Assessment of leachable elements in volcanic ashfall: A review and evaluation of a standardized protocol for ash hazard characterization
Carol Stewart, David Damby, Ines Tomasek, Claire J. Horwell, Geoffrey S. Plumlee, Maria Aurora Armienta, Maria Gabriela Ruiz Hinojosa, Moya Appleby, Pierre Delmelle, Shane Cronin, Christopher J Ottley, Clive Oppenheimer, Suzette A. Morman
2020, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (392)
Volcanic ash presents a widespread and common hazard during and after eruptions. Complex interactions between solid ash surfaces and volcanic gases lead to the formation of soluble salts that may be mobilized in aqueous environments. A variety of stakeholders may be concerned about the effects of ash on human and...
Increasing accuracy of lake nutrient predictions in thousands of lakes by leveraging water clarity data
Tyler Wagner, oa Lottig Noah R. Lottig, Meridith L. Bartley, Ephraim M. Hanks, Erin M. Schliep, Nathan B. Wikle, Katelyn B. S. King, Ian McCullough, Jemma Stachelek, Kendra S. Cheruvelil, Christopher T. Filstrup, Jean-Francois Lapierre, Boyang Liu, Patricia Sorrano, Pang-Ning Tan, Q. Wang, Katherine Webster, Jiayu Zhou
2020, Limnology and Oceanography Letters (5) 228-235
Aquatic scientists require robust, accurate information about nutrient concentrations and indicators of algal biomass in unsampled lakes in order to understand and predict the effects of global climate and land-use change. Historically, lake and landscape characteristics have been used as predictor variables in regression models to generate nutrient predictions, but...
Metal bioavailability models: Current status, lessons learned, considerations for regulatory use, and the path forward
Christopher A. Mebane, M. Jasim Chowdhury, Karel A.C. De Schamphelaere, Stephen Lofts, Paul R. Paquin, Robert C. Santore, Chris M. Wood
2020, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (39) 60-84
Since the early 2000s, biotic ligand models and related constructs have been a dominant paradigm for risk assessment of aqueous metals in the environment. We critically review 1) the evidence for the mechanistic approach underlying metal bioavailability models; 2) considerations for the use and refinement of bioavailability-based toxicity models; 3)...
Thresholds for post-wildfire debris flows: Insights from the Pinal Fire, Arizona, USA
Carissa A Raymond, Luke A. McGuire, Ann M. Youberg, Dennis M. Staley, Jason W. Kean
2020, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (45) 1349-1360
Wildfire significantly alters the hydrologic properties of a burned area, leading to increases in overland flow, erosion, and the potential for runoff-generated debris flows. The initiation of debris flows in recently burned areas is well-characterized by rainfall intensity-duration (ID) thresholds. However, there is currently a paucity of data quantifying the...
Local climate determines vulnerability to camouflage mismatch in snowshoe hares
Marketa Zimova, Alexej P. K. Siren, Joshua J. Nowak, Alexander Bryan, Jacob S. Ivan, Toni Lyn Morelli, Skyler L. Suhrer, Jesse Whittington, L. Scott Mills
2020, Global Ecology and Biogeography (29) 503-515
AimPhenological mismatches, when life‐events become mistimed with optimal environmental conditions, have become increasingly common under climate change. Population‐level susceptibility to mismatches depends on how phenology and phenotypic plasticity vary across a species’ distributional range. Here, we quantify the environmental drivers of colour moult phenology, phenotypic plasticity, and...
Microbial source tracking (MST) in Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area: Seasonal and precipitation trends in MST marker concentrations, and associations with E. coli levels, pathogenic marker presence, and land use
Anna M. McKee, Marirosa Molina, Mike Cyterski, Ann Couch
2020, Water Research (171)
Escherichia coli levels in recreational waters are often used to predict when fecal-associated pathogen levels are a human health risk. The reach of the Chattahoochee River that flows through the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area (CRNRA), located in the Atlanta-metropolitan area, is a popular recreation area that frequently exceeds the U.S....
Spatial sampling bias and model complexity in stream-based species distribution models: A case study of Paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) in the Arkansas River basin, USA
A. T. Taylor, T. Hafen, Colt Taylor Holley, A. Gonzalez, James M. Long
2020, Ecology & Evolution (10) 705-717
Leveraging existing presence records and geospatial datasets, species distribution modeling has been widely applied to informing species conservation and restoration efforts. Maxent is one of the most popular modeling algorithms, yet recent research has demonstrated Maxent models are vulnerable to prediction errors related to spatial sampling bias and model complexity....
Assessing the water quality impacts of two Category-5 hurricanes on St. Thomas, Virgin Islands
Sunny Jiang, Muyue Han, Srikiran Chandrasekaran, Yingcong Fang, Christina A. Kellogg
2020, Water Research (171)
Managing waterborne and water-related diseases is one of the most critical factors in the aftermath of hurricane-induced natural disasters. The goal of the study was to identify water-quality impairments in order to set the priorities for post-hurricane relief and to guide future decisions on disaster preparation and relief administration. Field...
Effect of an environmental flow on vegetation growth and health using ground and remote sensing metrics
Martha M. Gomez-Sapiens, Christopher Jarchow, Karl W. Flessa, Patrick B. Shafroth, Edward P. Glenn, Pamela L. Nagler
2020, Hydrological Processes (34) 1682-1696
Understanding the effectiveness of environmental flow deliveries along rivers requires monitoring vegetation. Monitoring data are often collected at multiple spatial scales. For riparian vegetation, optical remote sensing methods can estimate growth responses at the riparian corridor scale, and field‐based measures can quantify species composition; however, the extent to which these...
The effect of sediment cover and female characteristics on the hatching success of walleye
Alex Gatch, S.K. Koenigbauer, Edward F. Roseman, T. Hook
2020, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (40) 293-302
Natural and anthropogenic sources of sedimentation have the potential to degrade spawning habitat and negatively affect incubating fish embryos. Walleye Sander vitreus are lithophilic broadcast spawners that use specific spawning habitats that are vulnerable to degradation caused by deposition of suspended sediments. We measured the effect of different types of sediment cover...
Algal toxins in Alaskan seabirds: Evaluating the role of saxitoxin and domoic acid in a large-scale die-off of Common Murres
Caroline R. Van Hemert, Sarah K. Schoen, R. Wayne Litaker, Matthew M. Smith, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, John F. Piatt, William C. Holland, Ransom Hardison, John M. Pearce
2020, Harmful Algae (92)
Elevated seawater temperatures are linked to the development of harmful algal blooms (HABs), which pose a growing threat to marine birds and other wildlife. During late 2015 and early 2016, a massive die-off of Common Murres (Uria algae; hereafter, murres) was observed in the Gulf of Alaska coincident with a...
Environmental tracer evidence for connection between shallow and bedrock aquifers and high intrinsic susceptibility to contamination of the conterminous U.S. glacial aquifer
John E. Solder, Bryant Jurgens, Paul Stackelberg, Christopher L. Shope
2020, Journal of Hydrology (583)
Covering a large portion of the northern conterminous United States (1.87 x 106 km2), the glacial aquifer serves as the primary water supply for 39 million public and domestic water users. Mean groundwater age, groundwater age distribution, and susceptibility to land surface contamination, using a new metric (Susceptibility Index; SI)...
An experimental evaluation of the feasibility of inferring concentrations of a visible tracer dye from remotely sensed data in turbid rivers
Carl J. Legleiter, Paul Manley, Susannah O. Erwin, Edward A. Bulliner
2020, Remote Sensing (12)
The movement of contaminants and biota within river channels is influenced by the flow field via various processes of dispersion. Understanding and modeling of these processes thus can facilitate applications ranging from the prediction of travel times for spills of toxic materials to the simulation of larval drift for...
Colony-forming unit spreadplate assay versus liquid culture enrichment-polymerase chain reaction assay for the detection of Bacillus Endospores in soils
Dale W. Griffin, John T. Lisle, David Feldhake, Erin E. Silvestri
2020, Geosciences (1)
A liquid culture enrichment-polymerase chain reaction (E-PCR) assay was investigated as a potential tool to overcome inhibition by chemical component, debris, and background biological impurities in soil that were affecting detection assay performance for soil samples containing Bacillus atrophaeus subsp. globigii (a surrogate for B. anthracis). To evaluate this assay,...
A hydrologic landscapes perspective on groundwater connectivity of depressional wetlands
Brian P. Neff, Donald O. Rosenberry, Scott G. Leibowitz, David M. Mushet, Heather E. Golden, Mark C. Rains, Renee Brooks, Charles R. Lane
2020, Water (12)
Research into processes governing the hydrologic connectivity of depressional wetlands has advanced rapidly in recent years. Nevertheless, a need persists for broadly applicable, non-site-specific guidance to facilitate further research. Here, we explicitly use the hydrologic landscapes theoretical framework to develop broadly applicable conceptual knowledge of depressional-wetland hydrologic...
Post-12 Ma deformation of the lower Colorado River corridor, southwestern USA: Implications for diffuse transtension and the Bouse Formation
Jacob Thacker, Karl Karlstrom, Laura Crossey, Ryan S. Crow, Colleen Cassidy, L. Sue Beard, John Singleton, Evan Strickland, Nikki Seymour, Michael Wyatt
2020, Geosphere (16) 111-135
Structural evidence presented here documents that deformation was ongoing within the lower Colorado River corridor (southwestern USA) during and after the latest Miocene Epoch, postdating large-magnitude extension and metamorphic core complex formation. Geometric and kinematic data collected on faults in key geologic units constrain the timing of deformation in relation...
Invertebrate communities of Prairie-Pothole wetlands in the age of the aquatic Homogenocene
Kyle McLean, David M. Mushet, Jon N. Sweetman, Michael J. Anteau, Mark T. Wiltermuth
2020, Hydrobiologia (847) 3773-3793
Simplification of communities is a common consequence of anthropogenic modification. However, the prevalence and mechanisms of biotic homogenization among wetland systems require further examination. Biota of wetlands in the North American Prairie Pothole Region are adapted to high spatial and temporal variability in ponded-water duration and salinity. Recent climate change,...
Alternative stable states in inherently unstable systems
David M. Mushet, Owen P. McKenna, Kyle McLean
2020, Ecology and Evolution (10) 843-850
Alternative stable states are nontransitory states within which communities can exist. However, even highly dynamic communities can be viewed within the framework of stable‐state theory if an appropriate “ecologically relevant” time scale is identified. The ecologically relevant time scale for dynamic systems needs to conform to the amount of time...
From theory to experiments for testing the proximate mechanisms of mast seeding: An agenda for an experimental ecology
M. Bogdziewicz, Davide Ascoli, Andrew Hacket-Pain, W. D. Koenig, Ian Pearse, Mario B. Pesendorfer, A. Satake, P. Thomas, Giorgio Vacchiano, T. Wohlgemuth, A. Tanentzap
2020, Ecology Letters (23) 210-220
Highly variable and synchronised production of seeds by plant populations is called masting and is implicated in many important ecological processes, but how it arises remains poorly understood. The lack of experimental studies prevents underlying mechanisms from being explicitly tested, and thereby precludes meaningful predictions on the consequences of changing...
Geophysical characterization of a Proterozoic REE terrane at Mountain Pass, eastern Mojave Desert, California
Kevin Denton, David A. Ponce, Jared R. Peacock, David M. Miller
2020, Geosphere (16) 456-471
Mountain Pass, California (USA), located in the eastern Mojave Desert, hosts one of the world’s richest rare earth element (REE) deposits. The REE-rich terrane occurs in a 2.5-km-wide, northwest-trending belt of Mesoproterozoic (1.4 Ga) stocks and dikes, which intrude a larger Paleoproterozoic (1.7 Ga) metamorphic block that extends ∼10 km...
Shift in the Raman symmetric stretching band of N2, CO2, and CH4 as a function of temperature, pressure, and density
D. Matthew Sublett, Eszter Sendula, Hector Lamadrid, Matthew Steele-MacInnis, Georg Spiekermann, Robert Burruss, Robert J. Bodnar
2020, Journal of Raman Spectroscopy (51) 555-568
The Raman spectra of pure N2, CO2, and CH4 were analyzed over the range 10 to 500 bars and from −160°C to 200°C (N2), 22°C to 350°C (CO2), and −100°C to 450°C (CH4). At constant temperature, Raman peak position, including the more intense CO2 peak (ν+), decreases (shifts to lower wave number)...
Postmortem evaluation of reintroduced migratory whooping cranes (Grus americana) in eastern North America
Taylor J. Yaw, Kimberli J.G. Miller, Julia S. Lankton, Barry K. Hartup
2020, Wildlife Disease (56) 673-678
We reviewed necropsy records of 124 Whooping Cranes (Grus americana) recovered following reintroduction of 268 individuals from 2001 to 2016 in the eastern US. Causes of death were determined in 62% (77/124) of cases facilitated by active monitoring that limited decomposition and scavenging artifact. The greatest proportions of mortality were...
The method controls the story - Sampling method impacts on the detection of pore-water nitrogen concentrations in streambeds
Sophie Comer-Warner, Julia LA Knapp, Phillip J Blaen, Megan Klaar, Felicity Shelley, Jay P. Zarnetske, Joseph Lee-Cullen, Silvia Folegot, Marie Kurz, Jorg Lewandowski, Judson Harvey, Adam Ward, Clara Mendoza-Lera, Sami Ullah, Thibault Datry, Nicholas Kettridge, Daren Gooddy, Jennifer Drummond, Eugenia Marti, Alexander Milner, David Hannah, Stefan Krause
2020, Science of the Total Environment (709)
Biogeochemical gradients in streambeds are steep and can vary over short distances often making adequate characterisation of sediment biogeochemical processes challenging. This paper provides an overview and comparison of streambed pore-water sampling methods, highlighting their capacity to address gaps in our understanding of streambed biogeochemical processes. This work reviews...
The relative importance of wetland area versus habitat heterogeneity for promoting species richness and abundance of wetland birds in the Prairie Pothole Region, USA
Lisa H. Elliott, Lawrence Igl, Douglas H. Johnson
2020, The Condor (122)
Recent work has suggested that a tradeoff exists between habitat area and habitat heterogeneity, with a moderate amount of heterogeneity supporting greatest species richness. Support for this unimodal relationship has been mixed and has differed among habitats and taxa. We examined the relationship between habitat heterogeneity and species richness after...
Future losses of playa wetlands decrease network structure and connectivity of the Rainwater Basin, Nebraska
Bram H.F. Verheijen, Dana M. Varner, David A. Haukos
2020, Landscape Ecology (35) 453-467
ContextThe Rainwater Basin in south-central Nebraska once supported a complex network of ~ 12,000 spatially-isolated playa wetlands, but ~ 90% have been lost since European settlement. Future losses are likely and expected reductions in connectivity could further isolate populations, increasing local extinction rates of many wetland species. However, to what extent future...
