The effects of spatio-temporal variation in marine resources on the occupancy dynamics of a terrestrial avian predator
Joshua H. Schmidt, Heather A. Coletti, Kyle A. Cutting, Tammy L. Wilson, Buck A. Mangipane, Carlene N. Schultz, Dylan T. Schertz
2024, Ecosphere (15)
Identifying how species respond to system drivers such as weather, climate, habitat, and resource availability is critical in understanding population change. In coastal areas, the transfer of nutrients across the marine and terrestrial interface increases complexity. Nesting populations of bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) along the Pacific coast of North America,...
Brittle regime slip partitioned damage and deformation mechanisms along the eastern Denali fault zone in southwestern, Yukon
Jonathan Caine, Omero F. Orlandini, Frederick W. Vollmer, Heather A. Lowers
2024, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth (129)
Rare bedrock exposures of the eastern Denali fault zone in southwestern Yukon allow for the measurement, sampling, and analyses of brittle regime fault slip data and deformation mechanisms to explore relations to far field, oblique plate motions. Host rock lithologies and associated slip surfaces show episodic damage zone‐related deformation and...
Water-quality comparisons in the Greater Mooses Tooth unit of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, 2010 and 2023
Brent M. Hall
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5098
The United States has long held oil reserves in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR–A), but oil production did not begin until 2015. The waters of the NPR–A are generally considered “pristine,” but water quality has not been characterized temporally or spatially in a rigorous manner. In 2010 and...
Real-time pier scour monitoring and observations at three scour-critical sites in Idaho, water years 2020–22
Ryan L. Fosness, Paul V. Schauer
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5095
To observe real-time pier scour at three scour-critical sites in Idaho, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Idaho Transportation Department, installed and operated fixed real-time (15-minute interval) bed elevation scour sonar sensors at three bridge locations associated with U.S. Geological Survey streamflow gaging stations for water years 2020 through...
Neogene hydrothermal Fe- and Mn-oxide mineralization of Paleozoic continental rocks, Amerasia Basin, Arctic Ocean
James R. Hein, Kira Mizell, Amy Gartman
2024, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (25)
Rocks dredged from water depths of 1,605, 2,500, 3,300, and 3,400 m in the Arctic Ocean included Paleozoic continental rocks pervasively mineralized during the Neogene by hydrothermal Fe and Mn oxides. Samples were recovered in three dredge hauls from the Chukchi Borderland and one from Mendeleev Ridge north of Alaska and...
GNSS reflectometry from low-cost sensors for continuous in situ contemporaneous glacier mass balance and flux divergence
Albin Wells, David R. Rounce, Louis C. Sass, Caitlyn Florentine, Adam Garbo, Emily Baker, Christopher J. McNeil
2024, Journal of Glaciology (70)
Recent advances in remote sensing have produced global glacier surface elevation change data. Parsing these elevation change signals into contributions from the climate (i.e. climatic mass balance) and glacier dynamics (i.e. flux divergence) is critical to enhance our process-based understanding of glacier change. In this study, we evaluate three approaches...
Juvenile coho salmon growth differences track biennial pink salmon spawning patterns
Kevin A. Fitzgerald, J. Ryan Bellmore, Jason B. Fellman, Matthew L.H. Cheng, Naomi Boyles-Muehleck, Claire E. Delbecq, Jeffrey A. Falke
2024, Freshwater Biology (69) 1583-1595
1. Spawning Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) provide marine-derived resources (MDR) to freshwater food webs in the form of eggs, flesh and maggots that consume salmon carcasses, all of which positively impact stream-dwelling fish growth. Pink salmon (O. gorbuscha) are widely distributed throughout coastal catchments along the North Pacific Ocean and display increased...
Planktonic to sessile: Drivers of spatial and temporal variability across barnacle life stages and indirect effects of the Pacific Marine Heatwave
Sarah Beth Traiger, James L. Bodkin, Rob Campbell, Heather Coletti, Daniel Esler, Kris Holderied, Katrin Iken, Brenda Konar, Caitlin McKinstry, Daniel Monson, Jessica Pretty, Martin Renner, Brian H. Robinson, Robert M. Suryan, Benjamin P Weitzman
2024, Journal of Plankton Research
Barnacles are a foundation species in intertidal habitats. During the Pacific Marine Heatwave (PMH), intertidal barnacle cover increased in the northern Gulf of Alaska (GoA); however, the role of pelagic larval supply in this increase was unknown. Using long-term monitoring data on intertidal benthic (percent cover) and pelagic larval...
Increased pathogen exposure of a marine apex predator over three decades
Karyn D. Rode, Caroline R. Van Hemert, Ryan R. Wilson, Susannah P. Woodruff, Kristy Pabilonia, Lora Ballweber, Oliver C. Kwok, Jitender P Dubey
2024, PLoS ONE (19)
Environmental changes associated with global warming create new opportunities for pathogen and parasite transmission in Arctic wildlife. As an apex predator ranging over large, remote areas, changes in pathogens and parasites in polar bears are a useful indicator of changing transmission dynamics in Arctic ecosystems. We examined prevalence and risk...
From causes of conflict to solutions: Shifting the lens on human–carnivore coexistence research
Kyle Artelle, Heather E. Johnson, Rebecca McCaffery, Christopher Schell, Tyus Williams, Seth Wilson
2024, Conservation Science and Practice (6)
Human-carnivore conflicts pose significant challenges in the management and conservation of carnivores across the globe. Abundant research has led to generalizable insights into the causes of such conflicts. For example, conflicts predictably occur when carnivores have access to human food resources, particularly when their natural...
Direct measurements of firn-density evolution from 2016 to 2022 at Wolverine Glacier, Alaska
Max Stevens, Louis C. Sass, Caitlyn Florentine, Christopher J. McNeil, Emily Baker, Katherine Eleanore Bollen
2024, Journal of Glaciology (70)
Knowledge of snow and firn-density change is needed to use elevation-change measurements to estimate glacier mass change. Additionally, firn-density evolution on glaciers is closely connected to meltwater percolation, refreezing and runoff, which are key processes for glacier mass balance and hydrology. Since 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey...
Migratory strategies across an ecological barrier: Is the answer blowing in the wind?
Rosalyn E. Bathrick, James A. Johnson, Daniel R. Ruthrauff, Rebekah Snyder, Maria Stager, Nathan R. Senner
2024, Movement Ecology (12)
Background: Ecological barriers can shape the movement strategies of migratory animals that navigate around or across them, creating migratory divides. Wind plays a large role in facilitating aerial migrations, and can temporally or spatially change the challenge posed by an ecological barrier, with beneficial winds potentially converting a barrier to...
Previous reproductive success and environmental variation influence nest-site fidelity of a subarctic-nesting goose
Jordan M. Thompson, Brian D. Uher-Koch, Bryan L. Daniels, Thomas V. Riecke, Joel A. Schmutz, Benjamin S. Sedinger
2024, Ecology and Evolution (14)
Nest-site fidelity is a common strategy in birds and is believed to be adaptive due to familiarity with local conditions. Returning to previously successful nest sites (i.e., the win-stay lose-switch strategy) may be beneficial when habitat quality is spatially variable and temporally predictable; however, changes in environmental conditions may constrain...
Body size and early marine conditions drive changes in Chinook salmon productivity across northern latitude ecosystems
Megan L. Feddern, Rebecca Shaftel, Erik R. Schoen, Curry J. Cunningham, Brendan M. Connors, Benjamin A. Staton, Al von Finster, Zachary Liller, Vanessa R. von Biela, Katherine G. Howard
2024, Global Change Biology (30)
Disentangling the influences of climate change from other stressors affecting the population dynamics of aquatic species is particularly pressing for northern latitude ecosystems, where climate-driven warming is occurring faster than the global average. Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the Yukon-Kuskokwim (YK) region occupy the...
A "Region-Specific Model Adaptation (RSMA)" based training data method in large-scale land cover mapping
Congcong Li, George Z. Xian, Suming Jin
2024, Remote Sensing (16)
An accurate and historical land cover monitoring dataset for Alaska could provide fundamental information for a range of studies, such as conservation habitats, biogeochemical cycles, and climate systems, in this distinctive region. This research addresses challenges associated with the extraction of training data for timely and accurate land cover...
Special topic—Rapid-response instrumentation
Ashton F. Flinders
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5062-M
IntroductionBased on the reports of Ewert and others (2005, 2018) and Moran and others (2008), most U.S. volcanoes are currently under-monitored and are likely to remain so until the goals of the National Volcano Early Warning System are fulfilled. In addition, volcanoes determined to have low to moderate threat...
Special topic—Eruption plumes and clouds
David J. Schneider, Alexa R. Van Eaton
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5062-J
IntroductionExplosive eruptions create plumes of volcanic ash and gas that can rise more than 30,000 feet (9.1 kilometers [km]) above sea level within minutes of eruption onset. The resulting clouds disperse under prevailing winds and may cause hazardous conditions hundreds to thousands of kilometers from the volcano, including in international...
Monitoring lahars
Weston A. Thelen, John J. Lyons, Alexandra M. Iezzi, Seth C. Moran
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5062-H
IntroductionLahars, or debris flows that originate from a volcano (Pierson and Scott, 1985; Pierson, 1995), are among the most destructive, far-reaching, and persistent hazards on stratovolcanoes. Lahars may be triggered by syneruptive rapid melting of snow and ice, lake breakouts, or heavy rains in conjunction with large eruptive columns. Alternatively,...
Streams, springs, and volcanic lakes for volcano monitoring
Steven E. Ingebritsen, Shaul Hurwitz
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5062-F
IntroductionVolcanic unrest can trigger appreciable change to surface waters such as streams, springs, and volcanic lakes. Magma degassing produces gases and soluble salts that are absorbed into groundwater that feeds streams and lakes. As magma ascends, the amount of heat and degassing will increase, and so will any related geochemical...
Volcanic gas monitoring
Jennifer L. Lewicki, Christoph Kern, Peter J. Kelly, Patricia A. Nadeau, Tamar Elias, Laura E. Clor
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5062-E
IntroductionAs magma rises through the crust, decreasing pressure conditions allow volatiles to exsolve from the magma. These volatiles then migrate upward through the crust, where they can be stored at shallower levels or escape to the atmosphere. Rising magma also heats rock masses beneath volcanic centers, causing water in shallow...
Arctic fishes reveal patterns in radiocarbon age across habitats and with recent climate change
Ashley E. Stanek, Jonathan A. O’Donnell, Michael P. Carey, Sarah M. Laske, Xiaomei Xu, Kenneth H. Dunton, Vanessa R. von Biela
2024, Limnology and Oceanography Letters (9) 796-805
Climate change alters the sources and age of carbon in Arctic food webs by fostering the release of older carbon from degrading permafrost. Radiocarbon (14C) traces carbon sources and age, but data before rapid warming are rare and limit assessments over time. We capitalized on 14C...
Long-term distributed temperature sensing monitoring for near-wellbore gas migration and gas hydrate formation
Ana Garcia-Ceballos, Ge Jin, Timothy Collett, Sukru Merey, Seth S. Haines
2024, SPE Journal (29) 5804-5819
Well integrity monitoring has always been a critical component of subsurface oil and gas operations. Distributed fiber-optic sensing is an emerging technology that shows great promise for monitoring processes, both in boreholes and in other settings. In this study, we present a case study of using distributed temperature sensing (DTS)...
Facies variation within outcrops of the Triassic Shublik Formation, northeastern Alaska
Julie A. Dumoulin, Katherine J. Whidden, William A. Rouse, Christina A. DeVera
2024, Professional Paper 1814-H
The Shublik Formation (Middle to Upper Triassic) is a heterogeneous unit that is a major hydrocarbon source rock in northern Alaska and the largest known Triassic phosphate accumulation in the world. This formation, which occurs in the subsurface and crops out within the Arctic Alaska basin, was deposited on a...
Genomic characterization of highly pathogenic H5 avian influenza viruses from Alaska during 2022 provides evidence for genotype-specific trends of spatiotemporal and interspecies dissemination
Christina Ahlstrom, Mia Kim Torchetti, Julianna B. Lenoch, Kimberlee Beckmen, Megan Boldenow, Evan J Buck, Bryan Daniels, Krista Dilione, Robert Gerlach, Kristina Lantz, Angela Matz, Rebecca L. Poulson, Laura Celeste Scott, Gay Sheffield, David R. Sinnett, David E. Stallknecht, Raphaela Stimmelmayr, Eric B. Taylor, Alison R. Williams, Andrew M. Ramey
2024, Emerging Microbes & Infections (13)
The ongoing panzootic of highly pathogenic H5 clade 2.3.4.4b avian influenza (HPAI) spread to North America in late 2021, with detections of HPAI viruses in Alaska beginning in April 2022. HPAI viruses have since spread across the state, affecting many species of wild birds as well as domestic...
Latitudinal gradients and sex differences in morphology of the Black Oystercatcher (Haematopus bachmani)
Hannah Roodenrijs, Lena Ware, Cole Rankin, Mark Maftei, Mark Hipfner, Brian H. Robinson, Daniel Esler, Heather Coletti, David Green
2024, Ecology and Evolution (14)
Environment and behavior are widely understood to affect bird morphology, which can lead to differences among subspecies or populations within a wide-ranging species. Several patterns of latitudinal gradients in morphology have been described, though Allen's and Bergmann's rules are the most well-known and have...
