Lessons from Mexico’s earthquake early warning system
Richard M. Allen, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Thomas J. Huggins, Scott Miles, Diego Otegui
2018, Eos, Earth and Space Science News (99)
The devastating 2017 Puebla quake provides an opportunity to assess how citizens perceive and use the Mexico City earthquake early warning system....
A database of natural monthly streamflow estimates from 1950 to 2015 for the conterminous United States
Matthew P. Miller, Daren M. Carlisle, David M. Wolock, Michael Wieczorek
2018, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (54) 1258-1269
Quantifying and understanding the natural streamflow regime, defined as expected streamflow that would occur in the absence of anthropogenic modification to the hydrologic system, is critically important for the development of management strategies aimed at protecting aquatic ecosystems. Water balance models have been applied frequently to estimate natural flows, but...
Identifying physics‐based thresholds for rainfall‐induced landsliding
Matthew A. Thomas, Benjamin B. Mirus, Brian D. Collins
2018, Geophysical Research Letters (45) 9651-9661
Most regional landslide warning systems utilize empirically derived rainfall thresholds that are difficult to improve without recalibration to additional landslide events. To address this limitation, we explored the use of synthetic rainfall to generate thousands of possible storm patterns and coupled them with a physics‐based hydrology and slope stability model...
Rhizophagy cycle: An oxidative process in plants for nutrient extraction from symbiotic microbes
James F. White, Kathryn L. Kingsley, Satish Kumar Verma, Kurt P. Kowalski
2018, Microorganisms (6) 1-20
In this paper, we describe a mechanism for the transfer of nutrients from symbiotic microbes (bacteria and fungi) to host plant roots that we term the ‘rhizophagy cycle.’ In the rhizophagy cycle, microbes alternate between a root intracellular endophytic phase and a free-living soil phase. Microbes acquire soil nutrients in...
Mapping the relationships between trail conditions and experiential elements of long-distance hiking
Brian A. Peterson, Matthew T.J. Brownlee, Jeffrey L. Marion
2018, Landscape and Urban Planning (180) 60-75
Trail users that experience acceptable social and ecological conditions are more likely to act as trail stewards, exhibit proper trail etiquette, and use low-impact practices. However, the relationships between specific trail conditions and experiential elements of long-distance hiking are not well understood. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to...
Science for a risky world—A U.S. Geological Survey plan for risk research and applications
K. A. Ludwig, David W. Ramsey, Nathan J. Wood, A.B. Pennaz, Jonathan W. Godt, Nathaniel G. Plant, Nico Luco, Todd A. Koenig, Kenneth W. Hudnut, Donyelle K. Davis, Patricia R. Bright
2018, Circular 1444
Executive SummaryNatural hazards—including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, landslides, hurricanes, droughts, floods, wildfires, geomagnetic storms, and pandemics—can wreak havoc on human communities, the economy, and natural resources for years following an initial event. Hazards can claim lives and cause billions of dollars in damage to homes and infrastructure as well...
Continuous stream discharge, salinity, and associated data collected in the lower St. Johns River and its tributaries, Florida, 2016
Patrick J. Ryan
2018, Open-File Report 2018-1108
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, plans to deepen the St. Johns River channel in Jacksonville, Florida, from 40 to 47 feet along 13 miles of the river channel, beginning at the mouth of the river at the Atlantic Ocean, to accommodate larger, fully loaded cargo vessels. The...
Integrated diet analyses reveal contrasting trophic niches for wild and hatchery juvenile Chinook Salmon in a large river delta
Melanie J. Davis, Isa Woo, Christopher S. Ellings, Sayre Hodgson, David A. Beauchamp, Glynnis Nakai, Susan E.W. De La Cruz
2018, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (147) 818-841
Hatchery programs have been used as a conservation tool to bolster declining populations of Chinook Salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha along much of the North American Pacific coast. In many watersheds, hatchery stocks are released concurrently with the wild population, thus raising the potential for density‐dependent effects. Competition for prey resources during the critical...
Inferring watershed hydraulics and cold-water habitat persistence using multi-year air and stream temperature signals
Martin A. Briggs, Zachary C. Johnson, Craig D. Snyder, Nathaniel P. Hitt, Barret L. Kurylyk, Laura K. Lautz, Dylan J. Irvine, Stephen T. Hurley, John W. Lane Jr.
2018, Science of the Total Environment (636) 1117-1127
Streams strongly influenced by groundwater discharge may serve as “climate refugia” for sensitive species in regions of increasingly marginal thermal conditions. The main goal of this study is to develop paired air and stream water annual temperature signal analysis techniques to elucidate the relative groundwater contribution to stream water and...
Mercury and lead exposure in avian scavengers from the Pacific Northwest suggest risks to California condors: Implications for reintroduction and recovery
Garth Herring, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Daniel E. Varland
2018, Environmental Pollution (243) 610-619
Mercury (Hg) and lead (Pb) are widespread contaminants that pose risks to avian scavengers. In fact, Pb exposure is the primary factor limiting population recovery in the endangered California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) and Hg can impair avian reproduction at environmentally relevant exposures. The Pacific Northwest region of the US was historically part...
Weathering of oil in a surficial aquifer
Mary Jo Baedecker, Robert P. Eganhouse, Haiping Qi, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli, Jared J. Trost, Barbara A. Bekins
2018, Groundwater (56) 797-809
The composition of crude oil in a surficial aquifer was determined in two locations at the Bemidji, MN, spill site. The abundances of 71 individual hydrocarbons varied within 16 locations sampled. Little depletion of these hydrocarbons (relative to the pipeline oil) occurred in the first 10 years after the spill,...
Incorporating teleseismic tomography data into models of upper mantle slab geometry
Daniel E. Portner, Gavin P. Hayes
2018, Geophysical Journal International (215) 325-332
Earthquake-based models of slab geometry are limited by the distribution of earthquakes within a subducting slab, which is often heterogeneous. The fast seismic velocity signature of slabs in tomography studies is independent of the distribution of earthquakes within the slab, providing a critical constraint on slab geometry when earthquakes are...
Microbial community composition of a hydrocarbon reservoir 40 years after a CO2 enhanced oil recovery flood
Jenna L. Shelton, Robert S. Andrews, Denise M. Akob, Christina A. DeVera, Adam C. Mumford, John E. McCray, Jennifer C. McIntosh
2018, FEMS Microbiology Ecology (94) 1-11
Injecting CO2 into depleted oil reservoirs to extract additional crude oil is a common enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) technique. However, little is known about how in situ microbial communities may be impacted by CO2 flooding, or if any permanent microbiological changes occur after flooding has ceased. Formation water was collected from an oil field...
Exploring the amphibian exposome in an agricultural landscape using telemetry and passive sampling
Jennifer E. Swanson, Erin L. Muths, Clay Pierce, Stephen J. Dinsmore, Mark W. Vandever, Michelle L. Hladik, Kelly L. Smalling
2018, Scientific Reports (8) 1-10
This is the first field study of its kind to combine radio telemetry, passive samplers, and pesticide accumulation in tissues to characterize the amphibian exposome as it relates to pesticides. Understanding how habitat drives exposure in individuals (i.e., their exposome), and how that relates to individual health is critical to...
Toward salt marsh harvest mouse recovery: A review
Katherine R. Smith, Melissa K. Riley, Laureen Barthman-Thompson, Isa Woo, Mark J. Statham, Sarah Estrella, Douglas A. Kelt
2018, San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science (16)
The salt marsh harvest mouse (SMHM, Reithrodontomys raviventris) is an endangered species, endemic to the San Francisco Estuary. Despite being protected for almost half a century and being included in a large number of recovery, restoration, and management plans, significant data gaps hinder conservation and management of the species, a challenge...
Exotic invasive Pomacea maculata (Giant Apple Snail) will depredate eggs of frog and toad species of the Southeastern US
Jacoby Carter, Darren Johnson, Sergio Merino
2018, Southeastern Naturalist (17) 470-475
Pomacea maculata (Perry) (Giant Apple Snail) is a freshwater snail native to South America (Hayes et al. 2015) that is an invasive species in the freshwater wetlands and waterways of the northern Gulf of Mexico, peninsular Florida (Benson 2017, Burks 2017) and globally (Hayes et al. 2015). Karraker and Dudgeon (2014) found...
Aquatic vegetation responses to island construction (habitat restoration) in a large floodplain river
Deanne C. Drake, Brian R. Gray, Nora Forbes
2018, River Research and Applications (34) 765-776
The Upper Mississippi River is maintained in its current navigable state through impoundments, dredging, and other engineering projects. These stressors, along with anthropogenic impacts and natural system processes, led to declines in aquatic vegetation and the loss of fish and wildlife habitat, with a major downturn the late 1980s and...
Radiocarbon chronometry of Site QJ-280, Quebrada Jaguay, a terminal Pleistocene to early Holocene fishing site in southern Peru
Kevin B. Jones, Gregory W. L. Hodgins, Daniel H. Sandweiss
2018, Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology (14) 82-100
Excavations in 1970, 1996, and 1999 at Site QJ-280, Quebrada Jaguay, in southern Peru, yielded enough dateable terrestrial plant material to establish an extensive radiocarbon chronology for the site. QJ-280 is one of oldest well-dated fishing sites in the Americas: it was occupied from the terminal Pleistocene to the mid-Holocene...
Population history provides foundational knowledge for utilizing and developing native plant restoration materials
Robert Massatti, Holly R. Prendeville, Steve Larson, Bryce A. Richardson, Blair Waldron, Francis F. Kilkenny
2018, Evolutionary Applications (11) 2025-2039
A species’ population structure and history are critical pieces of information that can help guide the use of available native plant materials in restoration treatments and decide what new native plant materials should be developed to meet future restoration needs. In the western United States, Pseudoroegneria spicata (bluebunch wheatgrass; Poaceae) is an...
A direct-push freezing core barrel for sampling unconsolidated subsurface sediments and adjacent pore fluids
Jared J. Trost, Thomas M. Christy, Barbara A. Bekins
2018, Vadose Zone Journal (17) 1-10
Contaminants passing through the unsaturated zone can undergo changes in narrow reaction zones upon reaching saturated sediments. Understanding these reactions requires sampling of sediment together with adjacent water and microbes in a manner that preserves in situ redox conditions. Use of a basket-type core catcher for saturated, noncohesive sediments results...
The impact of surveillance and control on highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks in poultry in Dhaka division, Bangladesh
Edward Hill, Thomas House, Madhur S. Dhingra, Wantanee Kalpradvidh, Subhash Morzaria, Muzaffar G. Osmani, Eric Brum, Mat Yamage, A. Kalam, Diann J. Prosser, John Y. Takekawa, Xiangming Xiao, Marius Gilbert, Michael J. Tildesley
2018, PLOS Computational Biology (14)
In Bangladesh, the poultry industry is an economically and socially important sector, but it is persistently threatened by the effects of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza. Thus, identifying the optimal control policy in response to an emerging disease outbreak is a key challenge for policy-makers. To inform this aim, a...
A new generation of the United States National Land Cover Database: Requirements, research priorities, design, and implementation strategies
Limin Yang, Suming Jin, Patrick Danielson, Collin Homer, Leila Gass, Stacie M Bender, Adam Case, Catherine Costello, Jon Dewitz, Joyce Fry, Michelle Funk, Brian J. Granneman, Greg C Liknes, Matthew B. Rigge, George Z. Xian
2018, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (146) 108-123
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in partnership with several federal agencies, has developed and released four National Land Cover Database (NLCD) products over the past two decades: NLCD 1992, 2001, 2006, and 2011. These products provide spatially explicit and reliable information on the Nation’s land cover and land cover change....
Use of landscape simulation modeling to quantify resilience for ecological applications
Robert Keane, Rachel A. Loehman, Lisa M. Holsinger, Donald A. Falk, Phil E Higuera, Sharon Hood, Paul F. Hessburg
2018, Ecosphere (9)
Goals of fostering ecological resilience are increasingly used to guide U.S. public land management in the context of anthropogenic climate change and increasing landscape disturbances. There are, however, few operational means of assessing the resilience of a landscape or ecosystem. We present a method to evaluate resilience...
Differential changes in the onset of spring across US National Wildlife Refuges and North American migratory bird flyways
Eric K. Waller, Theresa M. Crimmins, Jessica J. Walker, Erin E. Posthumus, Jake Weltzin
2018, PLoS ONE (13) 1-24
Warming temperatures associated with climate change can have indirect effects on migratory birds that rely on seasonally available food resources and habitats that vary across spatial and temporal scales. We used two heat-based indices of spring onset, the First Leaf Index (FLI) and the First Bloom Index (FBI), as proxies...
Assessment of continuous gas resources of the North Caspian Basin Province, Kazakhstan and Russia, 2018
Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, Thomas M. Finn, Marilyn E. Tennyson, Phuong A. Le, Michael E. Brownfield, Kristen R. Marra, Stephanie B. Gaswirth, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Ronald M. Drake II
2018, Fact Sheet 2018-3051
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 84.5 trillion cubic feet of continuous gas in the North Caspian Basin Province of Kazakhstan and Russia....
