Measuring and predicting abundance and dynamics of habitat for piping plovers on a large reservoir
Michael J. Anteau, Mark T. Wiltermuth, Mark H. Sherfy, Terry L. Shaffer
2014, Ecological Modelling (272) 16-27
Measuring habitat and understanding habitat dynamics have become increasingly important for wildlife conservation. Using remotely-sensed data, we developed procedures to measure breeding habitat abundance for the federally listed piping plover (Charadrius melodus) at Lake Sakakawea, North Dakota, USA. We also developed a model to predict habitat abundance based on past...
Effects of sea-level rise on barrier island groundwater system dynamics: ecohydrological implications
John P. Masterson, Michael N. Fienen, E. Robert Thieler, Dean B. Gesch, Benjamin T. Gutierrez, Nathaniel G. Plant
2014, Ecohydrology (7) 1064-1071
We used a numerical model to investigate how a barrier island groundwater system responds to increases of up to 60 cm in sea level. We found that a sea-level rise of 20 cm leads to substantial changes in the depth of the water table and the extent and depth of...
Abdominally implanted satellite transmitters affect reproduction and survival rather than migration of large shorebirds
Jos C. E. W. Hooijmeijer, Robert E. Gill Jr., Daniel M. Mulcahy, T. Lee Tibbitts, Rosemarie Kentie, Gerrit J. Gerritsen, Leo W. Bruinzeel, David C. Tijssen, Christopher M. Harwood, Theunis Piersma
2014, Journal of Ornithology (155) 447-457
Satellite telemetry has become a common technique to investigate avian life-histories, but whether such tagging will affect fitness is a critical unknown. In this study, we evaluate multi-year effects of implanted transmitters on migratory timing and reproductive performance in shorebirds. Shorebirds increasingly are recognized as good models in ecology and...
Damping scaling factors for elastic response spectra for shallow crustal earthquakes in active tectonic regions: "average" horizontal component
Sanaz Rezaeian, Yousef Bozorgnia, I.M. Idriss, Norman Abrahamson, Kenneth Campbell, Walter Silva
2014, Earthquake Spectra (30) 939-963
Ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for elastic response spectra are typically developed at a 5% viscous damping ratio. In reality, however, structural and nonstructural systems can have other damping ratios. This paper develops a new model for a damping scaling factor (DSF) that can be used to adjust the 5%...
Rapid dispersal of saltcedar (Tamarix spp.) biocontrol beetles (Diorhabda carinulata) on a desert river detected by phenocams, MODIS imagery and ground observations
Pamela L. Nagler, Susanna Pearlstein, Edward P. Glenn, Tim B. Brown, Heather L. Bateman, Dan W. Bean, Kevin R. Hultine
2014, Remote Sensing of Environment (140) 206-219
We measured the rate of dispersal of saltcedar leaf beetles (Diorhabda carinulata), a defoliating insect released on western rivers to control saltcedar shrubs (Tamarix spp.), on a 63 km reach of the Virgin River, U.S. Dispersal was measured by satellite imagery, ground surveys and phenocams. Pixels from the Moderate Resolution...
The roles of competition and habitat in the dynamics of populations and species distributions
Charles Brandon Yackulic, Janice Reid, James D. Nichols, James E. Hines, Raymond Davis, Eric Forsman
2014, Ecology (95) 265-279
The role of competition in structuring biotic communities at fine spatial scales is well known from detailed process-based studies. Our understanding of competition's importance at broader scales is less resolved and mainly based on static species distribution maps. Here, we bridge this gap by examining the joint occupancy dynamics of...
Net ecosystem productivity of temperate grasslands in northern China: An upscaling study
Li Zhang, Huadong Guo, Gensuo Jia, Bruce Wylie, Tagir Gilmanov, Daniel M. Howard, Lei Ji, Jingfeng Xiao, Jing Li, Wenping Yuan, Tianbao Zhao, Shiping Chen, Guangsheng Zhou, Tomomichi Kato
2014, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology (184) 71-81
Grassland is one of the widespread biome types globally, and plays an important role in the terrestrial carbon cycle. We examined net ecosystem production (NEP) for the temperate grasslands in northern China from 2000 to 2010. We combined flux observations, satellite data, and climate data to develop a piecewise regression...
Historical records, sources, and spatial trends of PCBs along the Rhône River (France).
Brice Mourier, Marc Desmet, Peter C. Van Metre, Barbara Mahler, Yves Perrodin, Gwenaelle Roux, Jean-Phillippe Bedell, Lynn W. Lefebvre, Marc Babut
2014, Chemosphere (476-477) 568-576
Despite bans on PCB use since 1975 (open systems) and 1987 (closed systems), concentrations of PCBs in riverine fish in France continue to exceed regulatory levels. We present historical records of PCB concentrations in sediment cores from eight sites on the Rhône River, from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean Sea....
Relative significance of microtopography and vegetation as controls on surface water flow on a low-gradient floodplain
Jungyill Choi, Judson W. Harvey
2014, Wetlands (34) 101-115
Surface water flow controls water velocities, water depths, and residence times, and influences sediment and nutrient transport and other ecological processes in shallow aquatic systems. Flow through wetlands is substantially influenced by drag on vegetation stems but is also affected by microtopography. Our goal was to use microtopography data directly...
SemantEco: a semantically powered modular architecture for integrating distributed environmental and ecological data
Evan W. Patton, Patrice Seyed, Ping Wang, Linyun Fu, F. Joshua Dein, R. Sky Bristol, Deborah L. McGuinness
2014, Future Generation Computer Systems (36) 430-440
We aim to inform the development of decision support tools for resource managers who need to examine large complex ecosystems and make recommendations in the face of many tradeoffs and conflicting drivers. We take a semantic technology approach, leveraging background ontologies and the growing body of linked open data. In...
Improvement of the R-SWAT-FME framework to support multiple variables and multi-objective functions
Yiping Wu, Shu-Guang Liu
2014, Science of the Total Environment (466-467) 455-466
Application of numerical models is a common practice in the environmental field for investigation and prediction of natural and anthropogenic processes. However, process knowledge, parameter identifiability, sensitivity, and uncertainty analyses are still a challenge for large and complex mathematical models such as the hydrological/water quality model, Soil and Water Assessment...
An application of Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES) to three national forests in Colorado and Wyoming
Benson C. Sherrouse, Darius J. Semmens, Jessica M. Clement
2014, Ecological Indicators (36) 68-79
Despite widespread recognition that social-value information is needed to inform stakeholders and decision makers regarding trade-offs in environmental management, it too often remains absent from ecosystem service assessments. Although quantitative indicators of social values need to be explicitly accounted for in the decision-making process, they need not be monetary. Ongoing...
Modeling the effects of naturally occurring organic carbon on chlorinated ethene transport to a public supply well
Francis H. Chapelle, Leon J. Kauffman, Mark A. Widdowson
2014, Ground Water (52) 76-89
The vulnerability of public supply wells to chlorinated ethene (CE) contamination in part depends on the availability of naturally occurring organic carbon to consume dissolved oxygen (DO) and initiate reductive dechlorination. This was quantified by building a mass balance model of the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer, which is widely used for public...
Understanding relationships among abundance, extirpation, and climate at ecoregional scales
Erik A. Beever, A. Mysnberge, J. Long, Solomon Dubrowski, N. B. Piekielek
2014, Ecology (94) 1563-1571
Recent research on mountain-dwelling species has illustrated changes in species’ distributional patterns in response to climate change. Abundance of a species will likely provide an earlier warning indicator of change than will occupancy, yet relationships between abundance and climatic factors have received less attention. We tested whether predictors of counts...
Surface-water and groundwater interactions in an extensively mined watershed, upper Schuylkill River, Pennsylvania, USA
Charles A. Cravotta III,, Daniel J. Goode, Michael D. Bartles, Dennis W. Risser, Daniel G. Galeone
2014, Hydrological Processes (28) 3574-3601
Streams crossing underground coal mines may lose flow, while abandoned mine drainage (AMD) restores flow downstream. During 2005-12, discharge from the Pine Knot Mine Tunnel, the largest AMD source in the upper Schuylkill River Basin, had near-neutral pH and elevated concentrations of iron, manganese, and sulfate. Discharge from the tunnel...
Refocusing Mussel Watch on contaminants of emerging concern (CECs): the California pilot study (2009-10)
Keith A. Maruya, Nathan G. Dodder, Rebecca A. Schaffner, Stephen B. Weisberg, Dominic Gregorio, Susan Klosterhaus, David A. Alvarez, Edward T. Furlong, Kimani L. Kimbrough, Gunnar G. Lauenstein, John D. Christensen
2014, Marine Pollution Bulletin (81) 334-339
To expand the utility of the Mussel Watch Program, local, regional and state agencies in California partnered with NOAA to design a pilot study that targeted contaminants of emerging concern (CECs). Native mussels (Mytilus spp.) from 68 stations, stratified by land use and discharge scenario, were collected in 2009–10 and analyzed...
A stakeholder project to model water temperature under future climate scenarios in the Satus and Toppenish watersheds of the Yakima River Basinin Washington, USA
D. Graves, A. Maule
2014, Climatic Change (124) 399-411
The goal of this study was to support an assessment of the potential effects of climate change on select natural, social, and economic resources in the Yakima River Basin. A workshop with local stakeholders highlighted the usefulness of projecting climate change impacts on anadromous steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss), a...
History of late Holocene earthquakes at the Willow Creek site on the Nephi segment, Wasatch fault zone, Utah
Anthony J. Crone, Stephen F. Personius, Christopher DuRoss, Michael N. Machette, Shannon A. Mahan
2014, Report
This 43-page report presents new data from the Willow Creek site that provides well-defined and narrow bounds on the times of the three youngest earthquakes on the southern strand of the Nephi segment, Wasatch Fault zone, and refines the time of the youngest earthquake to about 200 years ago. This...
Glyphosate and its degradation product AMPA occur frequently and widely in U.S. soils, surface water, groundwater, and precipitation
William A. Battaglin, Michael T. Meyer, Kathryn Kuivila, Julie E. Dietze
2014, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (50) 275-290
Glyphosate use in the United States increased from less than 5,000 to more than 80,000 metric tons/yr between 1987 and 2007. Glyphosate is popular due to its ease of use on soybean, cotton, and corn crops that are genetically modified to tolerate it, utility in no-till farming practices, utility in urban...
Macroinvertebrate community change associated with the severity of streamflow alteration
Daren M. Carlisle, Ken Eng, S. M. Nelson
2014, River Research and Applications (30) 29-39
Natural streamflows play a critical role in stream ecosystems, yet quantitative relations between streamflow alteration and stream health have been elusive. One reason for this difficulty is that neither streamflow alteration nor ecological responses are measured relative to their natural expectations. We assessed macroinvertebrate community condition in 25 mountain streams...
A method for estimating spatially variable seepage and hydrualic conductivity in channels with very mild slopes
Margaret Shanafield, Richard G. Niswonger, David E. Prudic, Greg Pohll, Richard Susfalk, Sorab Panday
2014, Hydrological Processes (28) 51-61
Infiltration along ephemeral channels plays an important role in groundwater recharge in arid regions. A model is presented for estimating spatial variability of seepage due to streambed heterogeneity along channels based on measurements of streamflow-front velocities in initially dry channels. The diffusion-wave approximation to the Saint-Venant equations, coupled with Philip's...
Palila abundance estimates and trends
Paul C. Banko, Kevin W. Brink, Richard Camp
2014, Technical Report HCSU-053
The palila (Loxioides bailleui) population was surveyed annually during 1998−2014 on Mauna Kea Volcano to determine abundance, population trend, and spatial distribution. In the latest surveys, the 2013 population was estimated at 1,492−2,132 birds (point estimate: 1,799) and the 2014 population was estimated at 1,697−2,508 (point estimate: 2,070). Similar numbers...
Relation of landslides triggered by the Kiholo Bay earthquake to modeled ground motion
Edwin L. Harp, Stephen H. Hartzell, Randall W. Jibson, L. Ramirez-Guzman, Robert G. Schmitt
2014, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (104) 2529-2540
The 2006 Kiholo Bay, Hawaii, earthquake triggered high concentrations of rock falls and slides in the steep canyons of the Kohala Mountains along the north coast of Hawaii. Within these mountains and canyons a complex distribution of landslides was triggered by the earthquake shaking. In parts of the area, landslides...
Widespread loess-like deposit in the Martian northern lowlands identifies Middle Amazonian climate change
James A. Skinner, Kenneth L. Tanaka, Thomas Platz
2014, Geology (40) 1127-1130
Consistently mappable units critical to distinguishing the style and interplay of geologic processes through time are sparse in the Martian lowlands. This study identifies a previously unmapped Middle Amazonian (ca. 1 Ga) unit (Middle Amazonian lowland unit, mAl) that postdates the Late Hesperian and Early Amazonian lowland plains by >2...
Sources of global climate data and visualization portals
David C. Douglas
2014, Conference Paper, Gyrfalcons and Ptarmigan in a Changing World, Conference Proceedings
Climate is integral to the geophysical foundation upon which ecosystems are structured. Knowledge about mechanistic linkages between the geophysical and biological environments is essential for understanding how global warming may reshape contemporary ecosystems and ecosystem services. Numerous global data sources spanning several decades are available that document key geophysical metrics...
