Water tracks enhance water flow above permafrost in upland Arctic Alaska hillslopes
Sarah G. Evans, Sarah E Godsey, Caitlin R Rushlow, Clifford I. Voss
2020, Journal of Geophysical Research F: Earth Surface (125)
Upland permafrost regions occupy approximately one third of the Arctic landscape. In upland regions, hydrologic fluxes are influenced by water tracks, curvilinear features on hillslopes that preferentially fill with and route water in response to snowmelt and rainfall when the soil above continuous permafrost thaws in the summer. As continued...
Molecular sequencing and morphological identification reveal similar patterns in native bee communities across public and private grasslands of eastern North Dakota
Brian Darby, Russ Bryant, Abby Keller, Madison Jochim, Josephine Moe, Zoe Schreiner, Carrie Pratt, Ned Euliss, Mia Park, Rebecca Simmons, Clint Otto
2020, PLoS ONE (15)
Bees play a key role in the functioning of human-modified and natural ecosystems by pollinating agricultural crops and wild plant communities. Global pollinator conservation efforts need large-scale and long-term monitoring to detect changes in species’ demographic patterns and shifts in bee community structure. The objective of this project was to...
Advanced biofilm analysis in streams receiving organic deicer runoff
Michelle A Nott, Heather E. Driscoll, Minoru Takeda, Mahesh Vangala, Steven Corsi, Scott W. Tighe
2020, PLoS ONE (15)
Prolific heterotrophic biofilm growth is a common occurrence in airport receiving streams containing deicers and anti-icers, which are composed of low-molecular weight organic compounds. This study investigated biofilm spatiotemporal patterns and responses to concurrent and antecedent (i.e., preceding biofilm sampling) environmental conditions at stream sites upstream and downstream from Milwaukee...
Introgression obscures lineage boundaries and phylogeographic history in the western banded gecko, Coleonyx variegatus (Squamata: Eublepharidae)
Dean H Leavitt, Bradford Hollingsworth, Robert N. Fisher, Tod W Reeder
2020, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society (190) 181-226
The geomorphological formation of the Baja California peninsula and the Gulf of California is a principal driver of diversification for the reptiles of North America’s warm deserts. The western banded gecko, Coleonyx variegatus, is distributed throughout the Mojave, Sonoran and Peninsular deserts. In this study we use multilocus sequence data to...
Estimating detection probability for Burmese Pythons with few detections and zero recapture events
Melia G. Nafus, Frank J. Mazzotti, Robert Reed
2020, Journal of Herpetology (54) 24-30
Detection has been a long-standing challenge to monitoring populations of cryptic herpetofauna, which often have detection probabilities that are closer to zero than one. Burmese Pythons (Python bivittatus =Python molurus bivittatus), a recent invader in the Greater Everglades Ecosystem of Florida, are cryptic snakes that have long periods of inactivity....
Using thermal infrared cameras to detect avian chicks at various distances and vegetative coverages
Diann Prosser, Tom Collier, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Katherine Emily Dale, Carl R. Callahan, Peter C. McGowan, Edward Gaylord, Julia M. Geschke, Lucas Howell, Paul R. Marban, Saba Raman
2020, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (11) 245-257
Population monitoring of nesting waterbirds often involves frequent entries into the colony, but alternative methods such as local remotely sensed thermal imaging may help reduce disturbance while providing a cost-effective way to survey breeding populations. Such an approach can have high initial costs, however, which may have reduced the number...
Investigating maternity roost selection by northern long-eared bats at three sites in Wisconsin
Brenna A. Hyzy, Robin E. Russell, Alex Silvis, W. Mark Ford, Jason Riddle, Kevin Russell
2020, Endangered Species Research (41) 55-65
One of the North American bat species most impacted by white-nose syndrome (WNS) is the northern long-eared bat Myotis septentrionalis, which as a result has been listed under the Endangered Species Act. WNS was first detected in Wisconsin in 2014. Unfortunately, little is known regarding the ecology of M. septentrionalis in this state...
Is your ad hoc model selection strategy affecting your multimodel inference?
Dana J. Morin, Charles B. Yackulic, James E. Diffendorfer, Damon B. Lesmeister, Clayton Nielsen, Janice Reid, Eric M. Schauber
2020, Ecosphere (11)
(Yackulic) 1. Ecologists routinely fit complex models with multiple parameters of interest, where hundreds or more competing models are plausible. To limit the number of fitted models, ecologists often define a model selection strategy composed of a series of stages in which certain features of a model are compared while...
Extreme mortality and reproductive failure of common murres resulting from the northeast Pacific marine heatwave of 2014-2016
John F. Piatt, Julia K. Parrish, Heather M. Renner, Sarah K. Schoen, Timothy Jones, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Kathy J. Kuletz, Barbara L. Bodenstein, Marisol Garcia-Reyes, Rebecca Duerr, Robin Corcoran, Robb S.A. Kaler, Gerard J. McChesney, Richard T. Golightly, Heather A. Coletti, Robert M. Suryan, Hillary K. Burgess, Jackie Lindsey, Kirsten Lindquist, Peter Warzybok, Jaime Jahncke, Jan Roletto, William J. Sydeman
2020, PLoS ONE
About 62,000 dead or dying common murres (Uria aalge), the trophically dominant fish-eating seabird of the North Pacific, washed ashore between summer 2015 and spring 2016 on beaches from California to Alaska. Most birds were severely emaciated and, so far, no evidence for anything other than starvation was...
A round-robin evaluation of the repeatability and reproducibility of environmental DNA assays for dreissenid mussels
Adam J. Sepulveda, Patrick R. Hutchins, Craig Jackson, Carl O. Ostberg, Matthew Laramie, Jon Amberg, Timothy D. Counihan, Andrew B. Hoegh, David S. Pilliod
2020, Environmental DNA (2) 446-459
Resource managers may be hesitant to make decisions based on environmental (e)DNA results alone since eDNA is an indirect method of species detection. One way to reduce the uncertainty of eDNA is to identify laboratory‐based protocols that ensure repeatable and reproducible results. We conducted a double‐blind round‐robin analysis of probe‐based...
Using the Lomb-Scargle method for wave statistics from gappy time series
Marinna A. Martini, Alfredo Aretxabaleta, Christopher R. Sherwood
2020, Conference Paper, 2019 IEEE/OES twelfth current, waves and turbulence measurement (CWTM)
Sandwich Town Neck Beach in Sandwich, MA, has experienced substantial erosion and has been the subject of efforts by the town and private landowners to limit the sand loss. Erosion has been particularly dramatic in the past five years with the loss of dwellings. Sandwich's nourishment efforts presented a unique...
Using a dense seismic array to determine structure and site effects of the Two Towers earthflow in northern California
Amanda M. Thomas, Zack Spica, Miles Bodmer, William H. Schulz, Joshua J. Roering
2020, Seismological Research Letters (91) 913-920
We deployed a network of 68 three-component geophones on the slow moving Two Towers earthflow in northern California. We compute horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios (HVSRs) from the ambient seismic field. The HVSRs have two prominent peaks, one near 1.23 Hz and another between 4 and 8 Hz at most stations. The 1.23 Hz resonance...
Field-based method for assessing duration of infectivity for influenza A viruses in the environment
Andrew B. Reeves, Andrew M. Ramey, Joshua C. Koch, Rebecca L. Poulson, David E. Stallknecht
2020, Journal of Virological Methods (277)
Understanding influenza A virus (IAV) persistence in wetlands is limited by a paucity of field studies relating to the maintenance of infectivity over time. The duration of IAV infectivity in water has been assessed under variable laboratory conditions, but results are difficult to translate to more complex field conditions. We...
Petrologic insights into rift zone magmatic interactions from the 2011 eruption of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi
Brett H. Walker, Michael O. Garcia, Tim R. Orr
2020, Journal of Petrology (60) 2051-2075
The high frequency of historical eruptions at Kīlauea Volcano presents an exceptional opportunity to address fundamental questions related to the transport, storage, and interaction of magmas within rift zones. The Nāpau Crater area on Kīlauea’s East Rift Zone (ERZ) experienced nine fissure eruptions within 50 years (1961–2011). Most of the magma...
Using conceptual models to relate multiparameter satellite data to subsurface volcanic processes in Latin America
Kevin Reath, Matthew Pritchard, Juliet Biggs, Ben Andrews, Susi Ebmeier, Marco Bagnardi, Tarsilo Girona, Paul Lundgren, Taryn Lopez, Michael P. Poland
2020, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (21)
Satellite data have been extensively used to identify volcanic behavior. However, the physical subsurface processes causing any individual manifestation of activity can be ambiguous. We propose a classification scheme for the cause of unrest that simultaneously considers three multiparameter satellite observations. The scheme is based on...
Integrating side-scan sonar and acoustic telemetry to estimate the annual spawning run size of Atlantic sturgeon in the Hudson River
David C. Kazyak, Amy M Flowers, Nathan J. Hostetter, John A Madsen, Matthew W. Breece, Amanda Higgs, Lori M. Brown, J. Andrew Royle, Dewayne A. Fox
2020, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (77) 1038-1048
There is considerable interest in evaluating the status and trends of sturgeon populations, yet many traditional approaches to estimating the abundance of fishes are intractable due to their biology and rarity. Side-scan sonar has recently emerged as an effective tool for censusing sturgeon in rivers, yet challenges remain for censusing...
Trends of litter decomposition and soil organic matter stocks across forested swamp environments of the southeastern US
Beth A. Middleton
2020, PLoS ONE (15)
A common idea in the discussion of soil carbon processes is that litter decomposition rates and soil carbon stocks are inversely related. To test this overall hypothesis, simultaneous studies were conducted of the relationship of environmental gradients to leaf and wood decomposition, buried cloth decomposition and percent soil organic matter...
Estimating bedload from suspended load and water discharge in sand bed rivers
T.C. Ashley, B. McElroy, D. Buscombe, Paul E. Grams, M. Kaplinski
2020, Water Resources Research (56)
Estimates of fluvial sediment discharge from in situ instruments are an important component of large‐scale sediment budgets that track long‐term geomorphic change. Suspended sediment load can be reliably estimated using acoustic or physical sampling techniques; however, bedload is difficult to measure directly and can consequently be one of the largest...
Integrating multiple data sources and multi-scale land-cover data to model the distribution of a declining amphibian
Jonathan P. Rose, Brian J. Halstead, Robert N. Fisher
2020, Biological Conservation (241)
Determining the spatial scale at which landscape features influence population persistence is an important task for conservation planning. One challenge is that sampling biases confound factors that influence species occurrence and survey effort. Recent developments in Point Process Models (PPMs) enable researchers to disentangle the sampling process from ecological drivers...
Microbial source tracking (MST) in Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area: Seasonal and precipitation trends in MST marker concentrations, and associations with E. coli levels, pathogenic marker presence, and land use
Anna M. McKee, Marirosa Molina, Mike Cyterski, Ann Couch
2020, Water Research (171)
Escherichia coli levels in recreational waters are often used to predict when fecal-associated pathogen levels are a human health risk. The reach of the Chattahoochee River that flows through the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area (CRNRA), located in the Atlanta-metropolitan area, is a popular recreation area that frequently exceeds the U.S....
Spatial sampling bias and model complexity in stream-based species distribution models: A case study of Paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) in the Arkansas River basin, USA
A. T. Taylor, T. Hafen, Colt Taylor Holley, A. Gonzalez, James M. Long
2020, Ecology & Evolution (10) 705-717
Leveraging existing presence records and geospatial datasets, species distribution modeling has been widely applied to informing species conservation and restoration efforts. Maxent is one of the most popular modeling algorithms, yet recent research has demonstrated Maxent models are vulnerable to prediction errors related to spatial sampling bias and model complexity....
Assessing the water quality impacts of two Category-5 hurricanes on St. Thomas, Virgin Islands
Sunny Jiang, Muyue Han, Srikiran Chandrasekaran, Yingcong Fang, Christina A. Kellogg
2020, Water Research (171)
Managing waterborne and water-related diseases is one of the most critical factors in the aftermath of hurricane-induced natural disasters. The goal of the study was to identify water-quality impairments in order to set the priorities for post-hurricane relief and to guide future decisions on disaster preparation and relief administration. Field...
Colony-forming unit spreadplate assay versus liquid culture enrichment-polymerase chain reaction assay for the detection of Bacillus Endospores in soils
Dale W. Griffin, John T. Lisle, David Feldhake, Erin E. Silvestri
2020, Geosciences (1)
A liquid culture enrichment-polymerase chain reaction (E-PCR) assay was investigated as a potential tool to overcome inhibition by chemical component, debris, and background biological impurities in soil that were affecting detection assay performance for soil samples containing Bacillus atrophaeus subsp. globigii (a surrogate for B. anthracis). To evaluate this assay,...
From theory to experiments for testing the proximate mechanisms of mast seeding: An agenda for an experimental ecology
M. Bogdziewicz, Davide Ascoli, Andrew Hacket-Pain, W. D. Koenig, Ian S. Pearse, Mario B. Pesendorfer, A. Satake, P. Thomas, Giorgio Vacchiano, T. Wohlgemuth, A. Tanentzap
2020, Ecology Letters (23) 210-220
Highly variable and synchronised production of seeds by plant populations is called masting and is implicated in many important ecological processes, but how it arises remains poorly understood. The lack of experimental studies prevents underlying mechanisms from being explicitly tested, and thereby precludes meaningful predictions on the consequences of changing...
Geophysical characterization of a Proterozoic REE terrane at Mountain Pass, eastern Mojave Desert, California
Kevin Denton, David A. Ponce, Jared R. Peacock, David M. Miller
2020, Geosphere (16) 456-471
Mountain Pass, California (USA), located in the eastern Mojave Desert, hosts one of the world’s richest rare earth element (REE) deposits. The REE-rich terrane occurs in a 2.5-km-wide, northwest-trending belt of Mesoproterozoic (1.4 Ga) stocks and dikes, which intrude a larger Paleoproterozoic (1.7 Ga) metamorphic block that extends ∼10 km...
