Direct and indirect effects of land use on floral resources and flower-visiting insects across an urban landscape
K.C. Matteson, James B. Grace, E.S. Minor
2013, Oikos (122) 682-694
Although urban areas are often considered to have uniformly negative effects on biodiversity, cities are most accurately characterized as heterogeneous mosaics of buildings, streets, parks, and gardens that include both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ areas for wildlife. However, to date, few studies have evaluated how human impacts vary in direction and...
Survival of mountain quail translocated from two distinct source populations
Ronald J. Troy, Peter S. Coates, John W. Connelly, Gifford Gillette, David J. Delehanty
2013, Journal of Wildlife Management (77) 1031-1037
Translocation of mountain quail (Oreortyx pictus) to restore viable populations to their former range has become a common practice. Because differences in post-release vital rates between animals from multiple source populations has not been well studied, wildlife and land managers may arbitrarily choose the source population or base the source...
Low copper and high manganese levels in prion protein plaques
Christopher J. Johnson, P.U.P.A. Gilbert, Mike Abrecth, Katherine L. Baldwin, Robin E. Russell, Joel A. Pedersen, Debbie McKenzie
2013, Viruses (5) 654-662
Accumulation of aggregates rich in an abnormally folded form of the prion protein characterize the neurodegeneration caused by transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). The molecular triggers of plaque formation and neurodegeneration remain unknown, but analyses of TSE-infected brain homogenates and preparations enriched for abnormal prion protein suggest that reduced levels of...
Pregnancy rates in central Yellowstone bison
Peter J. Gogan, Robin E. Russell, Edward M. Olexa, Kevin M. Podruzny
2013, Journal of Wildlife Management (77) 1271-1279
Plains bison (Bison b. bison) centered on Yellowstone National Park are chronically infected with brucellosis (Brucella abortus) and culled along the park boundaries to reduce the probability of disease transmission to domestic livestock. We evaluated the relationship between pregnancy rates and age, dressed carcass weight, and serological status for brucellosis...
Comparison of a karst groundwater model with and without discrete conduit flow
Stephen P. Saller, Michael J. Ronayne, Andrew J. Long
2013, Hydrogeology Journal (21) 1555-1566
Karst aquifers exhibit a dual flow system characterized by interacting conduit and matrix domains. This study evaluated the coupled continuum pipe-flow framework for modeling karst groundwater flow in the Madison aquifer of western South Dakota (USA). Coupled conduit and matrix flow was simulated within a regional finite-difference model over a...
The 3D Elevation Program: summary for Texas
William J. Carswell Jr.
2013, Fact Sheet 2013-3097
Elevation data are essential to a broad range of applications, including forest resources management, wildlife and habitat management, national security, recreation, and many others. For the State of Texas, elevation data are critical for natural resources conservation; wildfire management, planning, and response; flood risk management; agriculture and precision farming; infrastructure...
Understanding water column and streambed thermal refugia for endangered mussels in the Delaware River
Martin A. Briggs, Emily B. Voytek, Frederick D. Day-Lewis, Donald O. Rosenberry, John W. Lane Jr.
2013, Environmental Science & Technology (47) 11423-11431
Groundwater discharge locations along the upper Delaware River, both discrete bank seeps and diffuse streambed upwelling, may create thermal niche environments that benefit the endangered dwarf wedgemussel (Alasmidonta heterodon). We seek to identify whether discrete or diffuse groundwater inflow is the dominant control on refugia. Numerous springs and seeps were...
Emergency assessment of post-fire debris-flow hazards for the 2013 Powerhouse fire, southern California
Dennis M. Staley, Gregory M. Smoczyk, Ryan R. Reeves
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1248
Wildfire dramatically alters the hydrologic response of a watershed such that even modest rainstorms can produce dangerous flash floods and debris flows. Existing empirical models were used to predict the probability and magnitude of debris-flow occurrence in response to a 10-year recurrence interval rainstorm for the 2013 Powerhouse fire near...
Emergency assessment of post-fire debris-flow hazards for the 2013 Mountain fire, southern California
Dennis M. Staley, Joseph E. Gartner, Greg M. Smoczyk, Ryan R. Reeves
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1249
Wildfire dramatically alters the hydrologic response of a watershed such that even modest rainstorms can produce dangerous flash floods and debris flows. We use empirical models to predict the probability and magnitude of debris flow occurrence in response to a 10-year rainstorm for the 2013 Mountain fire near Palm Springs,...
Composition and origin of rhyolite melt intersected by drilling in the Krafla geothermal field, Iceland
R.A. Zierenberg, Peter Schiffmant, G.H. Barfod, C.E. Lesher, N.E. Marks, Jacob B. Lowenstern, A.K. Mortensen, E.C. Pope, D.K. Bird, M.H. Reed, G.O. Fridleifsson, W.A. Elders
2013, Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology (165) 327-347
The Iceland Deep Drilling Project Well 1 was designed as a 4- to 5-km-deep exploration well with the goal of intercepting supercritical hydrothermal fluids in the Krafla geothermal field, Iceland. The well unexpectedly drilled into a high-silica (76.5 % SiO2) rhyolite melt at approximately 2.1 km. Some of the melt...
Bayes and empirical Bayes estimators of abundance and density from spatial capture-recapture data
Robert M. Dorazio
2013, PLoS ONE (8)
In capture-recapture and mark-resight surveys, movements of individuals both within and between sampling periods can alter the susceptibility of individuals to detection over the region of sampling. In these circumstances spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR) models, which incorporate the observed locations of individuals, allow population density and abundance to be estimated...
Inferring the relative resilience of alternative states
David G. Angeler, Craig R. Allen, Carmen Rojo, Miguel Alvarez-Cobelas, Maria A. Rodrigo, Salvador Sanchez-Carrillo
2013, PLoS ONE (8)
Ecological systems may occur in alternative states that differ in ecological structures, functions and processes. Resilience is the measure of disturbance an ecological system can absorb before changing states. However, how the intrinsic structures and processes of systems that characterize their states affects their resilience remains unclear. We analyzed time...
A model of strength
Douglas H. Johnson, R.D. Cook
2013, Science (342) 192-193
In her AAAS News & Notes piece "Can the Southwest manage its thirst?" (26 July, p. 362), K. Wren quotes Ajay Kalra, who advocates a particular method for predicting Colorado River streamflow "because it eschews complex physical climate models for a statistical data-driven modeling approach." A preference for data-driven models...
Phylogenetic conservatism in plant phenology
T. Jonathan Davies, Elizabeth M. Wolkovich, Nathan J. B. Kraft, Nicolas Salamin, Jenica M. Allen, Toby R. Ault, Julio L. Betancourt, Kjell Bolmgren, Elsa E. Cleland, Benjamin I. Cook, Theresa M. Crimmins, Susan J. Mazer, Gregory J. McCabe, Stephanie Pau, Jim Regetz, Mark D. Schwartz, Steven E. Travers
2013, Journal of Ecology (101) 1520-1530
Phenological events – defined points in the life cycle of a plant or animal – have been regarded as highly plastic traits, reflecting flexible responses to various environmental cues. The ability of a species to track, via shifts in phenological events, the abiotic environment through time might dictate its vulnerability to...
Network modularity reveals critical scales for connectivity in ecology and evolution
Robert J. Fletcher, Andre Revell, Brian E. Reichert, Wiley M. Kitchens, J. Dixon, James D. Austin
2013, Nature Communications (4) 1-7
For nearly a century, biologists have emphasized the profound importance of spatial scale for ecology, evolution and conservation. Nonetheless, objectively identifying critical scales has proven incredibly challenging. Here we extend new techniques from physics and social sciences that estimate modularity on networks to identify critical scales for movement and gene...
Ability of matrix models to explain the past and predict the future of plant populations.
Kathryn McEachern, Elizabeth E. Crone, Martha M. Ellis, William F. Morris, Amanda Stanley, Timothy Bell, Paulette Bierzychudek, Johan Ehrlen, Thomas N. Kaye, Tiffany M. Knight, Peter Lesica, Gerard Oostermeijer, Pedro F. Quintana-Ascencio, Tamara Ticktin, Teresa Valverde, Jennifer I. Williams, Daniel F. Doak, Rengaian Ganesan, Andrea S. Thorpe, Eric S. Menges
2013, Conservation Biology (27) 968-978
Uncertainty associated with ecological forecasts has long been recognized, but forecast accuracy is rarely quantified. We evaluated how well data on 82 populations of 20 species of plants spanning 3 continents explained and predicted plant population dynamics. We parameterized stage-based matrix models with demographic data from individually marked plants and...
Effects of dreissenids on monitoring and management of fisheries in western Lake Erie
Martin A. Stapanian, Patrick M. Kocovsky
2013, Book chapter, Quagga and zebra mussels: biology, impacts, and control
Water clarity increased in nearshore areas of western Lake Erie by the early-1990s mainly as a result of the filtering activities of dreissenid mussels (Dreissena spp.), which invaded in the mid-1980s. We hypothesized that increased water clarity would result in greater trawl avoidance and thus reduced ability to capture fish...
How old is the Isthmus of Panama?
Anthony G Coates, Robert F. Stallard
2013, Bulletin of Marine Science (89) 801-813
The Standard Model of the formation of the Isthmus of Panama proposes that final closure occurred at 4–3 Ma. The model is based on evidence from studies of marine stratigraphy, fossil sequences, divergent molecular phylogenies, the timing of the Great American Biological Interchange (GABI), and proxies for marine paleosalinity, paleobathymetry,...
Variability and trends in irrigated and non-irrigated croplands in the central U.S
Jesslyn F. Brown, Md Shahriar Pervez
2013, Conference Paper, Information for sustainable agriculture, International Conference on Agro-Geoinformatics, 2nd, Fairfax, Va., 12–16 August 2013, Proceedings
Over 23 million hectares (233 thousand km2) of U.S. croplands are irrigated and there was an overall net expansion of 522 thousand hectares nationally from 2002 to 2007. Most of this expansion occurred across the High Plains Aquifer (HPA) in the central Great Plains. Until recently, there has been a...
The Hyper-Envelope Modeling Interface (HEMI): A Novel Approach Illustrated Through Predicting Tamarisk (Tamarix spp.) Habitat in the Western USA
Jim Graham, Nick Young, Catherine S. Jarnevich, Greg Newman, Paul Evangelista, Thomas J. Stohlgren
2013, Environmental Management (52) 929-938
Habitat suitability maps are commonly created by modeling a species’ environmental niche from occurrences and environmental characteristics. Here, we introduce the hyper-envelope modeling interface (HEMI), providing a new method for creating habitat suitability models using Bezier surfaces to model a species niche in environmental space. HEMI allows modeled surfaces to...
Alternative ways of using field-based estimates to calibrate ecosystem models and their implications for carbon cycle studies
Yujie He, Qianlai Zhuang, David McGuire, Yaling Liu, Min Chen
2013, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (118) 983-993
Model-data fusion is a process in which field observations are used to constrain model parameters. How observations are used to constrain parameters has a direct impact on the carbon cycle dynamics simulated by ecosystem models. In this study, we present an evaluation of several options for the use of observations...
Vs30 and spectral response from collocated shallow, active- and passive-source Vs data at 27 sites in Puerto Rico
Jack K. Odum, William J. Stephenson, Robert A. Williams, Christa von Hillebrandt-Andrade
2013, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (103) 2709-2728
Shear‐wave velocity (VS) and time‐averaged shear‐wave velocity to 30 m depth (VS30) are the key parameters used in seismic site response modeling and earthquake engineering design. Where VS data are limited, available data are often used to develop and refine map‐based proxy models of VS30 for predicting ground‐motion intensities. In...
Temporal, spatial, and body size effects on growth rates of loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Northwest Atlantic
Karen A. Bjorndal, Barbara A. Schroeder, Allen M. Foley, Blair E. Witherington, Michael Bresette, David Clark, Richard M. Herren, Michael D. Arendt, Jeffrey R. Schmid, Anne B. Meylan, Peter A. Meylan, Jane A. Provancha, Kristen M. Hart, Margaret M. Lamont, Raymond R. Carthy, Alan B. Bolten
2013, Marine Biology (160) 2711-2721
In response to a call from the US National Research Council for research programs to combine their data to improve sea turtle population assessments, we analyzed somatic growth data for Northwest Atlantic (NWA) loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) from 10 research programs. We assessed growth dynamics over wide ranges of...
Seasonal persistence of marine-derived nutrients in south-central Alaskan salmon streams
Daniel J. Rinella, Mark S. Wipfi, Coowe M. Walker, Craig A. Stricker, Ron A. Heintz
2013, Ecosphere (4)
Spawning salmon deliver annual pulses of marine-derived nutrients (MDN) to riverine ecosystems around the Pacific Rim, leading to increased growth and condition in aquatic and riparian biota. The influence of pulsed resources may last for extended periods of time when recipient food webs have effective storage mechanisms, yet few studies...
Analysis of Neogene deformation between Beaver, Utah and Barstow, California: Suggestions for altering the extensional paradigm
R. Ernest Anderson, Sue Beard, Edward A. Mankinen, John W. Hillhouse
2013, Geological Society of America Special Papers (499) 1-67
For more than two decades, the paradigm of large-magnitude (~250 km), northwest-directed (~N70°W) Neogene extensional lengthening between the Colorado Plateau and Sierra Nevada at the approximate latitude of Las Vegas has remained largely unchallenged, as has the notion that the strain integrates with coeval strains in adjacent regions and with...
