Seabird nest counts: A test of monitoring metrics using Red-tailed Tropicbirds
N.E. Seavy, M.H. Reynolds
2009, Journal of Field Ornithology (80) 297-302
Counts of nesting birds are often used to monitor the abundance of breeding pairs at colonies. Mean incubation counts (MICs) are counts of nests with eggs at intervals that correspond to the mean incubation period of a species. The sum of all counts during the nesting season (MICtotal) and the...
Spatial and temporal patterns of chronic wasting disease: Fine-scale mapping of a wildlife epidemic in Wisconsin
E.E. Osnas, D.M. Heisey, R.E. Rolley, M.D. Samuel
2009, Ecological Applications (19) 1311-1322
Emerging infectious diseases threaten wildlife populations and human health. Understanding the spatial distributions of these new diseases is important for disease management and policy makers; however, the data are complicated by heterogeneities across host classes, sampling variance, sampling biases, and the space-time epidemic process. Ignoring these issues can lead to...
Criticisms biologically unwarranted and analytically irrelevant: Reply to Rominger et al.
Louis C. Bender, M.E. Weisenberger
2009, Journal of Wildlife Management (73) 806-810
The criticisms of Rominger et al. (2008) of our retrospective analysis of desert bighorn sheep (DBS; Ovis canadensis mexicana) dynamics in the San Andres Mountains of south-central New Mexico, USA, contained many biological errors and analytical oversights. Herein, we show that Rominger et al. (2008) 1) overstated both magnitude and...
Depleted uranium analysis in blood by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
T.I. Todorov, H. Xu, J.W. Ejnik, F.G. Mullick, K. Squibb, M.A. McDiarmid, J.A. Centeno
2009, Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry (24) 189-193
In this study we report depleted uranium (DU) analysis in whole blood samples. Internal exposure to DU causes increased uranium levels as well as change in the uranium isotopic composition in blood specimen. For identification of DU exposure we used the 235U/238U ratio in blood samples, which ranges from 0.00725...
Hurricane Wilma's impact on overall soil elevation and zones within the soil profile in a mangrove forest
K.R.T. Whelan, T. J. Smith III, G.H. Anderson, M.L. Ouellette
2009, Wetlands (29) 16-23
Soil elevation affects tidal inundation period, inundation frequency, and overall hydroperiod, all of which are important ecological factors affecting species recruitment, composition, and survival in wetlands. Hurricanes can dramatically affect a site's soil elevation. We assessed the impact of Hurricane Wilma (2005) on soil elevation at a mangrove forest location...
Hurricane frequency and landfall distribution for coastal wetlands of the Gulf coast, USA
T.W. Doyle
2009, Wetlands (29) 35-43
The regularity and severity of tropical storms are major determinants controlling ecosystem structure and succession for coastal ecosystems. Hurricane landfall rates vary greatly with high and low frequency for given coastal stretches of the southeastern United States. Site-specific meteorological data of hurricane wind speeds and direction, however, are only available...
Seismic analysis of clinoform depositional sequences and shelf-margin trajectories in Lower Cretaceous (Albian) strata, Alaska North Slope
David W. Houseknecht, Kenneth J. Bird, Christopher J. Schenk
2009, Basin Research (21) 644-654
Lower Cretaceous strata beneath the Alaska North Slope include clinoform depositional sequences that filled the western Colville foreland basin and overstepped the Beaufort rift shoulder. Analysis of Albian clinoform sequences with two‐dimensional (2D) seismic data resulted in the recognition of seismic facies inferred to represent lowstand, transgressive and highstand systems...
What constitutes a nesting attempt? Variation in criteria causes bias and hinders comparisons across studies
V. Garcia, C.J. Conway
2009, The Auk (126) 31-40
Because reliable estimates of nesting success are very important to avian studies, the defnition of a “successful nest” and the use of different analytical methods to estimate success have received much attention. By contrast, variation in the criteria used to determine whether an occupied site that did not produce offspring...
Histopathology of repeated, intermittent exposure of chloramine-T to walleye (Sander vitreum) and (Ictalurus punctalus) channel catfish
M.P. Gaikowski, Christine L. Densmore, V. S. Blazer
2009, Aquaculture (287) 28-34
Chloramine-T (Cl-T) has been used safely and effectively to control bacterial gill disease in salmonids at a maximum exposure regimen of up to four consecutive, once-daily exposures administered for 60??min at 20??mg/L. However, data to document safe treatment concentrations of Cl-T are lacking for freshwater-reared fish other than salmonids. We...
Evaluating wildlife response to coastal dune habitat restoration in san francisco, california
W. Russell, J. Shulzitski, A. Setty
2009, Ecological Restoration (27) 439-448
The vast dune system that once dominated the entire western half of the San Francisco peninsula in California has been reduced to a few fragments that conserve locally threatened plant and animal species. We measured the effects of ongoing restoration efforts on wildlife abundance and diversity on one of the...
Assessment of water quality trends in the Minnesota River using non-parametric and parametric methods
H.O. Johnson, S.C. Gupta, A. V. Vecchia, F. Zvomuya
2009, Journal of Environmental Quality (38) 1018-1030
Excessive loading of sediment and nutrients to rivers is a major problem in many parts of the United States. In this study, we tested the non-parametric Seasonal Kendall (SEAKEN) trend model and the parametric USGS Quality of Water trend program (QWTREND) to quantify trends in water quality of the Minnesota...
Deposition and flux of sediment from the Po River, Italy: An idealized and wintertime numerical modeling study
A.J. Bever, C. K. Harris, C. R. Sherwood, R. P. Signell
2009, Marine Geology (260) 69-80
Recent studies of sediment dynamics and clinoform development in the northern Adriatic Sea focused on winter 2002-2003 and provided the data and motivation for development of a detailed sediment-transport model for the area near the Po River delta. We used both idealized test cases and more realistic simulations to improve...
Uncertainty in georeferencing current and historic plant locations
K. McEachern, K. Niessen
2009, Ecological Restoration (27) 152-159
With shrinking habitats, weed invasions, and climate change, repeated surveys are becoming increasingly important for rare plant conservation and ecological restoration. We often need to relocate historical sites or provide locations for newly restored sites. Georeferencing is the technique of giving geographic coordinates to the location of a site. Georeferencing...
Sources of uncertainty in flood inundation maps
J. D. Bales, C. R. Wagner
2009, Journal of Flood Risk Management (2) 139-147
Flood inundation maps typically have been used to depict inundated areas for floods having specific exceedance levels. The uncertainty associated with the inundation boundaries is seldom quantified, in part, because all of the sources of uncertainty are not recognized and because data available to quantify uncertainty seldom are available. Sources...
Water quality characterization in some birimian aquifers of the Birim Basin, Ghana
B.-Y. Bruce, S.M. Yidana, Y. Anku, T. Akabzaa, D. Asiedu
2009, KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering (13) 179-187
The objective of this study was to determine the main controls on the hydrochemistry of groundwater in the study area. Mass balance modeling was used simultaneously with multivariate R-mode hierarchical cluster analysis to determine the significant sources of variation in the hydrochemistry. Two water types have been revealed in this...
GIS applications for military operations in coastal zones
S. Fleming, T. Jordan, M. Madden, E.L. Usery, R. Welch
2009, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (64) 213-222
In order to successfully support current and future US military operations in coastal zones, geospatial information must be rapidly integrated and analyzed to meet ongoing force structure evolution and new mission directives. Coastal zones in a military-operational environment are complex regions that include sea, land and air features that demand...
Developmental toxicity in white leghorn chickens following in ovo exposure to perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS)
M. M. Peden-Adams, Joyce E. Stuckey, K.M. Gaworecki, J. Berger-Ritchie, K. Bryant, P.G. Jodice, T.R. Scott, J.B. Ferrario, B. Guan, C. Vigo, J.S. Boone, W.D. McGuinn, J.C. DeWitt, D.E. Keil
2009, Reproductive Toxicology (27) 307-318
Studies show that perfluorinated compounds cause various toxicological effects; nevertheless, effects on immune function and developmental endpoints have not been addressed at length. This study examined the effects of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in white leghorn hatchlings on various developmental, immunological, and clinical health parameters. In addition, serum PFOS concentrations were...
Synergistic use of optical and InSAR data for urban impervious surface mapping: A case study in Hong Kong
L. Jiang, M. Liao, H. Lin, L. Yang
2009, International Journal of Remote Sensing (30) 2781-2796
A wide range of urban ecosystem studies, including urban hydrology, urban climate, land use planning and watershed resource management, require accurate and up‐to‐date geospatial data of urban impervious surfaces. In this study, the potential of the synergistic use of optical and InSAR data in urban impervious surface mapping at the...
Ground and surface temperature variability for remote sensing of soil moisture in a heterogeneous landscape
M.A. Giraldo, D. Bosch, M. Madden, L. Usery, M. Finn
2009, Journal of Hydrology (368) 214-223
At the Little River Watershed (LRW) heterogeneous landscape near Tifton Georgia US an in situ network of stations operated by the US Department of Agriculture-Agriculture Research Service-Southeast Watershed Research Lab (USDA-ARS-SEWRL) was established in 2003 for the long term study of climatic and soil biophysical processes. To develop an accurate...
Potential effects of runoff, fluvial sediment, and nutrient discharges on the coral reefs of Puerto Rico
M. C. Larsen, R.M.T. Webb
2009, Journal of Coastal Research (25) 189-208
Coral reefs, the foundation and primary structure of many highly productive and diverse tropical marine ecosystems, have been degraded by human activity in much of the earth's tropical oceans. To contribute to improved understanding of this problem, the potential relation between river sediment and nutrient discharges and degradation of coral...
Monitoring the removal of phosphate from ground water discharging through a pond-bottom permeable reactive barrier
T.D. McCobb, D.R. LeBlanc, A.J. Massey
2009, Ground Water Monitoring and Remediation (29) 43-55
Installation of a permeable reactive barrier to intercept a phosphate (PO4) plume where it discharges to a pond provided an opportunity to develop and test methods for monitoring the barrier’s performance in the shallow pond‐bottom sediments. The barrier is composed of zero‐valent‐iron mixed with the native sediments to a 0.6‐m...
Modelling predation by transient leopard seals for an ecosystem-based management of Southern Ocean fisheries
J. Forcada, D. Malone, J. Andrew Royle, I.J. Staniland
2009, Ecological Modelling (220) 1513-1521
Correctly quantifying the impacts of rare apex marine predators is essential to ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management, where harvesting must be sustainable for targeted species and their dependent predators. This requires modelling the uncertainty in such processes as predator life history, seasonal abundance and movement, size-based predation, energetic requirements, and...
Aroclor 1248 exposure leads to immunomodulation, decreased disease resistance and endocrine disruption in the brown bullhead, Ameiurus nebulosus
L. R. Iwanowicz, V. S. Blazer, S. D. McCormick, P.A. Van Veld, C. A. Ottinger
2009, Aquatic Toxicology (93) 70-82
The brown bullhead Ameiurus nebulosus is a species of the family Ictaluridae commonly used as a sentinel of environmental contamination. While these fish have been utilized for this purpose in areas contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), few controlled, laboratory-based studies have been designed to document the effects of PCB mixtures...
On the use of high-resolution topographic data as a proxy for seismic site conditions (VS30)
T.I. Allen, D.J. Wald
2009, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (99) 935-943
An alternative method has recently been proposed for evaluating global seismic site conditions, or the average shear velocity to 30 m depth (VS30), from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 30 arcsec digital elevation models (DEMs). The basic premise of the method is that the topographic slope can be used...
Avian response to wildfire in interior Columbia basin shrubsteppe
S.L. Earnst, H.L. Newsome, W.L. LaFramboise, N. LaFramboise
2009, Condor (111) 370-376
Wildfire and conversion of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) shrublands to cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) grasslands is a serious threat to the shrubsteppe ecosystem, but few studies have documented wildfire's effects on birds with multiple years of pre- and post-fire data. Using data from avian point counts recorded 4 years before and 7...
