Winter browse selection by white-tailed deer and implications for bottomland forest restoration in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, USA
Benjamin J. Cogger, Nathan R. De Jager, Meredith Thomsen, Carrie Reinhardt Adams
2014, Natural Areas Journal (34) 144-153
White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) forage selectively, modifying upland forest species composition and in some cases shifting ecosystems to alternative stable states. Few studies, however, have investigated plant selection by deer in bottomland forests. Herbaceous invasive species are common in wetlands and their expansion could be promoted if deer avoid them...
Extending the turbidity record: making additional use of continuous data from turbidity, acoustic-Doppler, and laser diffraction instruments and suspended-sediment samples in the Colorado River in Grand Canyon
Nicholas Voichick, David J. Topping
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5097
Turbidity is a measure of the scattering and absorption of light in water, which in rivers is primarily caused by particles, usually sediment, suspended in the water. Turbidity varies significantly with differences in the design of the instrument measuring turbidity, a point that is illustrated in this study by side-by-side...
Mountain landscapes offer few opportunities for high-elevation tree species migration
David M. Bell, John B. Bradford, William K. Lauenroth
2014, Global Change Biology (20) 1441-1451
Climate change is anticipated to alter plant species distributions. Regional context, notably the spatial complexity of climatic gradients, may influence species migration potential. While high-elevation species may benefit from steep climate gradients in mountain regions, their persistence may be threatened by limited suitable habitat as land area decreases with elevation....
Proceedings of the U.S. Geological Survey Eighth Biennial Geographic Information Science Workshop and first The National Map Users Conference, Denver, Colorado, May 10-13, 2011
Jennifer B. Sieverling, Jeffrey Dietterle, editor(s)
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5053
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is sponsoring the first The National Map Users Conference in conjunction with the eighth biennial Geographic Information Science (GIS) Workshop on May 10-13, 2011, in Lakewood, Colorado. The GIS Workshop will be held at the USGS National Training Center, located on the Denver Federal Center,...
Simulation of natural flows in major river basins in Alabama
Alexandria M. Hunt, Ana María García
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5021
The Office of Water Resources (OWR) in the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA) is charged with the assessment of the State’s water resources. This study developed a watershed model for the major river basins that are within Alabama or that cross Alabama’s borders, which serves as a...
Mercury speciation in the Mt. Amiata mining district (Italy): interplay between urban activities and mercury contamination
Valentina Rimondi, Fabrizio Bardelli, Marco Benvenuti, Pilario Costagliola, John E. Gray, Pierfranco Lattanzi
2014, Chemical Geology (380) 110-118
A fundamental step to evaluate the biogeochemical and eco-toxicological significance of Hg dispersion in the environment is to determine speciation of Hg in solid matrices. In this study, several analytical techniques such as scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), sequential chemical extractions (SCEs), and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XANES) were...
Prevalence, transmission, and genetic diversity of blood parasites infecting tundra-nesting geese in Alaska
Andrew M. Ramey, John A. Reed, Joel A. Schmutz, Tom F. Fondell, Brandt W. Meixell, Jerry W. Hupp, David H. Ward, John Terenzi, Craig R. Ely
2014, Canadian Journal of Zoology (92) 699-706
A total of 842 blood samples collected from five species of tundra-nesting geese in Alaska was screened for haemosporidian parasites using molecular techniques. Parasites of the generaLeucocytozoon Danilewsky, 1890, Haemoproteus Kruse, 1890, and Plasmodium Marchiafava and Celli, 1885 were detected in 169 (20%), 3 (<1%), and 0 (0%) samples, respectively. Occupancy modeling was used to...
Tsunami forecast by joint inversion of real-time tsunami waveforms and seismic of GPS data: application to the Tohoku 2011 tsunami
Wei Yong, Andrew V. Newman, Gavin P. Hayes, Vasily V. Titov, Liujuan Tang
2014, Pure and Applied Geophysics (171) 3281-3305
Correctly characterizing tsunami source generation is the most critical component of modern tsunami forecasting. Although difficult to quantify directly, a tsunami source can be modeled via different methods using a variety of measurements from deep-ocean tsunameters, seismometers, GPS, and other advanced instruments, some of which in or near real time....
Tsunami vertical-evacuation planning in the U.S. Pacific Northwest as a geospatial, multi-criteria decision problem
Nathan Wood, Jeanne Jones, John Schelling, Mathew Schmidtlein
2014, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (9) 68-83
Tsunami vertical-evacuation (TVE) refuges can be effective risk-reduction options for coastal communities with local tsunami threats but no accessible high ground for evacuations. Deciding where to locate TVE refuges is a complex risk-management question, given the potential for conflicting stakeholder priorities and multiple, suitable sites. We use the coastal community...
Development of flood-inundation maps for the Mississippi River in Saint Paul, Minnesota
Christiana R. Czuba, James D. Fallon, Corby R. Lewis, Diane F. Cooper
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5079
Digital flood-inundation maps for a 6.3-mile reach of the Mississippi River in Saint Paul, Minnesota, were developed through a multi-agency effort by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and in collaboration with the National Weather Service. The inundation maps, which can be accessed...
Assessing climate-change risks to cultural and natural resources in the Yakima River Basin, Washington, USA
James R. Hatten, Stephen M. Waste, Alec G. Maule
2014, Climatic Change (124) 363-370
We provide an overview of an interdisciplinary special issue that examines the influence of climate change on people and fish in the Yakima River Basin, USA. Jenni et al. (2013) addresses stakeholder-relevant climate change issues, such as water availability and uncertainty, with decision analysis tools. Montag et al. (2014) explores...
Temperature data acquired from the DOI/GTN-P Deep Borehole Array on the Arctic Slope of Alaska, 1973-2013
Gary D. Clow
2014, Earth System Science Data (6) 201-218
A homogeneous set of temperature measurements obtained from the DOI/GTN-P Deep Borehole Array between 1973 and 2013 is presented; DOI/GTN-P is the US Department of the Interior contribution to the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P). The 23-element array is located on the Arctic Slope of Alaska, a region of cold...
Glacial geology of the Shingobee River headwaters area, north-central Minnesota
Robert C. Melchior
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5165
During middle and late Wisconsin time in the Shingobee River headwaters area, the Laurentide Wadena lobe, Hewitt and Itasca phases, produced terminal and ground moraine along with a variety of associated glacial features. The stratigraphic record is accessible and provides details of depositional mode as well as principal glacial events...
Tailoring point counts for inference about avian density: dealing with nondetection and availability
Fred A. Johnson, Robert M. Dorazio, Traci D. Castellon, Julien Martin, Jay O. Garcia, James D. Nichols
2014, Natural Resource Modeling (27) 163-177
Point counts are commonly used for bird surveys, but interpretation is ambiguous unless there is an accounting for the imperfect detection of individuals. We show how repeated point counts, supplemented by observation distances, can account for two aspects of the counting process: (1) detection of birds conditional on being available...
Large biases in regression-based constituent flux estimates: causes and diagnostic tools
Robert M. Hirsch
2014, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (50) 1401-1424
It has been documented in the literature that, in some cases, widely used regression-based models can produce severely biased estimates of long-term mean river fluxes of various constituents. These models, estimated using sample values of concentration, discharge, and date, are used to compute estimated fluxes for a multiyear period at...
Insights into biodegradation through depth-resolved microbial community functional and structural profiling of a crude-oil contaminant plume
Nicole Fahrenfeld, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli, Zach Bailey, Amy Pruden
2014, Microbial Ecology (68) 453-462
Small-scale geochemical gradients are a key feature of aquifer contaminant plumes, highlighting the need for functional and structural profiling of corresponding microbial communities on a similar scale. The purpose of this study was to characterize the microbial functional and structural diversity with depth across representative redox zones of a hydrocarbon...
Passage of native riverine fishes through geometrically different sections of a vertical slot fishway on the Moselle River, Germany
Matthias Pitsch, Bernd Mockenhaupt, Theodore R. Castro-Santos
2014, Book, Ecohydraulics 2014 Conference Proceedings
In order to study effects of different geometric types of pools or change of the flow direction on the passability of fish, sets of PIT antennas were installed inside a modern vertical slot fishway at the mouth of the River Moselle. Fish of 13 abundant species were caught and tagged...
Fuzzy boundaries: color and gene flow patterns among parapatric lineages of the western shovel-nosed snake and taxonomic implication
Dustin A. Wood, Robert N. Fisher, Amy G. Vandergast
2014, PLoS ONE (9)
Accurate delineation of lineage diversity is increasingly important, as species distributions are becoming more reduced and threatened. During the last century, the subspecies category was often used to denote phenotypic variation within a species range and to provide a framework for understanding lineage differentiation, often considered incipient speciation. While this...
Landscape selection by piping plovers has implications for measuring habitat and population size
Michael J. Anteau, Terry L. Shaffer, Mark T. Wiltermuth, Mark H. Sherfy
2014, Landscape Ecology (29) 1033-1044
How breeding birds distribute in relation to landscape-scale habitat features has important implications for conservation because those features may constrain habitat suitability. Furthermore, knowledge of these associations can help build models to improve area-wide demographic estimates or to develop a sampling stratification for research and monitoring. This is particularly important...
Three-dimensional seismic velocity structure and earthquake relocations at Katmai, Alaska
Rachel Murphy, Clifford Thurber, Stephanie G. Prejean, Ninfa Bennington
2014, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (276) 121-131
We invert arrival time data from local earthquakes occurring between September 2004 and May 2009 to determine the three-dimensional (3D) upper crustal seismic structure in the Katmai volcanic region. Waveforms for the study come from the Alaska Volcano Observatory's permanent network of 20 seismic stations in the area (predominantly single-component,...
Seismicity and seismic structure at Okmok Volcano, Alaska
Summer J. Ohlendorf, Clifford H. Thurber, Jeremy D. Pesicek, Stephanie G. Prejean
2014, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (278-279) 103-119
Okmok volcano is an active volcanic caldera located on the northeastern portion of Umnak Island in the Aleutian arc, with recent eruptions in 1997 and 2008. The Okmok area had ~900 locatable earthquakes between 2003 and June 2008, and an additional ~600 earthquakes from the beginning of the 2008 eruption...
The search for geologic evidence of distant-source tsunamis using new field data in California
Rick Wilson, Eileen Hemphill-Haley, Bruce Jaffe, Bruce Richmond, Robert Peters, Nick Graehl, Harvey Kelsey, Robert Leeper, Steve Watt, Mary McGann, Don F. Hoirup, Catherine Chague-Goff, James Goff, Dylan Caldwell, Casey Loofbourrow
2014, Open-File Report 2013-1170-C
A statewide assessment for geological evidence of tsunamis, primarily from distant-source events, found tsunami deposits at several locations, though evidence was absent at most locations evaluated. Several historical distant-source tsunamis, including the 1946 Aleutian, 1960 Chile, and 1964 Alaska events, caused inundation along portions of the northern and central California...
Creating a monthly time series of the potentiometric surface in the Upper Floridan aquifer, Northern Tampa Bay area, Florida, January 2000-December 2009
Terrie M. Lee, Geoffrey G. Fouad
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5038
In Florida’s karst terrain, where groundwater and surface waters interact, a mapping time series of the potentiometric surface in the Upper Floridan aquifer offers a versatile metric for assessing the hydrologic condition of both the aquifer and overlying streams and wetlands. Long-term groundwater monitoring data were used to generate a...
An individual-based growth and competition model for coastal redwood forest restoration
Phillip J. van Mantgem, Adrian J. Das
2014, Canadian Journal of Forest Research (44) 1051-1057
Thinning treatments to accelerate coastal redwood forest stand development are in wide application, but managers have yet to identify prescriptions that might best promote Sequoia sempervirens (Lamb. ex D. Don) Endl. (redwood) growth. The creation of successful thinning prescriptions would be aided by identifying the underlying mechanisms governing how individual tree growth...
Freshwater availability and coastal wetland foundation species: ecological transitions along a rainfall gradient
Michael J. Osland, Nicholas M. Enwright, Camille L. Stagg
2014, Ecology (95) 2789-2802
Climate gradient-focused ecological research can provide a foundation for better understanding critical ecological transition points and nonlinear climate-ecological relationships, which is information that can be used to better understand, predict, and manage ecological responses to climate change. In this study, we examined the influence of freshwater availability upon the coverage...
