Variability in coastal habitat available for Longfin Smelt Spirinchus thaleichthys in the northeastern Pacific Ocean
Matthew J. Young, Frederick V. Feyrer, Steven T Lindley, David D. Huff
2024, Frontiers in Marine Science (11)
An understanding of oceanographic conditions and processes important to marine animal ecology is fundamental to the development of effective management and conservation actions. Longfin Smelt (Spirinchus thaleichthys) is a pelagic forage fish found in coastal and estuarine waters along the Pacific coast of North America from Alaska to central...
Deep learning of estuary salinity dynamics is physically accurate at a fraction of hydrodynamic model computational cost
Galen Gorski, Salme Ellen Cook, Amelia Marie Snyder, Alison P. Appling, Theodore Paul Thompson, Jared David Smith, John C. Warner, Simon Nemer Topp
2024, Limnology and Oceanography (69) 1070-1085
Salinity dynamics in the Delaware Bay estuary are a critical water quality concern as elevated salinity can damage infrastructure and threaten drinking water supplies. Current state-of-the-art modeling approaches use hydrodynamic models, which can produce accurate results but are limited by significant computational costs. We...
Groundwater and surface-water interactions in the He‘eia watershed, O‘ahu, Hawai‘i—Insights from analysis of historical data and numerical groundwater-model simulations
Scot K. Izuka, Heidi L. Kane, Kolja Rotzoll
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5020
He‘eia and ‘Ioleka‘a Streams in the He‘eia watershed on O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, receive substantial discharge from dike-impounded groundwater. Previous studies indicated that groundwater withdrawals from the watershed affect streamflow. Resource managers and users seek information that can be used to balance the needs of competing uses of groundwater and streamflow in...
Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) resource selection: Trade-offs between forage and predation risk
James W. Cain III, Jacob H. Kay, Stewart G. Liley, Jay V. Gedir
2024, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (12)
Ungulates commonly select habitat with higher forage biomass and or nutritional quality to improve body condition and fitness. However, predation risk can alter ungulate habitat selection and foraging behavior and may affect their nutritional condition. Ungulates often choose areas with lower predation risk, sometimes sacrificing higher quality forage. This forage–predation...
Evaluating the potential for efficient, UAS-based reach-scale mapping of river channel bathymetry from multispectral images
Carl J. Legleiter, Lee R. Harrison
2024, Frontiers in Remote Sensing (5)
Introduction: Information on spatial patterns of water depth in river channels is valuable for numerous applications, but such data can be difficult to obtain via traditional field methods. Ongoing developments in remote sensing technology have enabled various image-based approaches for mapping river bathymetry; this study evaluated the potential to retrieve...
Apparent non-double-couple components as artifacts of moment tensor inversion
Boris Rosler, Seth Stein, Adam T. Ringler, Jiri Vackar
2024, Seismica (3)
Compilations of earthquake moment tensors from global and regional catalogs find pervasive non-double-couple (NDC) components with a mean deviation from a double-couple (DC) source of around 20%. Their distributions vary only slightly with magnitude, faulting mechanism, or geologic environments. This consistency suggests that for most earthquakes, especially smaller ones whose...
Preliminary implications of viscoelastic ray theory for anelastic seismic tomography models
Roger D. Borcherdt
2024, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (114) 1243-1263
The recent developments in general viscoelastic ray theory provide a rigorous mathematical framework for anelastic seismic tomography. They provide closed‐form solutions of forward ray‐tracing and simple inverse problems for anelastic horizontal and spherical layered media with material gradients. They provide ray‐tracing computation algorithms...
Groundwater hydrology, groundwater and surface-water interactions, aquifer testing, and groundwater-flow simulations for the Fountain Creek alluvial aquifer, near Colorado Springs, Colorado, 2018–20
Connor P. Newman, Cory A. Russell, Zachary D. Kisfalusi, Suzanne S. Paschke
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5119
From 2018 through 2020, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Air Force Civil Engineering Center, conducted an integrated study of the Fountain Creek alluvial aquifer located near Colorado Springs, Colorado. The objective of the study was to characterize hydrologic conditions for the alluvial aquifer pertinent to the potential...
Classification of lakebed geologic substrate in autonomously collected benthic imagery using machine learning
Joseph K. Geisz, Phillipe Alan Wernette, Peter C. Esselman
2024, Remote Sensing (16)
Mapping benthic habitats with bathymetric, acoustic, and spectral data requires georeferenced ground-truth information about habitat types and characteristics. New technologies like autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) collect tens of thousands of images per mission making image-based ground truthing particularly attractive. Two types of machine learning (ML) models, random forest (RF) and...
Deep learning workflow to support in-flight processing of digital aerial imagery for wildlife population surveys
Tsung-Wei Ke, Stella X Yu, Mark D. Koneff, David L. Fronczak, Luke J. Fara, Travis Harrison, Kyle Lawrence Landolt, Enrika Hlavacek, Brian R. Lubinski, Timothy White
2024, PLoS ONE (19)
Deep learning shows promise for automating detection and classification of wildlife from digital aerial imagery to support cost-efficient remote sensing solutions for wildlife population monitoring. To support in-flight orthorectification and machine learning processing to detect and classify wildlife from imagery in near real-time, we evaluated deep learning methods that address...
Propensity score matching mitigates risk of faulty inferences in observational studies of effectiveness of restoration trials
Chad Raymond Kluender, Matthew J. Germino, Christopher A Anthony
2024, Journal of Applied Ecology (61) 1127-1137
Determining effectiveness of restoration treatments is an important requirement of adaptive management, but it can be non-trivial where only portions of large and heterogeneous landscapes of concern can be treated and sampled. Bias and non-randomness in the spatial deployment of treatment and thus sampling is nearly unavoidable in the...
The potential influence of genome-wide adaptive divergence on conservation translocation outcome in an isolated greater sage-grouse population
Shawna J Zimmerman, Cameron L. Aldridge, Michael A Schroeder, Jennifer A. Fike, Robert S. Cornman, Sara J. Oyler-McCance
2024, Conservation Biology (38)
Conservation translocations are an important conservation tool commonly employed to augment declining or reestablish extirpated populations. One goal of augmentation is to increase genetic diversity and reduce the risk of inbreeding depression (i.e., genetic rescue). However, introducing individuals from significantly diverged populations risks disrupting coadapted traits and...
Bathymetric and velocimetric surveys at highway bridges crossing the Missouri River between Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri, May 19–26, 2021
Richard J. Huizinga
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5021
Bathymetric and velocimetric data were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Transportation, near nine bridges at eight highway crossings of the Missouri River between Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri, from May 19 to 26, 2021. A multibeam echosounder mapping system was used...
Vegetation, fuels, and fire-behavior responses to linear fuel-break treatments in and around burned sagebrush steppe: Are we breaking the grass-fire cycle?
Matthew J. Germino, Samuel J. Price, Susan J Prichard
2024, Fire Ecology (20)
BackgroundLinear fuel breaks are being implemented to moderate fire behavior and improve wildfire containment in semiarid landscapes such as the sagebrush steppe of North America, where extensive losses in perennial vegetation and ecosystem functioning are resulting from invasion by exotic annual grasses (EAGs) that foster large and recurrent...
Comparing modern identification methods for wild bees: Metabarcoding and image-based morphological taxonomic assignment
Cassandra Smith, Robert S. Cornman, Jennifer A. Fike, Johanna M. Kraus, Sara J. Oyler-McCance, Carrie E. Givens, Michelle Hladik, Mark W. Vandever, Dana W. Kolpin, Kelly Smalling
2024, PLoS ONE (19)
With the decline of bee populations worldwide, studies determining current wild bee distributions and diversity are increasingly important. Wild bee identification is often completed by experienced taxonomists or by genetic analysis. The current study was designed to compare two methods of identification including: (1) morphological identification...
Paleogene Earth perturbations in the US Atlantic Coastal Plain (PEP-US): Coring transects of hyperthermals to understand past carbon injections and ecosystem responses
Marci M. Robinson, Kenneth Miller, Tali Babila, Tim J Bralower, Jim Browning, Marlow Cramwinckel, Monika Doubrawa, Gavin L Foster, Megan Fung, Sean D. Kinney, Maria Makarova, Pete McLaughlin, Paul Pearson, Ursula Rohl, Morgan Schaller, Jean Self-Trail, Appy Sluijs, Thomas Westerhold, James R. Wright, James Zachos
2024, Scientific Drilling (33) 47-65
The release of over 4500 Gt (gigatonnes) of carbon at the Paleocene–Eocene boundary provides the closest geological analog to modern anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The cause(s) of and responses to the resulting Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) and attendant carbon isotopic excursion (CIE) remain enigmatic and intriguing...
Current and projected flood exposure for Alaska coastal communities
Richard Michael Buzard, Christopher V. Maio, Li H. Erikson, Jacquelyn R. Overbeck, Nicole E. M. Kinsman, Benjamin M. Jones
2024, Scientific Reports (14)
Globally, coastal communities experience flood hazards that are projected to worsen from climate change and sea level rise. The 100-year floodplain or record flood are commonly used to identify risk areas for planning purposes. Remote communities often lack measured flood elevations and require innovative approaches to...
The Ecosystem Approach in the 21st century: Guiding science and management – A synthesis
S.A. Ludsin, Andrew Kenneth Carlson, A.T. Duncan, C.M. Febria, J.H. Hartig, W.A. Kellogg, C.K. Minns, M. Munawar, S. Nolan, M. Van der Knaap, E.M. Verhamme, K.C. Williams
2024, Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management (27) 108-116
Maintaining the integrity and health of aquatic ecosystems is critical to sustaining the many valued services that they provide society. Unfortunately, achieving this goal has proven challenging in most of the world's large ecosystems owing to rampant environmental change caused by human-driven stress, including accelerating climate change, pollution of waterways,...
Estimating migration timing and abundance in partial migratory systems by integrating continuous antenna detections with physical captures
Maria C. Dzul, William L. Kendall, Charles Yackulic, D.R. Van Haverbeke, P. Mackinnon, K. Young, M. Pillow, Joseph E Thomas
2024, Journal of Animal Ecology (93) 796-811
Many populations migrate between two different habitats (e.g. wintering/foraging to breeding area, mainstem–tributary, river–lake, river–ocean, river–side channel) as part of their life history. Detection technologies, such as passive integrated transponder (PIT) antennas or sonic receivers, can be placed at boundaries between habitats (e.g. near the confluence of rivers) to...
Design and calibration of a nitrate decision support tool for groundwater wells in Wisconsin, USA
Paul F. Juckem, Nicholas Corson-Dosch, Laura A. Schachter, Christopher Green, Kelsie M. Ferin, Eric G. Booth, Christopher J. Kucharik, Brian P. Austin, Leon J. Kauffman
2024, Environmental Modeling and Software, (176)
This paper describes development of a nitrate decision support tool for groundwater wells (GW-NDST) that combines nitrate leaching and groundwater lag-times to compute well concentrations. The GW-NDST uses output from support models that simulate leached nitrate, groundwater age distributions, and...
Modeling the potential spread of the non-native regal demoiselle, Neopomacentrus cyanomos, in the western Atlantic
Melanie M Esch, Catherine S. Jarnevich, Nuno Simoes, Timothy R McClanahan, Alastair R Harborne
2024, Coral Reefs (43) 641-653
Predicting the potential distribution of a non-native species can assist management efforts to mitigate impacts on recipient ecosystems. However, such predictions are lacking for marine species, such as the non-native regal demoiselle, Neopomacentrus cyanomos, that is currently expanding its distribution in the western Atlantic. We used correlative...
Simulating past and future fire impacts on Mediterranean ecosystems
Christoph Schworer, Cesar Morales-Molino, Erika Gobet, Paul D. Henne, Salvatore Pasta, Tiziana Pedrotta, Jacqueline F. N. van Leeuwen, Boris Vanniere, Willy Tinner
2024, Journal of Ecology (112) 954-970
Worldwide, large wildfires are becoming increasingly common, leading to economic damages and threatening ecosystems and human health. Under future climate change, more frequent fire disturbance may push ecosystems into non-forested alternative stable states. Fire-prone ecosystems such as those in the Mediterranean Basin are expected to be particularly vulnerable, but...
Clumped isotopes record a glacial-interglacial shift in seasonality of soil carbonate accumulation in the San Luis Valley, southern Rocky Mountains, USA
Adam M. Hudson, Julia R. Kelson, James B. Paces, Chester A. Ruleman, Katharine W. Huntington, Andrew J. Schauer
2024, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (25)
Clumped isotope paleothermometry using pedogenic carbonates is a powerful tool for investigating past climate changes. However, location-specific seasonal patterns of precipitation and soil moisture cause systematic biases in the temperatures they record, hampering comparison of data across large areas or differing climate states. To account for biases, more systematic studies...
Timing and source of recharge to the Columbia River Basalt groundwater system in northeastern Oregon
Henry M. Johnson, Kate E. Ely, Anna-Turi Maher
2024, Groundwater (62) 761-777
Recharge to and flow within the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) groundwater flow system of northeastern Oregon were characterized using isotopic, gas, and age-tracer samples from wells completed in basalt, springs, and stream base flow. Most groundwater samples were late-Pleistocene to early-Holocene; median age of...
Inbuilt age, residence time, and inherited age from radiocarbon dates of modern fires and late Holocene deposits, Western Transverse Ranges, California
Katherine M. Scharer, Devin McPhillips, Jenifer Amy Leidelmeijer, Matthew Kirby
2024, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (49) 2309-2582
Radiocarbon dates of sedimentary deposits include the elapsed time between formation of the organic material and deposition at the sample site, known as the inherited age. Long inherited ages reduce the accuracy of estimates of the timing of depositional events used to infer paleoclimate change, fire histories, and paleoearthquake...
