy for biological reactions, and is an integral component of cell membranes. As such, it is no surprise that P availability plays a strong role in regulating ecosystem structure and function (Wassen et al. 2005, Elser...

This paper updates and builds on ‘Modelling with Stakeholders’ Voinov and Bousquet, 2010 which demonstrated the importance of, and demand for, stakeholder participation in resource and environmental modelling. This position paper returns to the concepts of that publication and reviews the progress made since 2010. A new development is the...

We evaluated temperature tolerance in age-0 pallid and shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus and Scaphirhynchus platorynchus), two species that occur sympatrically in the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Fish (0.04–18 g) were acclimated to water temperatures of 13, 18 or 24 °C to quantify temperatures associated with lethal thermal maxima (LTM). The results show...

Acidification has historically impaired Cheat Lake's fish community, but recent mitigation efforts within the Cheat River watershed have improved water quality and species richness. Presently, channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus are abundant and attain desirable sizes for anglers. We evaluated the age, growth, and fall diet of the population. We collected...

AimImpacts of non-native species have motivated development of risk assessment tools for identifying introduced species likely to become invasive. Here, we develop trait-based models for the establishment and impact stages of freshwater fish invasion, and use them to screen non-native species common in international trade. We also determine which species...

We developed a spatially explicit model and map, as a decision support tool (DST), to aid conservation agencies creating or maintaining open pine ecosystems. The tool identified areas that are likely to provide the greatest benefit to focal bird populations based on a comprehensive landscape analysis. We used NLCD 2011,...

Continental-domain assessments of climate change impacts on water resources typically rely on statistically downscaled climate model outputs to force hydrologic models at a finer spatial resolution. This study examines the effects of four statistical downscaling methods [bias-corrected constructed analog (BCCA), bias-corrected spatial disaggregation applied at daily (BCSDd) and monthly scales...

The United States and Mexico share waters in a number of hydrological basins and aquifers that cross the international boundary. Both countries recognize that, in a region of scarce water resources and expanding populations, a greater scientific understanding of these aquifer systems would be beneficial. In light of this, the...

Numerous methods have been proposed to estimate the pre-nuclear-detonation 14C content of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) recharged to groundwater that has been corrected/adjusted for geochemical processes in the absence of radioactive decay (14C0) - a quantity that is essential for estimation of radiocarbon age of DIC in groundwater. The models/approaches most...

This field-trip guide outlines the glacial history of the upper Arkansas River valley, Colorado, and builds on a previous GSA field trip to the area in 2010. The following will be presented: (1) new cosmogenic 10Be exposure ages of moraine boulders from the Pinedale and Bull Lake glaciations (Marine Isotope...

Local abiotic and biotic conditions can alter the strength of exotic species impacts. To better understand the effects of exotic species on invaded ecosystems and to prioritize management efforts, it is important that exotic species impacts are put in local environmental context. We studied how differences in plant community composition,...

We used both stomach content and stable isotope analyses to describe the feeding ecology of Siberian prawns Palaemon modestus (Heller, 1862), a non-native caridean shrimp that is a relatively recent invader of the lower Snake River. Based on identifiable prey in stomachs, the opossum shrimp Neomysis mercedis Holmes, 1896 comprised...

During the 2004–2005 to 2015–2016 hunting seasons, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish (NMDGF) estimated black bear abundance (Ursus americanus) across the state by coupling density estimates with the distribution of primary habitat generated by Costello et al. (2001). These estimates have been used to set harvest limits....

In this chapter, we provide an introduction to classical distance sampling ideas for point and line transect data, and for continuous and binned distance data. We introduce the conditional and the full likelihood, and we discuss Bayesian analysis of these models in BUGS using the idea of data augmentation, which...