Using multi-species occupancy models in structured decision making on managed lands
John R. Sauer, Peter J. Blank, Elise F. Zipkin, Jane E. Fallon, Frederick W. Fallon
2013, Journal of Wildlife Management (77) 117-127
Land managers must balance the needs of a variety of species when manipulating habitats. Structured decision making provides a systematic means of defining choices and choosing among alternative management options; implementation of a structured decision requires quantitative approaches to predicting consequences of management on the relevant species. Multi-species...
Demographics of reintroduced populations: estimation, modeling, and decision analysis
Sarah J. Converse, Clinton T. Moore, Doug P. Armstrong
2013, Journal of Wildlife Management (77) 1081-1093
Reintroduction can be necessary for recovering populations of threatened species. However, the success of reintroduction efforts has been poorer than many biologists and managers would hope. To increase the benefits gained from reintroduction, management decision making should be couched within formal decision-analytic frameworks. Decision analysis is a structured process for...
A matter of tradeoffs: reintroduction as a multiple objective decision
Sarah J. Converse, Clinton T. Moore, Martin J. Folk, Michael C. Runge
2013, Journal of Wildlife Management (77) 1145-1156
Decision making in guidance of reintroduction efforts is made challenging by the substantial scientific uncertainty typically involved. However, a less recognized challenge is that the management objectives are often numerous and complex. Decision makers managing reintroduction efforts are often concerned with more than just how to maximize the probability of...
Impacts of an ethanol-blended fuel release on groundwater and fate of produced methane: simulation of field observations
Ehsan Rasa, Barbara A. Bekins, Douglas M. Mackay, Nicholas R. de Sieyes, John T. Wilson, Kevin P. Feris, Isaac A. Wood, Kate M. Scow
2013, Water Resources Research (49) 4907-4926
In a field experiment at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) designed to mimic the impact of a small-volume release of E10 (10% ethanol and 90% conventional gasoline), two plumes were created by injecting extracted groundwater spiked with benzene, toluene, and o-xylene, abbreviated BToX (No-Ethanol Lane) and BToX plus ethanol (With-Ethanol...
Simulated impacts of mountain pine beetle and wildfire disturbances on forest vegetation composition and carbon stocks in the Southern Rocky Mountains
Megan K. Caldwell, Todd Hawbaker, Jenny S. Briggs, P.W. Cigan, Susan Stitt
2013, Biogeosciences Discussions (10) 12919-12965
Forests play an important role in sequestering carbon and offsetting anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, but changing disturbance regimes may compromise the capability of forests to store carbon. In the Southern Rocky Mountains, a recent outbreak of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae; MPB) has caused levels of tree mortality that are...
Flood hydrology and dam-breach hydraulic analyses of five reservoirs in Colorado
Michael R. Stevens, Galen K. Hoogestraat
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5097
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service has identified hazard concerns for areas downstream from five Colorado dams on Forest Service land. In 2009, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Forest Service, initiated a flood hydrology analysis to estimate the areal extent of potential downstream flood inundation and...
Using heat as a tracer to estimate spatially distributed mean residence times in the hyporheic zone of a riffle-pool sequence
Ramon C. Naranjo
2013, Water Resources Research (49) 3697-3711
Biochemical reactions that occur in the hyporheic zone are highly dependent on the time solutes that are in contact with sediments of the riverbed. In this investigation, we developed a 2-D longitudinal flow and solute-transport model to estimate the spatial distribution of mean residence time in the hyporheic zone. The...
Mortality of Palmetto bass following catch-and-release angling
M.J. Petersen, Phillip William Bettoli
2013, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (33) 806-810
Palmetto bass (Striped Bass Morone saxatilis x White Bass M. chrysops) have been stocked into reservoirs in the southeastern USA since the late 1960s and have gained widespread acceptance as a sport fish. These fisheries are growing in popularity and catch-and-release (CR) fishing is commonplace; however, there is a dearth...
Adaptation to climate change: changes in farmland use and stocking rate in the U.S.
Jianhong E. Mu, Bruce A. McCarl, Anne M. Wein
2013, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change (18) 713-730
This paper examines possible adaptations to climate change in terms of pasture and crop land use and stocking rate in the United States (U.S.). Using Agricultural Census and climate data in a statistical model, we find that as temperature and precipitation increases agricultural commodity producers respond by reducing crop land...
Advancements in understanding the aeromagnetic expressions of basin-margin faults—An example from San Luis Basin, Colorado
V. J. Grauch, Paul A. Bedrosian, Benjamin J. Drenth
2013, The Leading Edge (32) 882-891
Advancements in aeromagnetic acquisition technology over the past few decades have led to greater resolution of shallow geologic sources with low magnetization, such as intrasedimentary faults and paleochannels. Detection and mapping of intrasedimentary faults in particular can be important for understanding the overall structural setting of...
The LANDFIRE Refresh strategy: updating the national dataset
Kurtis J. Nelson, Joel A. Connot, Birgit E. Peterson, Charley Martin
2013, Fire Ecology (9) 80-101
The LANDFIRE Program provides comprehensive vegetation and fuel datasets for the entire United States. As with many large-scale ecological datasets, vegetation and landscape conditions must be updated periodically to account for disturbances, growth, and natural succession. The LANDFIRE Refresh effort was the first attempt to consistently update these products nationwide....
Projected future changes in vegetation in western North America in the 21st century
Jiang Xiaoyan, Sara A. Rauscher, Todd D. Ringler, David M. Lawrence, A. Park Williams, Craig D. Allen, Allison L. Steiner, D. Michael Cai, Nate G. McDowell
2013, Journal of Climate (26) 3671-3687
Rapid and broad-scale forest mortality associated with recent droughts, rising temperature, and insect outbreaks has been observed over western North America (NA). Climate models project additional future warming and increasing drought and water stress for this region. To assess future potential changes in vegetation distributions in western NA, the Community...
Projections and downscaling of 21st century temperatures, precipitation, radiative fluxes and winds for the southwestern US, with focus on the Lake Tahoe basin
Michael D. Dettinger
2013, Climatic Change (116) 17-33
Recent projections of global climate changes in response to increasing greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere include warming in the Southwestern US and, especially, in the vicinity of Lake Tahoe of from about +3°C to +6°C by end of century and changes in precipitation on the order of 5-10 % increases...
Regional demographic trends from long-term studies of saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) across the northern Sonoran Desert
Elizabeth A. Pierson, Julio L. Betancourt, Raymond M. Turner
2013, Journal of Arid Environments (88) 57-69
Ten saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) populations in the northern Sonoran Desert were monitored from 1959 to 2005 to discriminate how climate influences plant growth, abundance, reproductive potential, survivorship, age structure and regeneration trends. Thousands of saguaros were measured to determine site-specific growth rates and survivorship through time. Observed growth rates were...
Relaxing the closure assumption in single-season occupancy models: staggered arrival and departure times
William L. Kendall, James E. Hines, James D. Nichols, Evan H. Campbell Grant
2013, Ecology (94) 610-617
Occupancy statistical models that account for imperfect detection have proved very useful in several areas of ecology, including species distribution and spatial dynamics, disease ecology, and ecological responses to climate change. These models are based on the collection of multiple samples at each of a number of sites within a...
An interactive web application for visualizing climate data
J. Alder, S. Hostetler, D. Williams
2013, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union (94) 197-198
Massive volumes of data are being created as modeling centers from around the world finalize their submission of climate simulations for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, phase 5 (CMIP5), in preparation for the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). Scientists, resource managers, and other potential...
Continuous resistivity profiling data from Great South Bay, Long Island, New York
V.A. Cross, J.F. Bratton, K.D. Kroeger, John Crusius, C.R. Worley
2013, Open-File Report 2011-1040
An investigation of submarine aquifers adjacent to the Fire Island National Seashore and Long Island, New York was conducted to assess the importance of submarine groundwater discharge as a potential nonpoint source of nitrogen delivery to Great South Bay. Over 200 kilometers of continuous resistivity profiling data were collected to...
Nitrous oxide emissions from cropland: a procedure for calibrating the DayCent biogeochemical model using inverse modelling
Rashad Rafique, Michael N. Fienen, Timothy B. Parkin, Robert P. Anex
2013, Water, Air, & Soil Pollution (224) 1-15
DayCent is a biogeochemical model of intermediate complexity widely used to simulate greenhouse gases (GHG), soil organic carbon and nutrients in crop, grassland, forest and savannah ecosystems. Although this model has been applied to a wide range of ecosystems, it is still typically parameterized through a traditional “trial and error”...
Bridging groundwater models and decision support with a Bayesian network
Michael N. Fienen, John P. Masterson, Nathaniel G. Plant, Benjamin T. Gutierrez, E. Robert Thieler
2013, Water Resources Research (49) 6459-6473
Resource managers need to make decisions to plan for future environmental conditions, particularly sea level rise, in the face of substantial uncertainty. Many interacting processes factor in to the decisions they face. Advances in process models and the quantification of uncertainty have made models a valuable tool for this purpose....
Correction to “Estimating the timing and location of shallow rainfall-induced landslides using a model for transient, unsaturated infiltration”
Rex L. Baum, Jonathan W. Godt
2013, Journal of Geophysical Research F: Earth Surface (118) 1999-1999
No abstract is available for this article....
Late Quaternary stream piracy and strath terrace formation along the Belle Fourche and lower Cheyenne Rivers, South Dakota and Wyoming
John F. Stamm, Robert R. Hendricks, J. Foster Sawyer, Shannon Mahan, Brent J. Zaprowski, Nicholas M. Geibel, David C. Azzolini
2013, Geomorphology (197) 10-20
Stream piracy substantially affected the geomorphic evolution of the Missouri River watershed and drainages within, including the Little Missouri, Cheyenne, Belle Fourche, Bad, and White Rivers. The ancestral Cheyenne River eroded headward in an annular pattern around the eastern and southern Black Hills and pirated the headwaters of the ancestral...
A conceptual framework for Lake Michigan coastal/nearshore ecosystems, with application to Lake Michigan Lakewide Management Plan (LaMP) objectives
Paul W. Seelbach, Lisa R. Fogarty, David Bo Bunnell, Sheridan K. Haack, Mark W. Rogers
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1138
The Lakewide Management Plans (LaMPs) within the Great Lakes region are examples of broad-scale, collaborative resource-management efforts that require a sound ecosystems approach. Yet, the LaMP process is lacking a holistic framework that allows these individual actions to be planned and understood within the broader context of the Great Lakes...
Potential effects of deepening the St. Johns River navigation channel on saltwater intrusion in the surficial aquifer system, Jacksonville, Florida
Jason C. Bellino, Rick M. Spechler
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5146
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has proposed dredging a 13-mile reach of the St. Johns River navigation channel in Jacksonville, Florida, deepening it to depths between 50 and 54 feet below North American Vertical Datum of 1988. The dredging operation will remove about 10 feet of sediments from...
Post-earthquake building safety inspection: Lessons from the Canterbury, New Zealand, earthquakes
J. Marshall, Kishor S. Jaiswal, N. Gould, F. Turner, B. Lizundia, J. Barnes
2013, Earthquake Spectra (29) 1091-1107
The authors discuss some of the unique aspects and lessons of the New Zealand post-earthquake building safety inspection program that was implemented following the Canterbury earthquake sequence of 2010–2011. The post-event safety assessment program was one of the largest and longest programs undertaken in recent times anywhere in the world....
Frictional-faulting model for harmonic tremor before Redoubt Volcano eruptions
Ksenia Dmitrieva, Alicia J. Hotovec-Ellis, Stephanie G. Prejean, Eric M. Dunham
2013, Nature Geoscience (6) 652-656
Seismic unrest, indicative of subsurface magma transport and pressure changes within fluid-filled cracks and conduits, often precedes volcanic eruptions. An intriguing form of volcano seismicity is harmonic tremor, that is, sustained vibrations in the range of 0.5–5 Hz. Many source processes can generate harmonic tremor. Harmonic tremor in the 2009 eruption...
