Relative energy production determines effect of repowering on wildlife mortality at wind energy facilities
Manuela Huso, Tara Conkling, Daniel Dalthorp, Melanie J Davis, Heath Smith, Amy Fesnock-Parker, Todd E. Katzner
2021, Journal of Appllied Ecology (58) 1284-1290
Reduction in wildlife mortality is often cited as a potential advantage to repowering wind facilities, that is, replacing smaller, lower capacity, closely spaced turbines, with larger, higher capacity ones, more widely spaced. Wildlife mortality rates, however, are affected by more than just size and spacing of turbines, varying with...
Contrasting geographic patterns of ignition probability and burn severity in the Mojave Desert
Robert C. Klinger, Emma C Underwood, Randy McKinley, Matthew L. Brooks
2021, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (9)
The extent and frequency of fire has increased in many arid systems over the last century, with a large proportion of area in some regions undergoing transitions to novel conditions. Portions of the Mojave Desert in southwestern North America have undergone such transitions, most often from woody to...
Brood provisioning rates and fledgling behavior of Cordilleran Flycatchers in southwestern Colorado
Abigail J. Darrah, Charles van Riper III
2021, Journal of Field Ornithology (92) 30-42
The behavior of young songbirds after fledging is one of the least understood phases of the breeding cycle, although parental provisioning rates and movement of fledglings are key to understanding life history evolution. We studied Cordilleran Flycatchers (Empidonax occidentalis) at two sites in southwestern Colorado, USA,...
Transcriptome assembly and differential gene expression of the invasive avian malaria parasite Plasmodium relictum in Hawaiʻi
Elin Videvall, Kristina L. Paxton, Michael G. Campana, Loren Cassin-Sackett, Carter T. Atkinson, Robert C. Fleischer
2021, Ecology and Evolution (11) 4935-4944
The malaria parasite Plasmodium relictum (lineage GRW4) was introduced less than a century ago to the native avifauna of Hawaiʻi, where it has since caused major declines of endemic bird populations. One of the native bird species that is frequently infected with GRW4 is the Hawaiʻi ʻamakihi (Chlorodrepanis...
Reconnaissance of cumulative risk of pesticides and pharmaceuticals in Great Smoky Mountains National Park streams
Paul M. Bradley, Matt A. Kulp, Bradley J. Huffman, Kristin M. Romanok, Kelly L. Smalling, Sara E. Breitmeyer, Jimmy Clark, Celeste A. Journey
2021, Science of the Total Environment (781)
The United States (US) National Park Service (NPS) manages protected public lands to preserve biodiversity. Exposure to and effects of bioactive organic contaminants in NPS streams are challenges for resource managers. Recent assessment of pesticides and pharmaceuticals in protected-streams within the urbanized NPS Southeast Region (SER) indicated the importance of...
Measuring and interpreting multilayer aquifer-system compactions for a sustainable groundwater-system development
Wei-Chia Hung, Cheinway Hwang, Michelle Sneed, Yi-An Chen, Chi-Hua Chu, Shao-Hung Lin
2021, Water Resources Research (57)
Ever decreasing water resources and climate change have driven the increasing use of groundwater causing land subsidence in many countries. Geodetic sensors such as InSAR, GPS and leveling can detect surface deformation but cannot measure subsurface deformation. A single‐well, single‐depth extensometer can be used to measure subsurface deformation, but it...
Ashmole's hypothesis and the latitudinal gradient in clutch size
Carl G. Lundblad, Courtney J. Conway
2021, Biological Reviews (96) 1349-1366
One enduring priority for ecologists has been to understand the cause(s) of variation in reproductive effort among species and localities. Avian clutch size generally increases with increasing latitude, both within and across species, but the mechanism(s) driving that pattern continue to generate hypotheses and debate. In 1961, a Ph.D. student...
Fire frequency impacts soil properties and processes in sagebrush steppe ecosystems of the Columbia Basin
Leslie Nichols, Douglas J. Shinneman, Susan K. McIlroy, Marie-Anne de Graaff
2021, Applied Soil Ecology (165)
Increased fire frequency in semi-arid ecosystems can alter biochemical soil properties and soil processes that underpin ecosystem structure and functioning, thus threatening native plant communities and the species that rely on them. However, there is much uncertainty about the magnitude of change as soils are exposed to more fires, because...
Coflowering invasive plants and a congener have neutral effects on fitness components of a rare endemic plant
Diane L. Larson, Jennifer L Larson, Amy Symstad, Deborah A. Buhl, Zachary M. Portman
2021, Ecology and Evolution (11) 4750-4762
Network analyses rarely include fitness components, such as germination, to tie invasive plants to population-level effects on the natives. We address this limitation in a previously studied network of flower visitors around a suite of native and invasive plants that includes an endemic plant at Badlands...
Sea-level rise enhances carbon accumulation in United States tidal wetlands
Ellen Herbert, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Matthew L. Kirwan
2021, One Earth (4) 425-433
Coastal wetlands accumulate soil carbon more efficiently than terrestrial systems, but sea level rise potentially threatens the persistence of this prominent carbon sink. Here, we combine a published dataset of 372 soil carbon accumulation rates from across the United States with new analysis of 131 sites in coastal Louisiana and...
Before the first meal: The elusive pre-feeding juvenile stage of the sea lamprey
Thomas M. Evans, C. Michael Wagner, Scott M. Miehls, Nicholas S. Johnson, Taylor Haas, Erin Dunlop, Richard G. Manzon
2021, Journal of Great Lakes Research (47) S580-S589
Although sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) in the Laurentian Great Lakes have been studied intensively for more than 70 years, many questions remain about their complex life cycle. One of the least understood portions is the post-metamorphic stage (hereafter pre-feeding juvenile, PFJ) that...
Oil–source correlation studies in the shallow Berea Sandstone petroleum system, eastern Kentucky
Paul C. Hackley, T.M. Parris, C. F. Eble, S. F. Greb, D.C. Harris
2021, American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin (105) 517-542
Shallow production of sweet high-gravity oil from the Upper Devonian Berea Sandstone in northeastern Kentucky has caused the region to become the leading oil producer in the state. Potential nearby source rocks, namely, the overlying Mississippian Sunbury Shale and underlying Ohio Shale, are immature for commercial oil generation according to...
Whole‐genome resequencing reveals persistence of forest‐associated mammals in Late Pleistocene refugia along North America’s North Pacific Coast
Jocelyn P. Colella, Tianying Lan, Sandra L. Talbot, Charlotte Lindqvist, Joseph A. Cook
2021, Journal of Biogeography (48) 1153-1169
AimNumerous glacial refugia have been hypothesized along North America's North Pacific Coast that may have increased divergence of refugial taxa, leading to elevated endemism and subsequently clustered hybrid zones following deglaciation. The locations and community composition of these ice‐free areas remains controversial, but whole‐genome sequences now enable...
A comparison between generalized least squares regression and top-kriging for homogeneous cross-correlated flood regions
Persiano Simone, Jose Luis Salinas, Jery Russell Stedinger, William H. Farmer, David Lun, Alberto Viglione, Gunter Bloschl, Attilio Castellarin
2021, Hydrological Sciences Journal (66) 565-579
Spatial cross-correlation among flood sequences impacts the accuracy of regional predictors. Our study investigates this impact for two regionalization procedures, generalized least squares (GLS) regression and top-kriging (TK), which deal with cross-correlation in two fundamentally different ways and therefore might be associated with different accuracy and uncertainty...
Mixed evidence for biotic homogenization of southern Appalachian fish communities
Kelly N. Petersen, Mary Freeman, Joseph E. Kirsch, William O McLarney, Mark C Scott, Seth J. Wenger
2021, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (78) 1397-1406
Anthropogenic impacts on the landscape can drive biotic homogenization, whereby distinct biological communities become more similar to one another over time. Land-use change in the Southern Appalachian region is expected to result in homogenization of the highly diverse freshwater fish communities as in-stream habitat alterations favor widespread cosmopolitan...
Lava effusion rate evolution and erupted volume during the 2018 Kīlauea lower East Rift Zone eruption
Hannah R. Dietterich, Angela K. Diefenbach, S. Adam Soule, Michael H. Zoeller, Matthew R. Patrick, J. J. Major, Paul Lundgren
2021, Bulletin of Volcanology (83)
The 2018 eruption on the lower East Rift Zone of Kīlauea Volcano produced one of the largest and most destructive lava flows in Hawai’i during the past 200 years. Over the course of more than 3 months, twenty-four fissures erupted, and the rate of lava effusion varied by two orders...
American Woodcock singing-ground survey: Comparison of four models for trend in population size
John R. Sauer, William Link, Mark E Seamans, Rebecca D. Rau
2021, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (12) 83-97
Wildlife biologists monitor the status and trends of American woodcock Scolopax minor populations in the eastern and central United States and Canada via a singing-ground survey, conducted just after sunset along roadsides in spring. Annual analyses of the survey produce estimates of trend and annual indexes of abundance for 25 states and...
Potential Pb+2 mobilization, transport, and sequestration in shallow aquifers impacted by multiphase CO2 leakage: A natural analogue study from the Virgin River Basin in Southwest Utah
Michelle R. Plampin, Madalyn S. Blondes, Eric Sonnenthal, William H. Craddock
2021, Petroleum Geoscience (27)
Geological carbon sequestration (GCS) is necessary to help meet emissions reduction goals, but groundwater contamination may occur if CO2 and/or brine were to leak out of deep storage formations into the shallow subsurface. For this study, a natural analogue was investigated: in the Virgin River Basin of southwest Utah, water with...
Migration distance and maternal resource allocation determine timing of birth in a large herbivore
Ellen O. Aikens, Samantha P.H. Dwinnell, Tayler N. LaSharr, Rhiannon P. Jakopak, Gary L. Fralick, Jill Randall, Rusty Kaiser, Mark Thonhoff, Matthew J. Kauffman, Kevin L. Monteith
2021, Ecology (102)
Birth timing is a key life-history characteristic that influences fitness and population performance. For migratory animals, however, appropriately timing birth on one seasonal range may be constrained by events occurring during other parts of the migratory cycle. We investigated how the use of capital and income resources may facilitate flexibility...
Eastward expansion of Round Goby in New York: Assessment of detection methods and current range
Scott D. George, Barry P. Baldigo, Christopher B. Rees, Meredith L. Bartron, Dylan R. Winterhalter
2021, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (150) 258-273
The Round Goby Neogobius melanostomus has spread rapidly around the Great Lakes region since its introduction to North America in 1990. In 2014, a specimen was captured in the New York State Canal System west of Utica, prompting concerns that Round Goby would soon reach the ecologically and...
Submarine lava deltas of the 2018 eruption of Kilauea volcano
S. Adam Soule, Michael H. Zoeller, Carolyn Parcheta
2021, Bulletin of Volcanology (83)
Hawaiian and other ocean island lava flows that reach the coastline can deposit significant volumes of lava in submarine deltas. The catastrophic collapse of these deltas represents one of the most significant, but least predictable, volcanic hazards at ocean islands. The volume of lava deposited below...
Inclusion of pesticide transformation products is key to estimating pesticide exposures and effects in small U.S. streams
Barbara Mahler, Lisa H. Nowell, Mark W. Sandstrom, Paul M. Bradley, Kristin M. Romanok, Christopher Konrad, Peter Van Metre
2021, Environmental Science and Technology (55) 4740-4752
Improved analytical methods can quantify hundreds of pesticide transformation products (TPs), but understanding of TP occurrence and potential toxicity in aquatic ecosystems remains limited. We quantified 108 parent pesticides and 116 TPs in more than 3 700 samples from 442 small streams in mostly urban basins across five major regions of...
Assessment of peak flow scaling and Its effect on flood quantile estimation in the United Kingdom
Giuseppe Formetta, Thomas M. Over, Elizabeth Stewart
2021, Water Resources Research (57)
Regional flood frequency analysis (RFFA) methods are essential tools to assess flood hazard and plan interventions for its mitigation. They are used to estimate flood quantiles when the at‐site record of streamflow data is not available or limited. One commonly used RFFA method is the index flood method (IFM), which...
Simulation of dissolved organic carbon flux in the Penobscot Watershed, Maine
Shabnam Rouhani, Crystal B. Schaaf, Thomas G. Huntington, Janet Choate
2021, Ecohydrology & Hydrobiology (21) 256-270
Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is an important component of the carbon cycle as a measure of the hydrological transport of carbon between terrestrial carbon pools into soil pools and eventually into streams. As a result, changes in DOC in rivers and streams may indicate alterations in the storage of terrestrial...
The making of the NEAM Tsunami Hazard Model 2018 (NEAMTHM18)
Roberto Basili, Beatriz Brizuela, Andre Herrero, Sarfraz Iqbal, Stefano Lorito, Francesco Emanuele Maesano, Shane Murphy, Paolo Perfetti, Fabrizio Romano, Antonio Scala, Jacopo Selva, Matteo Taroni, Mara Monica Tiberti, Hong Kie Thio, R. Tonini, Manuela Volpe, Sylfest Glimsdal, Carl B. Harbitz, Finn Lovholt, Maria Ana Baptista, Fernando Carrilho, Luis M. A. Matias, Rachid Omira, Andrey Babeyko, Andreas Hoechner, Mucahit Gurbuz, Onur Pekcan, A. Yalciner, Miquel Canals, Galderic Lastras, Apostolos Agalos, Gerassimo Papadapoulos, Ioanna Triantafyllou, Sabah Benchekroun, Hedi Agrebi Jaouadi, Samir Ben Abdallah, Atef Bouallegue, Hassene Hamdi, Foued Oueslati, A. Amato, Alberto Armigliato, Jorn Behrens, Gareth Davies, Daniela Di Bucci, Mauro Dolce, Eric L. Geist, Jose Manuel Gonzalez Vida, Mauricio Gonzalez, Jorges Macias Sanchez, C. Meletti, Ceren Ozer Sozdinler, Marco Pagani, Tom Parsons, Jascha Polet, William Power, Mathilde B. Sorensen, Andrey Zaytsev
2021, Frontiers in Earth Science (8)
The NEAM Tsunami Hazard Model 2018 (NEAMTHM18) is a probabilistic hazard model for tsunamis generated by earthquakes. It covers the coastlines of the North-eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and connected seas (NEAM). NEAMTHM18 was designed as a three-phase project. The first two phases were dedicated to the model development...
