Development of twelve microsatellite loci in the red tree corals Primnoa resedaeformis and Primnoa pacifica
Cheryl L. Morrison, Marcus J. Springmann, Kelsey Shroades, Robert P. Stone
2015, Conservation Genetics Resources (7) 763-765
A suite of tetra-, penta-, and hexa-nucleotide microsatellite loci were developed from Roche 454 pyrosequencing data for the cold-water octocorals Primnoa resedaeformis and P. pacifica. Twelve of 98 primer sets tested consistently amplified in 30 P. resedaeformis samples from Baltimore...
The climate space of fire regimes in north-western North America
Ellen Whitman, Enric Batllori, Marc-Andre Parisien, Carol Miller, Jonathan D. Coop, Meg A. Krawchuk, Geneva W. Chong, Sandra L. Haire
2015, Journal of Biogeography (42) 1736-1749
Aim. Studies of fire activity along environmental gradients have been undertaken, but the results of such studies have yet to be integrated with fire-regime analysis. We characterize fire-regime components along climate gradients and a gradient of human influence. Location. We focus on a climatically diverse region of north-western North America...
Soil carbon storage following road removal and timber harvesting in redwood forests
Joseph Seney, Mary Ann Madej
2015, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (40) 2084-2092
Soil carbon storage plays a key role in the global carbon cycle and is important for sustaining forest productivity. Removal of unpaved forest roads has the potential for increasing carbon storage in soils on forested terrain as treated sites revegetate and soil properties improve on the previously compacted road surfaces....
Tree mortality from drought, insects, and their interactions in a changing climate
William R.L. Anderegg, Jeffrey A. Hicke, Rosie A. Fisher, Craig D. Allen, Juliann E. Aukema, Barbara Bentz, Sharon Hood, Jeremy W. Lichstein, Alison K. Macalady, Nate G. McDowell, Yude Pan, Kenneth Raffa, Anna Sala, John D. Shaw, Nathan L. Stephenson, Christina L. Tague, Melanie Zeppel
2015, New Phytologist (208) 674-683
Climate change is expected to drive increased tree mortality through drought, heat stress, and insect attacks, with manifold impacts on forest ecosystems. Yet, climate-induced tree mortality and biotic disturbance agents are largely absent from process-based ecosystem models. Using data sets from the western USA and associated studies, we present a...
Modeling the complex impacts of timber harvests to find optimal management regimes for Amazon tidal floodplain forests
Lucas B. Fortini, Wendell P. Cropper, Daniel J. Zarin
2015, PLoS ONE (10) 1-17
At the Amazon estuary, the oldest logging frontier in the Amazon, no studies have comprehensively explored the potential long-term population and yield consequences of multiple timber harvests over time. Matrix population modeling is one way to simulate long-term impacts of tree harvests, but this approach has often ignored common impacts...
Late Pleistocene ages for the most recent volcanism and glacial-pluvial deposits at Big Pine volcanic field, California, USA, from cosmogenic 36Cl dating
Jorge A. Vazquez, Jeff M Woolford
2015, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (16) 1-17
The Big Pine volcanic field is one of several Quaternary volcanic fields that poses a potential volcanic hazard along the tectonically active Owens Valley of east-central California, and whose lavas are interbedded with deposits from Pleistocene glaciations in the Sierra Nevada Range. Previous geochronology indicates an ∼1.2 Ma history of...
Controls on the breach geometry and flood hydrograph during overtopping of non-cohesive earthen dams
Joseph S. Walder, Richard M. Iverson, Jonathan W. Godt, Matthew Logan, Stephen A. Solovitz
2015, Water Resources Research (51) 6701-6724
Overtopping failure of non-cohesive earthen dams was investigated in 13 large-scale experiments with dams built of compacted, damp, fine-grained sand. Breaching was initiated by cutting a notch across the dam crest and allowing water escaping from a finite upstream reservoir to form its own channel. The channel developed a stepped...
Predicting watershed post-fire sediment yield with the InVEST sediment retention model: Accuracy and uncertainties
Joel B. Sankey, Jason McVay, Jason R. Kreitler, Todd Hawbaker, Nicole Vaillant, Scott Lowe
2015, Conference Paper
Increased sedimentation following wildland fire can negatively impact water supply and water quality. Understanding how changing fire frequency, extent, and location will affect watersheds and the ecosystem services they supply to communities is of great societal importance in the western USA and throughout the world. In this work we assess...
Modelling regional land change scenarios to assess land abandonment and reforestation dynamics in the Pyrenees (France)
Laure Vacquie, Thomas Houet, Terry L. Sohl, Ryan R. Reker, Kristi L. Sayler
2015, Journal of Mountain Science (12) 905-920
Over the last decades and centuries, European mountain landscapes have experienced substantial transformations. Natural and anthropogenic LULC changes (land use and land cover changes), especially agro-pastoral activities, have directly influenced the spatial organization and composition of European mountain landscapes. For the past sixty years, natural reforestation has been occurring due...
Crustal-scale tilting of the central Salton block, southern California
Rebecca Dorsey, Victoria E. Langenheim
2015, Geosphere (11) 1365-1383
The southern San Andreas fault system (California, USA) provides an excellent natural laboratory for studying the controls on vertical crustal motions related to strike-slip deformation. Here we present geologic, geomorphic, and gravity data that provide evidence for active northeastward tilting of the Santa Rosa Mountains and southern Coachella Valley about...
Geochemical and mineralogical characteristics of REE in granite-derived regolith: a model for the Southeast United States
Nora K. Foley, Carleton R. Bern, Robert A. Ayuso, Bernard E. Hubbard, Anjana K. Shah
2015, Conference Paper, Proceeding of the 13th Biennial SGA Meeting
Rare earth element (REE) ion-adsorption clay deposits are of global economic importance because they currently supply a significant portion of the world’s annual production of both light (LREE) and heavy REE (HREE). There is considerable ambiguity regarding the origin of this deposit type: The main criteria include the presence...
Changes in data sharing and data reuse practices and perceptions among scientists worldwide
Carol Tenopir, Elizabeth D. Dalton, Suzie Allard, Mike Frame, Ivanka Pjesivac, Ben Birch, Danielle Pollock, Kristina Dorsett
2015, PLoS ONE (10)
The incorporation of data sharing into the research lifecycle is an important part of modern scholarly debate. In this study, the DataONE Usability and Assessment working group addresses two primary goals: To examine the current state of data sharing and reuse perceptions and practices among research scientists as they compare...
Relations between well-field pumping and induced canal leakage in east-central Miami-Dade County, Florida, 2010-2011
Katherine Nemec, Dominick J. Antolino, Michael Turtora, Adam Foster
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5095
An extensive canal and water management system exists in south Florida to prevent flooding, replenish groundwater, and impede saltwater intrusion. The unconfined Biscayne aquifer, which underlies southeast Florida and provides water for millions of residents, interacts with the canal system. The Biscayne aquifer is composed of a highly transmissive karst...
Observatory geoelectric fields induced in a two-layer lithosphere during magnetic storms
Jeffrey J. Love, Andrei Swidinsky
2015, Earth, Planets and Space (67)
We report on the development and validation of an algorithm for estimating geoelectric fields induced in the lithosphere beneath an observatory during a magnetic storm. To accommodate induction in three-dimensional lithospheric electrical conductivity, we analyze a simple nine-parameter model: two horizontal layers, each with uniform electrical conductivity properties given by...
Plugs or flood-makers? the unstable landslide dams of eastern Oregon
Elizabeth B. Safran, Jim E. O'Connor, Lisa L. Ely, Kyle House, Gordon E. Grant, Kelsey Harrity, Kelsey Croall, Emily Jones
2015, Geomorphology (248) 237-251
Landslides into valley bottoms can affect longitudinal profiles of rivers, thereby influencing landscape evolution through base-level changes. Large landslides can hinder river incision by temporarily damming rivers, but catastrophic failure of landslide dams may generate large floods that could promote incision. Dam stability therefore strongly modulates the effects of landslide...
Flood-inundation maps for Grand River, Red Cedar River, and Sycamore Creek near Lansing, Michigan
Matthew Whitehead, Chad J. Ostheimer
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5101
Digital flood-inundation maps for a total of 19.7 miles of the Grand River, the Red Cedar River, and Sycamore Creek were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the City of Lansing, Michigan, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The flood-inundation maps, which can be accessed...
On- and off-fault deformation associated with the September 2013 Mw7.7 Balochistan earthquake: Implications for geologic slip rate measurements
Ryan D. Gold, Nadine G. Reitman, Richard W. Briggs, William D. Barnhart, Gavin P. Hayes, Earl M. Wilson
2015, Tectonophysics (660) 65-78
The 24 September 2013 Mw7.7 Balochistan, Pakistan earthquake ruptured a ~ 200 km-long stretch of the Hoshab fault in southern Pakistan and produced the second-largest lateral surface displacement observed for a continental strike-slip earthquake. We remotely measured surface deformation associated with this event using high-resolution (0.5 m) pre- and post-event satellite optical imagery....
Evidence of counter-gradient growth in western pond turtles (Actinemys marmorata) across thermal gradients
Melissa Snover, M. J. Adams, Donald T. Ashton, Jamie B. Bettaso, Hartwell H. Welsh Jr.
2015, Freshwater Biology (60) 1944-1963
Counter-gradient growth, where growth per unit temperature increases as temperature decreases, can reduce the variation in ectothermic growth rates across environmental gradients. Understanding how ectothermic species respond to changing temperatures is essential to their conservation and management due to human-altered habitats and changing climates. Here, we use two contrasting...
Calculating salt loads to Great Salt Lake and the associated uncertainties for water year 2013; updating a 48 year old standard
Christopher L. Shope, Cory E. Angeroth
2015, Science of the Total Environment (536) 391-405
Effective management of surface waters requires a robust understanding of spatiotemporal constituent loadings from upstream sources and the uncertainty associated with these estimates. We compared the total dissolved solids loading into the Great Salt Lake (GSL) for water year 2013 with estimates of previously sampled periods in the early 1960s.We...
Moisture rivals temperature in limiting photosynthesis by trees establishing beyond their cold-edge range limit under ambient and warmed conditions
Andrew B. Moyes, Matthew J. Germino, Lara M. Kueppers
2015, New Phytologist (207) 1005-1014
Climate change is altering plant species distributions globally, and warming is expected to promote uphill shifts in mountain trees. However, at many cold-edge range limits, such as alpine treelines in the western United States, tree establishment may be colimited by low temperature and low moisture, making recruitment patterns...
Rethinking the longitudinal stream temperature paradigm: region-wide comparison of thermal infrared imagery reveals unexpected complexity of river temperatures
Aimee H. Fullerton, Christian E. Torgersen, Joshua J. Lawler, Russell N. Faux, E. Ashley Steel, Timothy J. Beechie, Joseph L. Ebersole, Scott J. Leibowitz
2015, Hydrological Processes (29) 4719-4737
Prevailing theory suggests that stream temperature warms asymptotically in a downstream direction, beginning at the temperature of the source in the headwaters and leveling off downstream as it converges to match meteorological conditions. However, there have been few empirical examples of longitudinal patterns of temperature in large rivers due to...
Effects of changing climate on aquatic habitat and connectivity for remnant populations of a wide-ranging frog species in an arid landscape
David S. Pilliod, Robert S. Arkle, Jeanne M. Robertson, Melanie Murphy, W. Chris Funk
2015, Ecology and Evolution (5) 3979-3994
Amphibian species persisting in isolated streams and wetlands in desert environments can be susceptible to low connectivity, genetic isolation, and climate changes. We evaluated the past (1900–1930), recent (1981–2010), and future (2071–2100) climate suitability of the arid Great Basin (USA) for the Columbia spotted frog (Rana luteiventris) and assessed whether...
Flood-inundation maps for the St. Marys River at Decatur, Indiana
Kellan R. Strauch
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5099
Digital flood-inundation maps for an 8.9-mile reach of the St. Marys River at Decatur, Indiana, were developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs. The inundation maps, which can be accessed through the USGS Flood Inundation Mapping Science Web site...
Evaluation of statistical and rainfall-runoff models for predicting historical daily streamflow time series in the Des Moines and Iowa River watersheds
William H. Farmer, Rodney R. Knight, David A. Eash, Kasey J. Hutchinson, S. Mike Linhart, Daniel E. Christiansen, Stacey A. Archfield, Thomas M. Over, Julie E. Kiang
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5089
Daily records of streamflow are essential to understanding hydrologic systems and managing the interactions between human and natural systems. Many watersheds and locations lack streamgages to provide accurate and reliable records of daily streamflow. In such ungaged watersheds, statistical tools and rainfall-runoff models are used to estimate daily streamflow. Previous...
Local variability mediates vulnerability of trout populations to land use and climate change
Brooke E. Penaluna, Jason B. Dunham, Steve F. Railsback, Ivan Arismendi, Sherri L. Johnson, Robert E Bilby, Mohammad Safeeq, Arne E. Skaugset
2015, PLoS ONE (8)
Land use and climate change occur simultaneously around the globe. Fully understanding their separate and combined effects requires a mechanistic understanding at the local scale where their effects are ultimately realized. Here we applied an individual-based model of fish population dynamics to evaluate the role of local stream variability in...
