Mid-latitude net precipitation decreased with Arctic warming during the Holocene
Cody Routson, Nicholas McKay, Darrell Kaufman, Hugues Goosse, Bryan Shuman, Jessica Rodysill, Toby Ault
2019, Nature (568) 83-87
The latitudinal temperature gradient between the Equator and the poles influences atmospheric stability, the strength of the jet stream and extratropical cyclones. Recent global warming is weakening the annual surface gradient in the Northern Hemisphere by preferentially warming the high...
Laboratory for Infectious Disease and the Environment (LIDE)
Joel P. Stokdyk, Jennifer L. Bruce, Tucker R. Burch, Susan K. Spencer, Aaron D. Firnstahl, Mark A. Borchardt
2019, Fact Sheet 2018-3079
The Laboratory for Infectious Disease and the Environment (LIDE) studies the occurrence, fate and transport, and health effects of human and agricultural zoonotic pathogens in the environment. The LIDE is an interagency collaborative effort between the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service that conducts research...
Tampa Bay Ocean and Coastal Acidification Monitoring Quality Assurance Project Plan
Kimberly K. Yates, Christopher S. Moore, Nathan H. Goldstein, Edward T. Sherwood
2019, Open-File Report 2019-1003
Coastal acidification caused by eutrophication, freshwater inflow, and upwelling is already affecting many estuaries worldwide and can be exacerbated by ocean acidification that is caused by increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Effective management, mitigation, and (or) adaptation to the effects of coastal and ocean acidification require careful monitoring of...
Does perspective matter? A case study comparing Eulerian and Lagrangian estimates of common murre (Uria aalge) distributions
Elizabeth M. Phillips, John K. Horne, Jeannette E. Zamon, Jonathan J. Felis, Josh Adams
2019, Ecology and Evolution (9) 4805-4819
Studies estimating species' distributions require information about animal locations in space and time. Location data can be collected using surveys within a predetermined frame of reference (i.e., Eulerian sampling) or from animal‐borne tracking devices (i.e., Lagrangian sampling). Integration of observations obtained from Eulerian and Lagrangian perspectives can provide insights into...
Radiometric calibration of a non-imaging airborne spectrometer to measure the Greenland ice sheet surface
Christopher J. Crawford, Jeannette van den Bosch, Kelly M. Brunt, Milton G. Hom, John W. Cooper, David J. Harding, James J. Butler, Philip W. Dabney, Thomas A. Neumann, Craig S. Cleckner, Thorsten Markus
2019, Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (12) 1913-1933
Methods to radiometrically calibrate a non-imaging airborne visible-to-shortwave infrared (VSWIR) spectrometer to measure the Greenland ice sheet surface are presented. Airborne VSWIR measurement performance for bright Greenland ice and dark bare rock/soil targets is compared against the MODerate resolution atmospheric TRANsmission (MODTRAN®) radiative transfer code (version 6.0), and a coincident...
Wildlife mortality at wind facilities: How we know what we know how we might mislead ourselves, and how we set our future course
Manuela M. Huso
2019, Book chapter, Wind energy and wildlife impacts
To accurately estimate per turbine – or per megawatt – annual wildlife mortality at wind facilities, the raw counts of carcasses found must be adjusted for four major sources of imperfect detection: (1) fatalities that occur outside the monitoring period; (2) carcasses that land outside the monitored area;...
Agricultural chemical concentrations and loads in rivers draining the Central Valley, California: Before, during, and after an extended drought
Joseph L. Domagalski
2019, Book chapter, Pesticides in surface water: Monitoring, modeling, risk assessment, and management
Drought or near drought conditions persisted in California from 2012 through 2016, followed by a high precipitation year in 2017. Long-term water quality monitoring of two key river stations, the Sacramento River at Freeport and the San Joaquin River near Vernalis, located within the largely agricultural Central Valley, allow...
Parallel signatures of selection at genomic islands of divergence and the major histocompatibility complex in ecotypes of sockeye salmon across Alaska
Wesley Larson, Tyler H. Dann, Morten T. Limborg, Garrett J. McKinney, James E. Seeb, Lisa W. Seeb
2019, Molecular Ecology (28) 2254-2271
Understanding the genetic mechanisms that facilitate adaptive radiation is an important component of evolutionary biology. Here, we genotyped 82 neutral SNPs, seven SNPs in islands of divergence identified in a previous study (island SNPs), and a region of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) in 32 populations of sockeye salmon to...
Interactive mapping of nonindigenous species in the Laurentian Great Lakes
Joseph P. Smith, El K. Lower, Felix A. Martinez, Catherine M. Riseng, Lacey A. Mason, Edward S. Rutherford, Matthew E. Neilson, Pam Fuller, Kevin E. Wehrly, Rochelle A. Sturtevant
2019, Management of Biological Invasions (10) 192-199
Nonindigenous species pose significant risks to the health and integrity of ecosystems around the world. Tracking and communicating the spread of these species has been of interest to ecologists and environmental managers for many years, particularly in the bi-national Laurentian Great Lakes of North America. In this paper, we introduce...
Plant richness and composition in hardwood forest understories vary along an acidic deposition and soil-chemical gradient in the northeastern United States
Michael R. Zarfos, Martin Dovciak, Gregory B. Lawrence, Todd C. McDonnell, Timothy J. Sullivan
2019, Plant and Soil (438) 461-477
AimsA century of atmospheric deposition of sulfur and nitrogen has acidified soils and undermined the health and recruitment of foundational tree species in the northeastern US. However, effects of acidic deposition on the forest understory plant communities of this region are poorly documented. We investigated how forest understory...
A strong colonizer rules the trematode guild in an intertidal snail host
Pilar Alda, Nicolas Bonel, Nestor J. Cazzaniga, Sergio R. Martorelli, Kevin D. Lafferty
2019, Ecology (100)
We examined the extent to which supply‐side, niche, and competition theories and concepts help explain a trematode community in which one species comprises 87% of the trematode individuals, and the remaining 15 species each have <3%. We collected and dissected the common and wide‐ranging snail host Heleobia australis over four seasons from...
Survival outcome patterns revealed by deploying advanced tags in quantity: Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) survivals after release from trawl catches through expedited sorting
Craig S. Rose, Julie K. Nielsen, John Gauvin, Tim Loher, Suresh Sethi, Andrew C. Seitz, Michael B. Courtney, Paige Drobny
2019, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (76) 2215-2224
Bycatch of Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) limits many trawl fisheries in Alaska and greatly concerns stakeholders from local communities and fisheries that rely on Pacific halibut. To reduce Pacific halibut mortality, trawlers in the Bering Sea that target flatfish have been developing expedited release procedures to sort Pacific halibut from...
Status and trends of prey fish populations in Lake Michigan, 2018
David B. Bunnell, Charles P. Madenjian, Timothy J. Desorcie, Patricia Dieter, Jean V. Adams
2019, Report
The U.S. Geological Survey Great Lakes Science Center has conducted lake-wide surveys of the fish community in Lake Michigan each fall since 1973 using standard 12 m bottom trawls towed along contour at depths of 9 to 110 m at each of seven index transects. The survey provides relative...
Plasticity in elk migration timing is a response to changing environmental conditions
Gregory J.M. Rickbeil, Jerod A. Merkle, Greg Anderson, M. Paul Atwood, Jon P. Beckmann, Eric K Cole, Alyson B. Courtemanch, Sarah Dewey, David D. Gustine, Matthew J. Kauffman, Douglas E. McWhirter, Tony W. Mong, Kelly Proffitt, Patrick J. White, Arthur D. Middleton
2019, Global Change Biology (25) 2368-2381
Migration is an effective behavioral strategy for prolonging access to seasonal resources and may be a resilient strategy for ungulates experiencing changing climatic conditions. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), elk are the primary ungulate, with approximately 20,000 individuals migrating to exploit seasonal gradients in forage...
Methane emissions from groundwater pumping in the USA
Justin T. Kulongoski, Peter B. McMahon
2019, Climate and Atmospheric Science (2) 1-8
Atmospheric methane accumulation contributes to climate change, hence quantifying methane emissions is essential to assess and model the impacts. Here we estimate methane emissions from groundwater pumping in the Los Angeles Basin (LAB), north-eastern Pennsylvania, and the Principal aquifers of the USA using the average concentrations of methane in groundwater...
Undocumented late 18th- to early 19th-century volcanic eruptions in the Southwest Rift Zone of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i
Richard W. Hazlett, Tim R. Orr, Steve P. Lundblad
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5010
The historical record of volcanic activity at Kīlauea Volcano on the Island of Hawaiʻi begins with the phreatomagmatic blasts of 1790. Three decades later, in 1823, the first party of non-Hawaiian visitors, organized by the English Reverend William Ellis, reached Kīlauea’s summit. A detailed narrative by Ellis includes an account...
Tsunamigenic splay faults imply a long-term asperity in southern Prince William Sound, Alaska
Lee Liberty, Daniel S. Brothers, Peter J. Haeussler
2019, Geophysical Research Letters (46) 3764-3772
Coseismic slip partitioning and uplift over multiple earthquake cycles is critical to understanding upper‐plate fault development. Bathymetric and seismic reflection data from the 1964 Mw9.2 Great Alaska earthquake rupture area reveal sea floor scarps along the tsunamigenic Patton Bay/Cape Cleare/Middleton Island fault system. The faults splay from...
Prediction of unprecedented biological shifts in the global ocean
G. Beaugrand, A. Conversi, A. Atkinson, James Cloern, S. Chiba, S. Fonda-Umani, R.R. Kirby, C.H. Greene, E. Goberville, S.A. Otto, P.C. Reid, L. Stemmann, M. Edwards
2019, Nature Climate Change (9) 237-243
Impermanence is an ecological principle1 but there are times when changes occur nonlinearly as abrupt community shifts (ACSs) that transform the ecosystem state and the goods and services it provides2. Here, we present a model based on niche theory<a id="ref-link-section-d63913e663" title="Hutchinson, G. E. An Introduction to Population Ecology (Yale Univ. Press,...
Invasive buffelgrass detection using high-resolution satellite and UAV imagery on Google Earth Engine
Kaitlyn Elkind, Temuulen T. Sankey, Seth M. Munson, Clare E. Aslan
2019, Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation (5) 318-331
Methods to detect and monitor the spread of invasive grasses are critical to avoid ecosystem transformations and large economic costs. The rapid spread of non‐native buffelgrass(Pennisetum ciliare) has intensified fire risk and is replacing fire intolerant native vegetation in the Sonoran Desert of the southwestern US. Coarse‐resolution satellite imagery has had...
Plague management of prairie dog colonies: Degree and duration of deltamethrin flea control
David Austin Eads, Dean E. Biggins
2019, Journal of Vector Ecology (44) 40-47
Plague is a flea-borne disease of mammalian hosts. On the grasslands of western North America, plague stifles populations of Cynomys spp. prairie dogs (PDs). To manage plague, PD burrows are treated with 0.05% deltamethrin dust that can suppress flea numbers and plague transmission. Here, we evaluate the degree and duration of deltamethrin...
Regeneration of Metrosideros polymorpha forests in Hawaii after landscape‐level canopy dieback
Linda Mertelmeyer, James D. Jacobi, Dieter Mueller-Dombois, Kevin W. Brinck, Hans Juergen Boehmer
2019, Journal of Vegetation Science (30) 146-155
Questions(a) Have Metrosideros polymorpha trees become re‐established in Hawaiian forests previously impacted by canopy dieback in the 1970s? (b) Has canopy dieback expanded since the 1970s? (c) Can spatial patterns from this dieback be correlated with habitat factors to model future dieback in this area?<p class="article-section__sub-title...
Confronting uncertainty: Contributions of the wildlife profession to the broader scientific community
James D. Nichols
2019, Journal of Wildlife Management (83) 519-533
Most wildlife professionals are engaged in 1 or both of 2 basic endeavors: science and management. These endeavors are a focus of many other disciplines, leading to widespread sharing of general methodologies. Wildlife professionals have appropriately borrowed and assimilated many methods developed primarily in other disciplines but have also led...
Environmental DNA as a tool to help inform zebra mussel, Dreissena polymorpha, management in inland lakes
Jon Amberg, Christopher M. Merkes, Wendylee Stott, Christopher B. Rees, Richard A. Erickson
2019, Management of Biological Invasions (10) 96-110
Zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) are an aquatic invasive species that plague much of North America and are difficult to impossible to eradicate once they become established. Therefore, prevention and monitoring are key elements in the control of these organisms. Traditional microscopy is commonly used in monitoring but requires the presence...
North-south dipole in winter hydroclimate in the western United States during the last deglaciation
Adam M. Hudson, Benjamin J. Hatchett, Jay Quade, Douglas P. Boyle, Scott D. Bassett, Guleed Ali, Marie G. De los Santos
2019, Scientific Reports (9) 1-12
During the termination of the last glacial period the western U.S. experienced exceptionally wet conditions, driven by changes in location and strength of the mid-latitude winter storm track. The distribution of modern winter precipitation is frequently characterized by a north-south wet/dry dipole pattern, controlled by interaction of the storm track...
The effectiveness of non-native fish removal techniques in freshwater ecosystems: a systematic review
Trina Rytwinski, Jessica J. Taylor, Lisa A. Donaldson, J. Robert Britton, David R. Browne, Robert E. Gresswell, Mark Lintermans, Kent A. Prior, Marlow G. Pellatt, Chantal Vis, Steven J. Cooke
2019, Environmental Reviews (27) 71-94
In aquatic systems, biological invasions can result in adverse ecological effects. Management techniques available for non-native fish removal programs (including eradication and population size control) vary widely, but include chemicals, harvest regimes, physical removal, or biological control. For management agencies, deciding on what non-native fish removal program to use has...
