Generic reclassification and species boundaries in the rediscovered freshwater mussel ‘Quadrula’ mitchelli (Simpson in Dall, 1896)
John M. Pfeiffer III, Nathan A. Johnson, Charles R. Randklev, Robert G. Howells, James D. Williams
2016, Conservation Genetics (17) 279-292
The Central Texas endemic freshwater mussel, Quadrula mitchelli (Simpson in Dall, 1896), had been presumed extinct until relict populations were recently rediscovered. To help guide ongoing and future conservation efforts focused on Q. mitchelli we set out to resolve several uncertainties regarding its evolutionary history, specifically its unknown generic...
Animal movement constraints improve resource selection inference in the presence of telemetry error
Brian M. Brost, Mevin Hooten, Ephraim M. Hanks, Robert J. Small
2016, Ecology (96) 2590-2597
Multiple factors complicate the analysis of animal telemetry location data. Recent advancements address issues such as temporal autocorrelation and telemetry measurement error, but additional challenges remain. Difficulties introduced by complicated error structures or barriers to animal movement can weaken inference. We propose an approach for obtaining resource selection inference from...
Evaluating abundance and trends in a Hawaiian avian community using state-space analysis
Richard J. Camp, Kevin W. Brinck, P. M. Gorresen, Eben H. Paxton
2016, Bird Conservation International (26) 225-242
Estimating population abundances and patterns of change over time are important in both ecology and conservation. Trend assessment typically entails fitting a regression to a time series of abundances to estimate population trajectory. However, changes in abundance estimates from year-to-year across time are due to both true variation in population...
Blind identification of the Millikan Library from earthquake data considering soil–structure interaction
S. F. Ghahari, F. Abazarsa, O. Avci, Mehmet Çelebi, E. Taciroglu
2016, Structural Control and Health Monitoring (23) 684-706
The Robert A. Millikan Library is a reinforced concrete building with a basement level and nine stories above the ground. Located on the campus of California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena California, it is among the most densely instrumented buildings in the U.S. From the early dates of its...
Precipitation regime classification for the Mojave Desert: Implications for fire occurrence
Jerry Tagestad, Matthew L. Brooks, Valerie Cullinan, Janelle Downs, Randy McKinley
2016, Journal of Arid Environments (124) 388-397
Long periods of drought or above-average precipitation affect Mojave Desert vegetation condition, biomass and susceptibility to fire. Changes in the seasonality of precipitation alter the likelihood of lightning, a key ignition source for fires. The objectives of this study were to characterize the relationship between recent, historic, and future precipitation...
Seasonal temperature and precipitation regulate brook trout young-of-the-year abundance and population dynamics
Yoichiro Kanno, Kasey C. Pregler, Nathaniel P. Hitt, Benjamin Letcher, Daniel Hocking, John E. B. Wofford
2016, Freshwater Biology (61) 88-99
Abundance of the young‐of‐the‐year (YOY) fish can vary greatly among years and it may be driven by several key biological processes (i.e. adult spawning, egg survival and fry survival) that span several months. However, the relative influence of seasonal weather patterns on YOY abundance is poorly understood.We assessed the...
Two Holocene paleofire records from Peten, Guatemala: Implications for natural fire regime and prehispanic Maya land use
Lysanna Anderson, David B. Wahl
2016, Global and Planetary Change (138) 82-92
Although fire was arguably the primary tool used by the Maya to alter the landscape and extract resources, little attention has been paid to biomass burning in paleoenvironmental reconstructions from the Maya lowlands. Here we report two new well-dated, high-resolution records of biomass burning based on analysis of macroscopic fossil...
Copahue volcano and its regional magmatic setting
J. C. Varekamp, J. E. Zareski, L. M. Camfield, Erin Todd
2016, Book chapter, Copahue Volcano
Copahue volcano (Province of Neuquen, Argentina) has produced lavas and strombolian deposits over several 100,000s of years, building a rounded volcano with a 3 km elevation. The products are mainly basaltic andesites, with the 2000–2012 eruptive products the most mafic. The geochemistry of Copahue products is compared with those of the...
Transforming ecosystems: When, where, and how to restore contaminated sites
Jason R. Rohr, Aida M. Farag, Marc W. Cadotte, William H. Clements, James R. Smith, Cheryl P. Ulrich, Richard Woods
2016, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (12) 273-283
Chemical contamination has impaired ecosystems, reducing biodiversity and the provisioning of functions and services. This has spurred a movement to restore contaminated ecosystems and develop and implement national and international regulations that require it. Nevertheless, ecological restoration remains a young and rapidly growing discipline and its intersection with toxicology is...
Bayesian data analysis in population ecology: motivations, methods, and benefits
Robert Dorazio
2016, Population Ecology (58) 31-44
During the 20th century ecologists largely relied on the frequentist system of inference for the analysis of their data. However, in the past few decades ecologists have become increasingly interested in the use of Bayesian methods of data analysis. In this article I provide guidance to ecologists who would like...
Multi‐season occupancy models identify biotic and abiotic factors influencing a recovering Arctic Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus tundrius population
Jason E. Bruggeman, Ted Swem, David E. Andersen, Patricia L. Kennedy, Debora Nigro
2016, Ibis (158) 61-74
Critical information for evaluating the effectiveness of management strategies for species of concern include distinguishing seldom occupied (or low‐quality) habitat from habitat that is frequently occupied and thus contributes substantially to population trends. Using multi‐season models that account for imperfect detection and a long‐term (1981–2002) dataset on migratory Arctic Peregrine...
Assessing the robustness of quantitative fatty acid signature analysis to assumption violations
Jeffrey F. Bromaghin, Suzanne M. Budge, Gregory W. Thiemann, Karyn D. Rode
2016, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (7) 51-59
Knowledge of animal diets can provide important insights into life history and ecology, relationships among species in a community and potential response to ecosystem change or perturbation. Quantitative fatty acid signature analysis (QFASA) is a method of estimating diets from data on the composition, or signature, of fatty acids stored...
Seasonal and spatial patterns of growth of rainbow trout in the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, AZ
Micheal D. Yard, Josh Korman, Carl J. Walters, T.A. Kennedy
2016, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (73) 125-139
Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) have been purposely introduced in many regulated rivers, with inadvertent consequences on native fishes. We describe how trout growth rates and condition could be influencing trout population dynamics in a 130 km section of the Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam based on a large-scale mark–recapture...
1DTempPro V2: new features for inferring groundwater/surface-water exchange
Franklin W. Koch, Emily B. Voytek, Frederick D. Day-Lewis, Richard W. Healy, Martin A. Briggs, John W. Lane Jr., Dale D. Werkema
2016, Groundwater Monitoring & Remediation (54) 434-439
A new version of the computer program 1DTempPro extends the original code to include new capabilities for (1) automated parameter estimation, (2) layer heterogeneity, and (3) time-varying specific discharge. The code serves as an interface to the U.S. Geological Survey model VS2DH and supports analysis of vertical one-dimensional temperature profiles...
Diagnostic and model dependent uncertainty of simulated Tibetan permafrost area
A. Wang, J.C. Moore, Xingquan Cui, D. Ji, Q. Li, N. Zhang, C. Wang, S. Zhang, D.M. Lawrence, A. D. McGuire, W. Zhang, C. Delire, C. Koven, K. Saito, A. MacDougall, E. Burke, B. Decharme
2016, Cryosphere Discussions (10) 287-306
We perform a land-surface model intercomparison to investigate how the simulation of permafrost area on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) varies among six modern stand-alone land-surface models (CLM4.5, CoLM, ISBA, JULES, LPJ-GUESS, UVic). We also examine the variability in simulated permafrost area and distribution introduced by five different methods of diagnosing...
Prediction of plant vulnerability to salinity increase in a coastal ecosystem by stable isotopic composition (δ18O) of plant stem water: a model study
Lu Zhai, Jiang Jiang, Donald L. DeAngelis, Leonel d.S.L Sternberg
2016, Ecosystems (19) 32-49
Sea level rise and the subsequent intrusion of saline seawater can result in an increase in soil salinity, and potentially cause coastal salinity-intolerant vegetation (for example, hardwood hammocks or pines) to be replaced by salinity-tolerant vegetation (for example, mangroves or salt marshes). Although the vegetation shifts can be easily monitored...
Experimental infection of six North American fish species with the North Carolina strain of spring Viremia of Carp Virus
Eveline J. Emmenegger, George E. Sanders, Carla M. Conway, Fred P. Binkowski, James R. Winton, Gael Kurath
2016, Aquaculture (450) 273-282
Spring viremia of carp virus (SVCV) is a rhabdoviral pathogen associated with disease outbreaks in cultured and wild fish worldwide. Common carp (Cyprinus carpio carp), and koi (C. carpio koi) suffer the highest mortalities from SVCV infections, while other cyprinid fish species have varying susceptibility. Although salmonid fish typically...
Effects of wind-energy facilities on grassland bird distributions
Jill A. Shaffer, Deborah A. Buhl
2016, Conservation Biology (30) 59-71
The contribution of renewable energy to meet worldwide demand continues to grow. Wind energy is one of the fastest growing renewable sectors, but new wind facilities are often placed in prime wildlife habitat. Long-term studies that incorporate a rigorous statistical design to evaluate the effects of wind facilities on wildlife...
The Upper Mississippi River floodscape: spatial patterns of flood inundation and associated plant community distributions
Nathan R. De Jager, Jason J. Rohweder, Yao Yin, Erin E. Hoy
2016, Applied Vegetation Science (19) 164-172
Questions How is the distribution of different plant communities associated with patterns of flood inundation across a large floodplain landscape? Location Thirty-eight thousand nine hundred and seventy hectare of floodplain, spanning 320 km of the Upper Mississippi River (UMR). Methods High-resolution elevation data (Lidar) and 30 yr of daily river...
Mid-Wisconsin to Holocene permafrost and landscape dynamics based on a drained lake basin core from the northern Seward Peninsula, northwest Alaska
Josefine Lenz, Guido Grosse, Benjamin M. Jones, Katey M. Walter Anthony, Anatoly Bobrov, Sabine Wulf, Sebastian Wetterich
2016, Permafrost and Periglacial Processes (27) 56-75
Permafrost-related processes drive regional landscape dynamics in the Arctic terrestrial system. A better understanding of past periods indicative of permafrost degradation and aggradation is important for predicting the future response of Arctic landscapes to climate change. Here, we used a multi-proxy approach to analyse a ~ 4 m long sediment core from a...
Mangrove sedimentation and response to relative sea-level rise
CD Woodroffe, K. Rogers, Karen L. McKee, CE Lovelock, IA Mendelssohn, N. Saintilan
2016, Annual Review of Marine Science (8) 243-266
Mangroves occur on upper intertidal shorelines in the tropics and subtropics. Complex hydrodynamic and salinity conditions influence mangrove distributions, primarily related to elevation and hydroperiod; this review considers how these adjust through time. Accumulation rates of allochthonous and autochthonous sediment, both inorganic and organic, vary between and within different settings....
Compact development and VMT: environmental determinism, self-selection, or some of both?
Reid Ewing, Shima Hamidi, James B. Grace
2016, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design (43) 737-755
There is a long-running debate in the planning literature about the effects of the built environment on travel behavior and the degree to which apparent effects are due to the tendency of households to self-select into neighborhoods that reinforce their travel preferences. Those who want to walk will choose walkable...
Corn stover harvest increases herbicide movement to subsurface drains: RZWQM simulations
Martin J. Shipitalo, Robert W. Malone, Liwang Ma, Bernard T. Nolan, Rameshwar S. Kanwar, Dale L. Shaner, Carl H. Pederson
2016, Pest Management Science (72) 1124-1132
BACKGROUND Crop residue removal for bioenergy production can alter soil hydrologic properties and the movement of agrochemicals to subsurface drains. The Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM), previously calibrated using measured flow and atrazine concentrations in drainage from a 0.4 ha chisel-tilled plot, was used to investigate...
Movement analysis of free-grazing domestic ducks in Poyang Lake, China: A disease connection
Diann J. Prosser, Eric C. Palm, John Y. Takekawa, Delong Zhao, Xiangming Xiao, Peng Li, Ying Liu, Scott H. Newman
2016, International Journal of Geographical Information Science (30) 869-880
Previous work suggests domestic poultry are important contributors to the emergence and transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza throughout Asia. In Poyang Lake, China, domestic duck production cycles are synchronized with arrival and departure of thousands of migratory wild birds in the area. During these periods, high densities of juvenile...
Evaluating hair as a predictor of blood mercury: the influence of ontogenetic phase and life history in pinnipeds
Sarah H. Peterson, Elizabeth A. McHuron, Stephanie N. Kennedy, Joshua T. Ackerman, Lorrie D. Rea, J. Margaret Castellini, Todd M. O'Hara, Daniel P. Costa
2016, Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (70) 28-45
Mercury (Hg) biomonitoring of pinnipeds increasingly utilizes nonlethally collected tissues such as hair and blood. The relationship between total Hg concentrations ([THg]) in these tissues is not well understood for marine mammals, but it can be important for interpretation of tissue concentrations with respect to ecotoxicology and biomonitoring. We examined...
