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Each fall, thousands of Rocky Mountain Sandhill Cranes and other migratory birds congregate at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley in search of wintering habitat. As such, this refuge is known as one of the premier destinations for bird viewing and photography in...

Climate change is affecting the benefits society derives from forests. One such forest ecosystem service is maple syrup, which is primarily derived from Acer saccharum (sugar maple), currently an abundant and widespread tree species in eastern North America. Two climate sensitive components of sap affect syrup production: sugar content...

USA: LOUISIANA: PLAQUEMINES PARISH: 0.15 km S of the intersection of LA-23 and Jump  road, Venice (29.266630°N, 89.35570°W; WGS 84). 2 May 2019. V. C. Montross and W. McGighan. Verified by Aaron M. Bauer. Florida Museum of Natural History (UF 189238; photo voucher). New parish record. On 2 May 2019,...

Native trout are threatened worldwide by introductions of non-native trout that in many cases are themselves threatened within their native range and historical habitats. This chapter focuses on this paradox and addresses how information gained to protect and restore a species in its native range can be used to...

Since the early 1900s, most of the groundwater withdrawals in the Houston-Galveston region, Texas, have been from the three primary aquifers that compose the Gulf Coast aquifer system—the Chicot, Evangeline, and Jasper aquifers. Withdrawals from these aquifers are used for municipal supply, commercial and industrial use, and irrigation. This report,...

Jewel Cave National Monument and Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota contain two of the six longest caves worldwide. These caves contain subterranean lakes that are important points of intersection between the water table of the Madison aquifer and the caves. During 2015 to 2017, several subterranean lakes were...

Executive SummaryThe production of Klamath River fall Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in northern California and southern Oregon is thought to be limited by poor survival during freshwater juvenile life stages, in part a result of Ceratonova shasta—a highly infectious disease that can lead to high fish mortality. Higher flushing...

Climatic variation is a key driver of freshwater physical processes that in turn control stream fish growth and population dynamics at fine spatial scales and species distributions across broad landscapes. A recent downturn in Chinook Salmon returns across the Yukon River basin, Alaska, USA, and Yukon Territories, Canada, has led...

Debris-flow experiments and models commonly use “hot-start” initial conditions in which downslope motion begins when a large force imbalance is abruptly imposed. By contrast, initiation of natural debris flows almost invariably results from small perturbations of static force balances that apply to debris masses poised in steep channels or...

Cretaceous-Paleocene porphyry Cu(±Mo±Au) occurrences are scattered throughout the Yukon-Tanana upland in eastern Alaska. Known occurrences in eastern Alaska are poorly characterized, despite a resurgence in exploration. Porphyry deposits in the upland are emplaced into structurally complex metamorphic rocks representing a variety of tectonic environments, resulting in diverse alteration and mineralization...

This presentation summarizes the proposed updates to earthquake design ground motions for the 2020 edition of the NEHRP Recommended Seismic Provisions, expected to be incorporated into the ASCE 7-22 Standard. The implications of these updates on the values of design ground motions for example locations in both conterminous and nonconterminous...

Executive SummaryIn this report, we describe application of the Stream Salmonid Simulator (S3) to Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the Klamath River between Keno Dam in southern Oregon and the ocean in northern California. S3 is a deterministic life-stage-structured population model that tracks daily growth, movement, and survival...

The principal motivation for this study is that sagebrush-steppe ecosystems are undergoing significant state changes, and land managers are challenged with optimizing their resources for both short- and long-term use. Yet, limited knowledge is available regarding how the sagebrush-steppe will respond to environmental changes related to precipitation and temperature regimes,...

The Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, Florida, USA (27.946°N, − 80.494°W) represents one of the largest loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) nesting sites in the Western Hemisphere. Surprisingly, little work has been conducted to determine females’ post-nesting migratory behavior and characteristics of their foraging areas. Between 2008 and 2017,...

Most geothermal resources in the Great Basin region of the western USA are blind, and thus the discovery of new commercial-grade systems requires synthesis of favorable characteristics for geothermal activity. The geothermal play fairway concept involves integration of multiple parameters indicative of geothermal activity to identify promising...

Management of protected lands may enhance ecosystem services that conservation programs were designed to protect. Practices that build soil organic matter (SOM) on agricultural lands also increase soil water holding capacity, potentially reducing climatic water deficit (CWD), increasing actual evapotranspiration (AET) and increasing groundwater recharge (RCH). We developed nine...

Trout are socioeconomically and ecologically important in the Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA); yet these fish face numerous threats. Disease may begin to play a larger role in reducing fish populations, partly because many existing threats may interact to exacerbate the frequency, extent, and severity of fish diseases (Lafferty 2009). For...

Increased oil and gas production in many areas has led to concerns over the effects these activities may be having on nearby groundwater quality. In this study we determine the lateral and vertical extent of groundwater with less than 10,000 milligrams per liter (mg/l) total dissolved solids (TDS) near...

Stakeholder interests have spurred the reintroduction of the critically endangered populations of Chinook Salmon to tributaries upstream of Shasta Dam, in northern California. We released two groups of acoustically tagged, juvenile hatchery, late-fall Chinook Salmon to determine how juvenile salmon would distribute and survive. We measured travel times to Shasta...

Radial and linear dike swarms in the eroded roots of volcanoes and along rift zones are sensitive structural indicators of conduit and eruption geometry that can record regional paleostress orientations. Compositionally diverse dikes and larger intrusions that radiate westward from the polycyclic Platoro caldera complex in the Southern Rocky Mountain...

Electricity from wind energy is a major contributor to the strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel use and thus reduce the negative impacts of climate change. Wind energy, like all power sources, can have adverse impacts on wildlife. After nearly 25 years of focused research, these impacts...

No abstract available....

Black Oystercatchers Haematopus bachmani, a species of conservation concern, depend on marine intertidal prey resources. We examined diet, feeding rates, growth, and survival of Black Oystercatcher broods in southcentral Alaska, 2013-2014. To determine the importance of diet on brood survival, we modeled daily survival rates of broods as a function...

Outdoor recreation facilitates important connections to nature and wildlife but is perceived differently across population segments. As such, we expected that current and past socio-demographic characteristics of individuals would influence intention to participate in outdoor recreation. We solicited 5,000 U.S. residents. (n = 1,030, 23% response) to describe their perceptions...

Coastal erosion outpaces land generation along many of the world’s deltas and a significant percentage of shorelines, and human-caused alterations to coastal sediment budgets can be important drivers of this erosion. For sediment-starved and erosion-prone coasts, large-scale enhancement of sediment supply may be an important, but poorly understood, management option....