Trophic ecology of northern pike and their effect on conservation of westslope cutthroat trout.
John D. Walrath, Michael C. Quist, Jon A. Firehammer
2015, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (35) 158-177
Westslope Cutthroat Trout Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi in Coeur d’Alene Lake, Idaho, have declined in recent years; predation by Northern Pike Esox lucius, a nonnative sport fish, is thought to be a causative mechanism. The goal of this study was to describe the seasonal food habits of Northern Pike and determine their influence on...
Update of the Graizer-Kalkan ground-motion prediction equations for shallow crustal continental earthquakes
Vladimir Graizer, Erol Kalkan
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1009
A ground-motion prediction equation (GMPE) for computing medians and standard deviations of peak ground acceleration and 5-percent damped pseudo spectral acceleration response ordinates of maximum horizontal component of randomly oriented ground motions was developed by Graizer and Kalkan (2007, 2009) to be used for seismic hazard analyses and engineering applications....
Fire modulates climate change response of simulated aspen distribution across topoclimatic gradients in a semi-arid montane landscape
Jian Yang, Peter J. Weisberg, Douglas J. Shinneman, Thomas E. Dilts, Susan L. Earnst, Robert M Scheller
2015, Landscape Ecology (30) 1055-1073
Content Changing aspen distribution in response to climate change and fire is a major focus of biodiversity conservation, yet little is known about the potential response of aspen to these two driving forces along topoclimatic gradients. Objective This study is set to evaluate how aspen distribution might shift in response...
Understanding uncertainty in temperature effects on vector-borne disease: a Bayesian approach
Leah R. Johnson, Tal Ben-Horin, Kevin D. Lafferty, Amy McNally, Erin A. Mordecai, Krijn P. Paaijmans, Samraat Pawar, Sadie J. Ryan
2015, Ecology (96) 203-213
Extrinsic environmental factors influence the distribution and population dynamics of many organisms, including insects that are of concern for human health and agriculture. This is particularly true for vector-borne infectious diseases like malaria, which is a major source of morbidity and mortality in humans. Understanding the mechanistic links between environment...
Social Values for Ecosystem Services, version 3.0 (SolVES 3.0): documentation and user manual
Benson C. Sherrouse, Darius J. Semmens
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1008
The geographic information system (GIS) tool, Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES), was developed to incorporate quantified and spatially explicit measures of social values into ecosystem service assessments. SolVES 3.0 continues to extend the functionality of SolVES, which was designed to assess, map, and quantify the social values of ecosystem services. Social values—the perceived,...
Lake Michigan Diversion Accounting land cover change estimation by use of the National Land Cover Dataset and raingage network partitioning analysis
Jennifer B. Sharpe, David T. Soong
2015, Open-File Report 2014-1258
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Chicago District, is responsible for monitoring and computation of the quantity of Lake Michigan water diverted by the State of Illinois. As part of this effort, the USACE uses the Hydrological Simulation Program–FORTRAN (HSPF) with measured meteorological data inputs to estimate runoff from...
Maps showing the change in modern sediment thickness on the Inner Continental Shelf offshore of Fire Island, New York, between 1996-97 and 2011
William C. Schwab, Wayne E. Baldwin, Jane F. Denny
2015, Open-File Report 2014-1238
The U.S. Geological Survey mapped approximately 336 square kilometers of the lower shoreface and inner continental shelf offshore of Fire Island, New York, in 1996 and 1997, using high-resolution sidescan-sonar and seismic-reflection systems, and again in 2011, using interferometric sonar and high-resolution chirp seismic-reflection systems. This report presents a comparison...
Glacier-derived August runoff in northwest Montana
Adam Clark, Joel T. Harper, Daniel B. Fagre
2015, Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research (47) 1-16
The second largest concentration of glaciers in the U.S. Rocky Mountains is located in Glacier National Park (GNP), Montana. The total glacier-covered area in this region decreased by ∼35% over the past 50 years, which has raised substantial concern about the loss of the water derived from glaciers during the...
A framework for modeling anthropogenic impacts on waterbird habitats: addressing future uncertainty in conservation planning
Elliott Matchett, Joseph P. Fleskes, Charles A. Young, David R. Purkey
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1017
The amount and quality of natural resources available for terrestrial and aquatic wildlife habitats are expected to decrease throughout the world in areas that are intensively managed for urban and agricultural uses. Changes in climate and management of increasingly limited water supplies may further impact water resources essential for sustaining...
Mount St. Helens: Controlled-source audio-frequency magnetotelluric (CSAMT) data and inversions
Jeff Wynn, Herbert A. Pierce
2015, Data Series 901
This report describes a series of geoelectrical soundings carried out on and near Mount St. Helens volcano, Washington, in 2010–2011. These soundings used a controlled-source audio-frequency magnetotelluric (CSAMT) approach (Zonge and Hughes, 1991; Simpson and Bahr, 2005). We chose CSAMT for logistical reasons: It can be deployed by helicopter, has...
Mapping migratory flyways in Asia using dynamic Brownian bridge movement models
E.C. Palm, S. H. Newman, Diann J. Prosser, Xiangming Xiao, Ze Luo, Nyambayar Batbayar, Sivananinthaperumal Balachandran, John Y. Takekawa
2015, Movement Ecology (3) 1-10
Background Identifying movement routes and stopover sites is necessary for developing effective management and conservation strategies for migratory animals. In the case of migratory birds, a collection of migration routes, known as a flyway, is often hundreds to thousands of kilometers long and can extend across political boundaries. Flyways encompass the...
Geospatial datasets for assessing the effects of rangeland conditions on dissolved-solids yields in the Upper Colorado River Basin
Fred D. Tillman, Marilyn E. Flynn, David W. Anning
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1007
In 2009, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) developed a Spatially Referenced Regressions on Watershed Attributes (SPARROW) surface-water quality model for the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) relating dissolved-solids sources and transport in the 1991 water year to upstream catchment characteristics. The SPARROW model focused on geologic and agricultural sources of...
A Bayesian kriging approach for blending satellite and ground precipitation observations
Andrew P. Verdin, Balaji Rajagopalan, William Kleiber, Christopher C. Funk
2015, Water Resources Research (51) 908-921
Drought and flood management practices require accurate estimates of precipitation. Gauge observations, however, are often sparse in regions with complicated terrain, clustered in valleys, and of poor quality. Consequently, the spatial extent of wet events is poorly represented. Satellite-derived precipitation data are an attractive alternative, though they tend to underestimate...
Calculating crop water requirement satisfaction in the West Africa Sahel with remotely sensed soil moisture
Amy McNally, Gregory J. Husak, Molly Brown, Mark L. Carroll, Christopher C. Funk, Soni Yatheendradas, Kristi Arsenault, Christa Peters-Lidard, James Verdin
2015, Journal of Hydrometeorology (16) 295-305
The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission will provide soil moisture data with unprecedented accuracy, resolution, and coverage, enabling models to better track agricultural drought and estimate yields. In turn, this information can be used to shape policy related to food and water from commodity markets to humanitarian relief efforts....
An integrated Riverine Environmental Flow Decision Support System (REFDSS) to evaluate the ecological effects of alternative flow scenarios on river ecosystems
Kelly O. Maloney, Colin B. Talbert, Jeffrey C. Cole, Heather S. Galbraith, Carrie J. Blakeslee, Leanne Hanson, Christopher L. Holmquist-Johnson
2015, Fundamental and Applied Limnology (186) 171-192
In regulated rivers, managers must evaluate competing flow release scenarios that attempt to balance both human and natural needs. Meeting these natural flow needs is complex due to the myriad of interacting physical and hydrological factors that affect ecosystems. Tools that synthesize the voluminous scientific data and models on these...
The forcing of southwestern Asia teleconnections by low-frequency sea surface temperature variability during boreal winter
Andrew Hoell, Christopher C. Funk, Mathew Barlow
2015, Journal of Climate (28) 1511-1526
Southwestern Asia, defined here as the domain bounded by 20°–40°N and 40°–70°E, which includes the nations of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, is a water-stressed and semiarid region that receives roughly 75% of its annual rainfall during November–April. The November–April climate of southwestern Asia is strongly influenced by tropical Indo-Pacific...
An assessment of morphometric indices, blood chemistry variables and an energy meter as indicators of the whole body lipid content in Micropterus dolomieu, Sander vitreus and Ictalurus punctatus
Matthew G. Mesa, Brien P. Rose
2015, Journal of Fish Biology (86) 755-764
The effectiveness of several non-lethal techniques as indicators of total lipid content in smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieu, walleye Sander vitreus and channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus was investigated. The techniques included (1) the Fulton and relative condition factors, (2) relative mass, (3) plasma indicators of nutritional status (alkaline phosphatase, calcium, cholesterol,...
Influence of hardness on the bioavailability of silver to a freshwater snail after waterborne exposure to silver nitrate and silver nanoparticles
Tasha L. Stoiber, Marie Noele Croteau, Isabella Romer, Mila Tejamaya, Jamie R. Lead, Samuel N. Luoma
2015, Nanotoxicology (9) 918-927
The release of Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs) into the aquatic environment is likely, but the influence of water chemistry on their impacts and fate remains unclear. Here, we characterize the bioavailability of Ag from AgNO3 and from AgNPs capped with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP AgNP) and thiolated polyethylene glycol (PEG AgNP) in the...
Comment on “Models of stochastic, spatially varying stress in the crust compatible with focal‐mechanism data, and how stress inversions can be biased toward the stress rate” by Deborah Elaine Smith and Thomas H. Heaton
Jeanne L. Hardebeck
2015, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (105) 447-451
Smith and Heaton (2011) propose a model in which stress in the crust is fractal‐like and highly variable on a range of length scales, including short length‐scales of ~1 km. Smith and Heaton (2011) motivate the need for stress heterogeneity on short length‐scales by citing observations such as short length‐scale...
Integrated survival analysis using an event-time approach in a Bayesian framework
Daniel P. Walsh, VJ Dreitz, Dennis M. Heisey
2015, Ecology and Evolution (5) 769-780
Event-time or continuous-time statistical approaches have been applied throughout the biostatistical literature and have led to numerous scientific advances. However, these techniques have traditionally relied on knowing failure times. This has limited application of these analyses, particularly, within the ecological field where fates of marked animals may be unknown. To...
Site-scale disturbance and habitat development best predict an index of amphibian biotic integrity in Ohio shrub and forested wetlands
Mick Micacchion, Martin A. Stapanian, Jean V. Adams
2015, Wetlands (35) 509-519
We determined the best predictors of an index of amphibian biotic integrity calculated from 54 shrub and forested wetlands in Ohio, USA using a two-step sequential holdout validation procedure. We considered 13 variables as predictors: four metrics of wetland condition from the Ohio Rapid Assessment Method (ORAM), a wetland vegetation...
An open-population hierarchical distance sampling model
Rachel Sollmann, Beth Gardner, Richard B Chandler, J. Andrew Royle, T Scott Sillett
2015, Ecology (96) 325-331
Modeling population dynamics while accounting for imperfect detection is essential to monitoring programs. Distance sampling allows estimating population size while accounting for imperfect detection, but existing methods do not allow for direct estimation of demographic parameters. We develop a model that uses temporal correlation in abundance arising from underlying population...
Advancing the science of microbial symbiosis to support invasive species management: a case study on Phragmites in the Great Lakes
Kurt P. Kowalski, Charles W. Bacon, Wesley A. Bickford, Heather A. Braun, Keith Clay, Michele Leduc-Lapierre, Elizabeth Lillard, Melissa K. McCormick, Eric Nelson, Monica Torres, James W. C. White, Douglas A. Wilcox
2015, Frontiers in Microbiology (6)
A growing body of literature supports microbial symbiosis as a foundational principle for the competitive success of invasive plant species. Further exploration of the relationships between invasive species and their associated microbiomes, as well as the interactions with the microbiomes of native species, can lead to key new insights into...
Reducing nitrogen export from the corn belt to the Gulf of Mexico: agricultural strategies for remediating hypoxia
Eileen McLellan, Dale M. Robertson, Keith Schilling, Mark Tomer, Jill Kostel, Douglas G. Smith, Kevin King
2015, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (51) 263-289
SPAtially Referenced Regression on Watershed models developed for the Upper Midwest were used to help evaluate the nitrogen-load reductions likely to be achieved by a variety of agricultural conservation practices in the Upper Mississippi-Ohio River Basin (UMORB) and to compare these reductions to the 45% nitrogen-load reduction proposed to remediate...
Development of a new semi-analytical model for cross-borehole flow experiments in fractured media
Delphine Roubinet, James Irving, Frederick D. Day-Lewis
2015, Advances in Water Resources (76) 97-108
Analysis of borehole flow logs is a valuable technique for identifying the presence of fractures in the subsurface and estimating properties such as fracture connectivity, transmissivity and storativity. However, such estimation requires the development of analytical and/or numerical modeling tools that are well adapted to the complexity of the problem....
