Analysis of the trap gene provides evidence for the role of elevation and vector abundance in the genetic diversity of Plasmodium relictum in Hawaii
Margaret E.M. Farias, Carter T. Atkinson, Dennis A. LaPointe, Susan I. Jarvi
2012, Malaria Journal (11)
Background: The avian disease system in Hawaii offers an ideal opportunity to investigate host-pathogen interactions in a natural setting. Previous studies have recognized only a single mitochondrial lineage of avian malaria (Plasmodium relictum) in the Hawaiian Islands, but cloning and sequencing of nuclear genes suggest a higher degree of genetic...
Bird populations on the Island of Tinian: persistence despite wholesale loss of native forests
Richard J. Camp, Frederick A. Amidon, Ann P. Marshall, Thane K. Pratt
2012, Pacific Science (66) 283-298
Bird habitat on the island of Tinian, Mariana Islands, has been substantially altered, and only around 5% of the island has native forest today. The modern bird fauna is likely to be a subset of the original avifauna where only species tolerant to native forest loss and human disturbance have...
Plant allocation of carbon to defense as a function of herbivory, light and nutrient availability
Donald L. DeAngelis, Shu Ju, Rongsong Liu, John P. Bryant, Stephen A. Gourley
2012, Theoretical Ecology (5) 445-456
We use modeling to determine the optimal relative plant carbon allocations between foliage, fine roots, anti-herbivore defense, and reproduction to maximize reproductive output. The model treats these plant components and the herbivore compartment as variables. Herbivory is assumed to be purely folivory. Key external factors include nutrient availability, degree of...
Extinction rates in North American freshwater fishes, 1900-2010
Noel M. Burkhead
2012, BioScience (62) 798-808
Widespread evidence shows that the modern rates of extinction in many plants and animals exceed background rates in the fossil record. In the present article, I investigate this issue with regard to North American freshwater fishes. From 1898 to 2006, 57 taxa became extinct, and three distinct populations were extirpated...
A sampling design and model for estimating abundance of Nile crocodiles while accounting for heterogeneity of detectability of multiple observers
Matthew H. Shirley, Robert M. Dorazio, Ekramy Abassery, Amr A. Elhady, Mohammed S. Mekki, Hosni H. Asran
2012, Journal of Wildlife Management (76) 966-975
As part of the development of a management program for Nile crocodiles in Lake Nasser, Egypt, we used a dependent double-observer sampling protocol with multiple observers to compute estimates of population size. To analyze the data, we developed a hierarchical model that allowed us to assess variation in detection probabilities...
Summary of bird-survey and banding results at W.L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge, 1998-2008
Joan Hagar
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1223
With some of the best remaining examples of oak habitats in the Willamette Valley, the Willamette Valley National Wildlife Refuge Complex (WVNWRC) has been implementing restoration efforts to reverse the successional trend towards Douglas-fir and maple that is threatening existing oak woodlands. The restoration work has been considered a model...
Lake trout status in the main basin of Lake Huron, 1973-2010
Ji X. He, Mark P. Ebener, Stephen C. Riley, Adam Cottrill, Adam Kowalski, Scott Koproski, Lloyd Mohr, James E. Johnson
2012, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (32) 402-412
We developed indices of lake trout Salvelinus namaycush status in the main basin of Lake Huron (1973-2010) to understand increases in the relative abundance of wild year-classes during 1995-2010. Sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus wounds per 100 lake trout declined from 23.63 in 2000 to 5.86-10.64 in 2002-2010. The average age-7...
Changes in water budgets and sediment yields from a hypothetical agricultural field as a function of landscape and management characteristics--A unit field modeling approach
Jason L. Roth, Paul D. Capel
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5203
Crop agriculture occupies 13 percent of the conterminous United States. Agricultural management practices, such as crop and tillage types, affect the hydrologic flow paths through the landscape. Some agricultural practices, such as drainage and irrigation, create entirely new hydrologic flow paths upon the landscapes where they are implemented. These hydrologic...
A climate trend analysis of Senegal
Christopher C. Funk, Jim Rowland, Alkhalil Adoum, Gary Eilerts, James Verdin, Libby White
2012, Fact Sheet 2012-3123
This brief report, drawing from a multi-year effort by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), identifies modest declines in rainfall, accompanied by increases in air temperatures. These analyses are based on quality-controlled station observations. Conclusions: * Summer rains have remained steady in...
Towards a theory of ecotone resilience: coastal vegetation on a salinity gradient
Jiang Jiang, Daozhou Gao, Donald L. DeAngelis
2012, Theoretical Population Biology (82) 29-37
Ecotones represent locations where vegetation change is likely to occur as a result of climate and other environmental changes. Using a model of an ecotone vulnerable to such future changes, we estimated the resilience of the ecotone to disturbances. The specific ecotone is that between two different vegetation types, salinity-tolerant...
Potential effects of climate change on the distribution of waterbirds in the Prairie Pothole Region, U.S.A.
Valerie Steen, Abby N. Powell
2012, Waterbirds (35) 217-229
Wetland-dependent birds are considered to be at particularly high risk for negative climate change effects. Current and future distributions of American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus), American Coot (Fulica americana), Black Tern (Chlidonias niger), Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) and Sora (Porzana carolina), five waterbird species common in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR),...
Viral fitness: definitions, measurement, and current insights
Andrew R. Wargo, Gael Kurath
2012, Current Opinion in Virology (2) 538-545
Viral fitness is an active area of research, with recent work involving an expanded number of human, non-human vertebrate, invertebrate, plant, and bacterial viruses. Many publications deal with RNA viruses associated with major disease emergence events, such as HIV-1, influenza virus, and Dengue virus. Study topics include drug resistance, immune...
High-resolution digital elevation dataset for Crater Lake National Park and vicinity, Oregon, based on LiDAR survey of August-September 2010 and bathymetric survey of July 2000
Joel E. Robinson
2012, Data Series 716
Crater Lake partially fills the caldera that formed approximately 7,700 years ago during the eruption of a 12,000-foot volcano known as Mount Mazama. The caldera-forming or climactic eruption of Mount Mazama devastated the surrounding landscape, left a thick deposit of pumice and ash in adjacent valleys, and spread a blanket...
waterData--An R package for retrieval, analysis, and anomaly calculation of daily hydrologic time series data, version 1.0
Karen R. Ryberg, Aldo V. Vecchia
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1168
Hydrologic time series data and associated anomalies (multiple components of the original time series representing variability at longer-term and shorter-term time scales) are useful for modeling trends in hydrologic variables, such as streamflow, and for modeling water-quality constituents. An R package, called waterData, has been developed for importing daily hydrologic...
A transect through the base of the Bronson Hill Terrane in western New Hampshire
Gregory J. Walsh, Peter M. Valley, Karri R. Sicard
Thelma Barton Thompson, Peter J. Thompson, editor(s)
2012, Conference Paper
This trip will present the preliminary results of ongoing bedrock mapping in the North Hartland and Claremont North 7.5-minute quadrangles in western New Hampshire. The trip will travel from the Lebanon pluton to just north of the Sugar River pluton (Fig. 1) with the aim of examining the lower structural...
Carbon export by rivers draining the conterminous United States
Edward G. Stets, Robert G. Striegl
2012, Inland Waters (2) 177-184
Material exports by rivers, particularly carbon exports, provide insight to basin geology, weathering, and ecological processes within the basin. Accurate accounting of those exports is valuable to understanding present, past, and projected basin-wide changes in those processes. We calculated lateral export of inorganic and organic carbon (IC and OC) from...
Quantification of water-level variability effect on plant species populations using paleoecological and hydrological time series data
Edwin A. Roehl Jr., Paul Conrads, Christopher Bernhardt
2012, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 2012 South Carolina Water Resources Conference
Soil cores provide valuable data on historical changes in vegetation and hydrologic conditions. Empirical models were developed to quantify the effect of meteorological and hydrologic forcing on plant species distributions over a 110-year period in Water Conservation Area 1 (WCA1) in the Florida Everglades, also known as the Arthur R....
Resource selection models are useful in predicting fine-scale distributions of black-footed ferrets in prairie dog colonies
David A. Eads, David S. Jachowski, Dean E. Biggins, Travis M. Livieri, Marc R. Matchett, Joshua J. Millspaugh
2012, Western North American Naturalist (72) 206-215
Wildlife-habitat relationships are often conceptualized as resource selection functions (RSFs)—models increasingly used to estimate species distributions and prioritize habitat conservation. We evaluated the predictive capabilities of 2 black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes) RSFs developed on a 452-ha colony of black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) in the Conata Basin, South Dakota. We...
Simulation of daily streamflows at gaged and ungaged locations within the Cedar River Basin, Iowa, using a Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System model
Daniel E. Christiansen
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5213
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, conducted a study to examine techniques for estimation of daily streamflows using hydrological models and statistical methods. This report focuses on the use of a hydrologic model, the U.S. Geological Survey's Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System, to estimate daily...
Use of multi-opening burrow systems by black-footed ferrets
Dean E. Biggins
2012, Western North American Naturalist (72) 134-139
Multi-opening burrow systems constructed by prairie dogs (Cynomys) ostensibly provide escape routes when prairie dogs are pursued by predators capable of entering the burrows, such as black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes), or by predators that can rapidly dig into the tunnels, such as American badgers (Taxidea taxus). Because badgers also prey...
Information on black-footed ferret biology collected within the framework of ferret conservation
Dean E. Biggins
2012, Western North American Naturalist (72) 129-133
Once feared to be extinct, black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes) were rediscovered near Meeteetse, Wyoming, in 1981, resulting in renewed conservation and research efforts for this highly endangered species. A need for information directly useful to recovery has motivated much monitoring of ferrets since that time, but field activities have enabled...
Data resources for the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) Integrated Assessment (IA)
Timothy J. Assal, Steven L. Garman, Zachary H. Bowen, Patrick J. Anderson, Daniel J. Manier, Robert R. McDougal
2012, Data Series 700
The data contained in this report were compiled, modified, and analyzed for the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) Integrated Assessment (IA). The WLCI is a long-term science based effort to assess and enhance aquatic and terrestrial habitats at a landscape scale in southwest Wyoming while facilitating responsible energy development through...
Ecological correlates of invasion impact for Burmese pythons in Florida
R.N. Reed, J.D. Willson, G.H. Rodda, M.E. Dorcas
2012, Integrative Zoology (7) 254-270
An invasive population of Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) is established across several thousand square kilometers of southern Florida and appears to have caused precipitous population declines among several species of native mammals. Why has this giant snake had such great success as an invasive species when many established reptiles...
A simple method for estimating basin-scale groundwater discharge by vegetation in the basin and range province of Arizona using remote sensing information and geographic information systems
F.D. Tillman, J.B. Callegary, P.L. Nagler, E. P. Glenn
2012, Journal of Arid Environments (82) 44-52
Groundwater is a vital water resource in the arid to semi-arid southwestern United States. Accurate accounting of inflows to and outflows from the groundwater system is necessary to effectively manage this shared resource, including the important outflow component of groundwater discharge by vegetation. A simple method for estimating basin-scale groundwater...
Drivers of change in estuarine-coastal ecosystems: Discoveries from four decades of study in San Francisco Bay
J. E. Cloern, A.D. Jassby
2012, Reviews of Geophysics (50)
Poised at the interface of rivers, ocean, atmosphere and dense human settlement, estuaries are driven by a large array of natural and anthropogenic forces. San Francisco Bay exemplifies the fast-paced change occurring in many of the world's estuaries, bays and inland seas in response to these diverse forces. We use...
