Movements and habitat use of loons for assessment of conservation buffer zones in the Arctic Coastal Plain of northern Alaska
Sharon A. Poessel, Brian D. Uher-Koch, John M. Pearce, Joel A. Schmutz, Todd E. Katzner, David C. Douglas, Vanessa R. von Biela, Autumn-Lynne Harrison
2020, Global Ecology and Conservation (22)
Oil and gas development in the Arctic Coastal Plain, Alaska, may pose threats to wildlife. Management guidelines within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska dictate buffer zones for coastal wildlife habitat and for breeding and foraging sites of yellow-billed loons (YBLOs; Gavia adamsii), a species of conservation concern. However, few...
Stormwater quality of infrastructure elements in Rapid City, South Dakota, 2016–18
Galen K. Hoogestraat
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5004
As runoff flows over the land or impervious surfaces (paved streets, parking lots, and building roofs), it accumulates debris, chemicals, sediment, and other contaminants that can adversely affect water quality if the runoff discharge remains untreated. Pathogens, commonly measured using fecal indicator bacteria such as Escherichia coli, enterococci, or fecal...
Hydrogeology and interactions of groundwater and surface water near Mill Creek and the Herring River, Wellfleet, Massachusetts, 2017–18
John R. Mullaney, Janet R. Barclay, Kaitlin L. Laabs, Katherine D. Lavallee
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5145
Groundwater levels and stream stage were monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Friends of Herring River, at 19 sites in the Mill Creek Basin, a tributary of the Herring River in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, on outer Cape Cod, to provide baseline data prior to a proposed restoration...
Paleo-metagenomics of North American fossil packrat middens: Past biodiversity revealed by ancient DNA
Grace Moore, Michael Tessler, Seth Cunningham, Julio L. Betancourt, Robert Harbert
2020, Ecology and Evolution (10) 2530-2544
Fossil rodent middens are powerful tools in paleoecology. In arid parts of western North America, packrat (Neotoma spp.) middens preserve plant and animal remains for tens of thousands of years. Midden contents are so well preserved that fragments of endogenous ancient DNA (aDNA) can be extracted and analyzed across millennia. Here,...
Six-axis ground motion measurements of caldera collapse at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi - More data, more puzzles?
Joachim Wassermann, Felix Bernauer, Brian Shiro, Ingrid A. Johanson, Frederic Guattari, Heiner Igel
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
Near‐field recordings of large earthquakes and volcano‐induced events using traditional seismological instrumentation often suffer from unaccounted effects of local tilt and saturation of signals. Recent hardware advances have led to the development of the blueSeis‐3A, a very broadband, highly sensitive rotational motion sensor. We installed this sensor...
Training data selection for annual land cover classification for the LCMAP initiative
Qiang Zhou, Heather J. Tollerud, Christopher P. Barber, Kelcy Smith, Daniel J. Zelenak
2020, Remote Sensing (12)
The U.S. Geological Survey’s Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) initiative characterizes changes in land cover, use, and condition with the goal of producing land change information that improves understanding of the earth system and provides insight into the impacts of land change on society. For LCMAP, all available...
Monitoring chemical contaminants in the Gulf of Maine, using sediments and mussels (Mytilus edulis): An evaluation
Adria Elskus, Lawrence A LeBlanc, James S Latimer, David Page, Gareth Harding, Peter G Wells
2020, Marine Pollution Bulletin (153)
The objective of this paper is to determine whether contaminant data on mussels and sediments can be used interchangeably, or not, when assessing the degree of anthropogenic contamination of a water body. To obtain adequate coverage of the entire Gulf of Maine, Bay of Fundy sediment samples were collected, analyzed...
Relating hydroclimatic change to streamflow, baseflow, and hydrologic partitioning in the Upper Rio Grande Basin, 1980 to 2015
Christine Rumsey, Matthew P. Miller, Graham A. Sexstone
2020, Journal of Hydrology (584)
Understanding how changing climatic conditions affect streamflow volume and timing is critical for effective water management. In the Rio Grande Basin of the southwest U.S., decreasing snowpack, increasing minimum temperatures, and decreasing streamflow have been observed in recent decades, but the effects of hydroclimatic changes on baseflow, or groundwater discharge...
Spectral analysis to quantify the response of groundwater levels to precipitation — Northwestern United States
Andrew J. Long, Christopher P. Konrad
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1007
Persistent atmospheric patterns that lead to wet and dry seasons and droughts over periods of months to decades and longer-term climate change over periods of decades to millennia affect groundwater resources. Changes in groundwater storage and the resulting groundwater discharge from most aquifers is relatively slow and steady compared to...
Black oystercatcher (Haematopus bachmani) population size, use of marine reserve complexes, and spatial distribution in Oregon
Joe Liebezeit, Amelia O’Connor, James E. Lyons, Courtney Shannon, Shawn Stephensen, Elise Elliott-Smith
2020, Northwestern Naturalist (101) 14-26
The Black Oystercatcher is a large shorebird found along the west coast of North America. Because of their small global population size, low reproductive rate, and dependence on rocky intertidal habitats, they are considered a “species of high conservation concern” and may act as an indicator of intertidal ecosystem health....
Septic systems and rainfall influence human fecal markers and indicator organisms occurrence in private wells in southeastern Pennsylvania
Heather Murphy, Shannon McGinnis, Ryan Blunt, Joel P. Stokdyk, Jingwei Wu, Alexander Cagle, Donna Denno, Susan K. Spencer, Aaron D. Firnstahl, Mark A. Borchardt
2020, Environmental Science & Technology (54) 3159-3168
In the United States approximately 48 million people are served by private wells. Unlike public water systems, private well water quality is not monitored and there are few studies on the extent and sources of contamination of private wells. We extensively investigated five private wells to understand the variability in...
An important biogeochemical link between organic and inorganic carbon cycling: Effects of organic alkalinity on carbonate chemistry in coastal waters influenced by intertidal salt marshes
Shuzhen Song, Zhaohui Aleck Wang, Meagan Gonneea Eagle, Kevin D. Kroeger, Sophie N. Chu, Daoji Li, Haorui Liang
2020, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (275) 123-139
Organic acid charge groups in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) contribute to total alkalinity (TA), i.e. organic alkalinity (OrgAlk). Its effect is often ignored or treated as a calculation uncertainty in many aquatic CO2 studies. This study evaluated the variability, sources, and characteristics of OrgAlk in estuarine waters exchanged tidally with...
Local earthquake Vp and Vs tomography in the Mount St. Helens region with the iMUSH broadband array
Carl W Ulberg, Kenneth C Creager, Seth C. Moran, Geoffrey A Abers, Weston Thelen, Alan Levander, Eric Kiser, Brandon Schmandt, Steven M. Hansen, Robert S. Crosson
2020, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (21)
We present new 3-D P wave and S wave velocity models of the upper 20 km of the Mount St. Helens (MSH) region. These were obtained using local-source arrival time tomography from earthquakes and explosions recorded at 70 broadband stations deployed as part of the imaging Magma Under St. Helens (iMUSH)...
Low renesting propensity and reproductive success make renesting unproductive for the threatened Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus)
Rose J. Swift, Michael J. Anteau, Megan M. Ring, Dustin L. Toy, Mark H. Sherfy
2020, The Condor (2)
Upon reproductive failure, many bird species make a secondary attempt at nesting (hereafter, “renesting”). Renesting may be an effective strategy to maximize current and lifetime reproductive success, but individuals face uncertainty in the probability of success because reproductive attempts initiated later in the breeding season often have reduced nest,...
American eels produce and release bile acids that vary across life stage
Andrew K. Schmucker, Nicholas S. Johnson, Ugo Bussy, Ke Li, Heather S. Galbraith, Yu-Wen Chung-Davidson, Weiming Li
2020, Journal of Fish Biology (96) 1024-1033
The American eel (Anguilla rostrata ) is an imperilled fish hypothesized to use conspecific cues, in part, to coordinate long‐distance migration during their multistage life history. Here, holding water and tissue from multiple American eel life stages was collected and analysed for the presence, profile and concentration...
The IPBES global assessment: Pathways to action
Mary H. Ruckelshaus, Stephen T. Jackson, Harold A. Mooney, Katharine L. Jacobs, Karim- Aly S. Kassam, Mary T. K. Arroyo, Andras Baldi, Ann M. Bartuska, James W. Boyd, Lucas N. Joppa, Aniko Kovacs-Hostyanszki, Jill Petraglia Parsons, Robert J. Scholes, Jason F. Shogren, Zhiyun Ouyang
2020, Trends in Ecology and Evolution (36) 407-414
The first Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found widespread, accelerating declines in Earth’s biodiversity and associated benefits to people from nature. Addressing these trends will require science-based policy responses to reduce impacts, especially at national to local scales. Effective scaling of science-policy efforts...
Population ecology and spatial synchrony in abundance within and among populations of valley oak (Quercus lobata) leaf gall wasps
Brian Barringer, Walter D. Koenig, Ian S. Pearse, Jean Knops
2020, Population Ecology (62) 220-232
What factors drive population variability through space and time? Here we assess patterns of abundance of seven species of gall wasps in three genera occurring on the leaves of valley oaks (Quercus lobata ) at 10 sites throughout this species' statewide range in California, from 2000 to 2006. Our primary goals...
Phase equilibrium of a high-SiO2, andesite at fO2 = RRO: Implications for Augustine volcano and other high-fO2 arc andesites
Sarah H. De Angelis, Jessica F. Larsen, Michelle L. Coombs, James E. P. Utley, Andrew P. Dunn
2020, Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology (175)
Understanding the impact of magmatic plumbing systems on explosive volcanic activity is important for hazard management. This study describes phase equilibria experiments using a high-silica andesite (HSA; SiO2 = 62.5 wt%) from the 2006 eruption of Augustine Volcano, Alaska. Experiments were conducted under H2O saturated conditions, f0<mrow...
Noose carpets: A novel method to capture rails
Eamon J. Harrity, Courtney J. Conway
2020, Wildlife Society Bulletin (44) 15-22
Avian research may require investigators to capture birds for many reasons, including to collect measurements and attach leg bands or transmitters. The effectiveness and efficiency of capture techniques varies by species, habitat, and time of year. Rails are particularly challenging to capture because of their secretive...
Getting to the core of the matter
Meagan Gonneea Eagle
2020, Report
The topic of carbon sequestration in coastal salt marshes can serve as the basis of an investigation story line with plenty of authentic relevance and drama! Consider establishing the context with students as an introduction to this lesson. Many resources for teaching about carbon uptake and sequestration in coastal wetlands...
Improving geospatial query performance of an interoperable geographic situation-awareness system (IGSAS) for disaster response
Chuanrong Zhang, Tian Zhao, E. Lynn Usery, Dalia E. Varanka, Weidong Li
2020, Transactions in GIS (24) 508-525
Disaster response operations require fast and coordinated actions based on the real-time disaster situation information. Although Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) or crowdsourced geospatial data applications have demonstrated to be valuable tools for gathering real-time disaster situation information, they only provide limited utility for disaster response coordination because of the lack...
Intraspecific variation in surface water uptake in a perennial desert shrub
Andrii Zaiats, Brynne E. Lazarus, Matthew J. Germino, Marcelo D. Serpe, Bryce A. Richardson, Sven Buerki, T. Trevor Caughlin
2020, Functional Ecology (34) 1170-1179
Despite broad recognition that water is a major limiting factor in arid ecosystems, we lack an empirical understanding of how this resource is shared and distributed among neighbouring plants. Intraspecific variability can further contribute to this variation via divergent life‐history traits, including root architecture. We investigated these questions in...
Quantifying human-induced temperature impacts on the 2018 United States Four Corners drought
Emily Williams, Chris Funk, Shraddhanand Shukla, Daniel McEvoy
2020, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (101) S11-S15
Human-induced (HI) warming increased Four Corners’ air temperatures by between +1.3 and +2°C, increasing vapor pressure deficits and reducing NDVI by ~16-30%. Without HI warming, March SWE would have been higher by ~20%....
Acoustic space occupancy: Combining ecoacoustics and lidar to model biodiversity variation and detection bias across heterogeneous landscapes
Danielle I. Rappaport, J. Andrew Royle, Douglas C. Morton
2020, Ecological Indicators (113)
There is global interest in quantifying changing biodiversity in human-modified landscapes. Ecoacoustics may offer a promising pathway for supporting multi-taxa monitoring, but its scalability has been hampered by the sonic complexity of biodiverse ecosystems and the imperfect detectability of animal-generated sounds. The acoustic signature of a habitat, or soundscape, contains...
Formation criteria for hyporheic anoxic microzones: Assessing interactions of hydraulics, nutrients and biofilms
S. R. Chowdhury, J. Zarnetske, M.S. Phanikumar, Martin A. Briggs, Frederick D. Day-Lewis, K. Singha
2020, Water Resources Research (56)
Recent experimental studies have detected the presence of anoxic microzones in hyporheic sediments. These microzones are small‐scale anoxic pores, embedded within oxygen‐rich porous media and can act as anaerobic reaction sites producing reduction compounds such as nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Microbes are a key control on nutrient transformation...
