A floodplain continuum for Atlantic coast rivers of the Southeastern US: Predictable changes in floodplain biota along a river's length
Darold P. Batzer, Gregory E. Noe, Linda Lee, Mark Galatowitsch
2018, Wetlands (38) 1-13
Floodplains are among the world’s economically-most-valuable, environmentally-most-threatened, and yet conceptually-least-understood ecosystems. Drawing on concepts from existing riverine and wetland models, and empirical data from floodplains of Atlantic Coast rivers in the Southeastern US (and elsewhere when possible), we introduce a conceptual model to explain a continuum of longitudinal variation in...
Groundwater conditions in Georgia, 2015–16
Debbie W. Gordon, Jaime A. Painter
2018, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5142
The U.S. Geological Survey collects groundwater data and conducts studies to monitor hydrologic conditions, define groundwater resources, and address problems related to water supply, water use, and water quality. In Georgia, water levels were monitored continuously at 157 wells during calendar years 2015 and 2016. Because of missing data or...
Ground-motion models for very-hard rock sites in eastern North America: An update
David Boore
2018, Seismological Research Letters (89) 1172-1184
The ground‐motion models provided by me to the Next Generation Attenuation‐East (NGA‐East) project in 2015 have been updated by considering three additional Fourier spectra attenuation models and by conducting a mixed‐effect analysis of the residuals between the ground‐motion intensity measures computed from the attenuation models and the data from nine...
Examining the role of unusually warm Indo‐Pacific sea‐surface temperatures in recent African droughts
Chris Funk, Laura Harrison, Shradhanand Shukla, Catherine Pomposi, Gideon Galu, Diriba Korecha, Gregory Husak, Tamuka Magadzire, Frank Davenport, Chris Hillbruner, Gary Eilerts, B Zaitchik, James Verdin
2018, Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society (144) 360-383
Southern Africa (SA) and eastern Africa (EA) experienced a sequence of severe droughts in December–February (SA DJF) 2015–2016, October–December (EA OND) 2016 and March–April–May 2017 (EA MAM). This sequence contributed to severe food insecurity. While climate variability in these regions is very complex, the goal of this study is to...
Temporal trends in water-quality constituent concentrations and annual loads of chemical constituents in Michigan watersheds, 1998–2013
Christopher J. Hoard, Lisa R. Fogarty, Joseph W. Duris
2018, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5147
In 1998, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Geological Survey began the Water Chemistry Monitoring Program for select streams in the State of Michigan. Objectives of this program were to provide assistance with (1) statewide water-quality assessments, (2) the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permitting process, and...
Interregional flows of ecosystem services: Concepts, typology and four cases
Matthias Schroter, Thomas Koellner, Rob Alkemade, Sebastian Arnhold, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Karin Frank, Karl-Heinz Erb, Thomas Kastner, Meidad Kissinger, Jianguo Liu, Laura Lopez-Hoffman, Joachim Maes, Alexandra Marques, Berta Martín-López, Carsten Meyer, Catharina J. E. Schulp, Jule Thober, Sarah Wolff, Aletta Bonn
2018, Ecosystem Services (31) 231-241
Conserving and managing global natural capital requires an understanding of the complexity of flows of ecosystem services across geographic boundaries. Failing to understand and to incorporate these flows into national and international ecosystem assessments leads to incomplete and potentially skewed conclusions, impairing society’s ability to identify sustainable management and policy...
Prospects for reconstructing paleoenvironmental conditions from organic compounds in polar snow and ice
Chiara Giorio, Natalie M. Kehrwald, Carlo Barbante, Markus Kalberer, Amy C.F. King, Elizabeth R. Thomas, Eric W. Wolff, Piero Zennaro
2018, Quaternary Science Reviews (183) 1-22
Polar ice cores provide information about past climate and environmental changes over periods ranging from a few years up to 800,000 years. The majority of chemical studies have focused on determining inorganic components, such as major ions and trace elements as well as on their isotopic fingerprint. In this paper,...
The sensitivity of ecosystem service models to choices of input data and spatial resolution
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Erika Cohen, Zachary H. Ancona, Steven McNulty, Ge Sun
2018, Applied Geography (93) 25-36
Although ecosystem service (ES) modeling has progressed rapidly in the last 10–15 years, comparative studies on data and model selection effects have become more common only recently. Such studies have drawn mixed conclusions about whether different data and model choices yield divergent results. In this study, we compared the results...
On the exchange of sensible and latent heat between the atmosphere and melting snow
Paul C. Stoy, Erich H. Peitzsch, David J. A. Wood, Daniel Rottinghaus, Georg Wohlfahrt, Michael Goulden, Helen Ward
2018, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology (252) 167-174
The snow energy balance is difficult to measure during the snowmelt period, yet critical for predictions of water yield in regions characterized by snow cover. Robust simplifications of the snowmelt energy balance can aid our understanding of water resources in a changing climate. Research to date has demonstrated that the...
Corrugated megathrust revealed offshore from Costa Rica
Joel H. Edwards, Jared W. Kluesner, Eli A. Silver, Emily E. Brodsky, Daniel S. Brothers, Nathan L. Bangs, James D. Kirkpatrick, Ruby Wood, Kristina Okamato
2018, Nature Geoscience (11) 197-202
Exhumed faults are rough, often exhibiting topographic corrugations oriented in the direction of slip; such features are fundamental to mechanical processes that drive earthquakes and fault evolution. However, our understanding of corrugation genesis remains limited due to a lack of in situ observations at depth, especially at subducting plate boundaries....
Imperfect pathogen detection from non-invasive skin swabs biases disease inference
Graziella V. DiRenzo, Evan H. Campbell Grant, Ana V. Longo, Christian Che-Castaldo, Kelly R. Zamudio, Karen Lips
2018, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (9) 380-389
1. Conservation managers rely on accurate estimates of disease parameters, such as pathogen prevalence and infection intensity, to assess disease status of a host population. However, these disease metrics may be biased if low-level infection intensities are missed by sampling methods or laboratory diagnostic tests. These false negatives underestimate pathogen...
Plateau subduction, intraslab seismicity, and the Denali (Alaska) volcanic gap
Lindsay Yuling Chuang, Michael Bostock, Aaron Wech, Alexandre Plourde
2018, Geology (45) 647-650
Tectonic tremors in Alaska (USA) are associated with subduction of the Yakutat plateau, but their origins are unclear due to lack of depth constraints. We have processed tremor recordings to extract low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs), and generated a set of six LFE waveform templates via iterative network matched filtering and stacking....
Contaminants of emerging concern presence and adverse effects in fish: A case study in the Laurentian Great Lakes
Zachary G. Jorgenson, Linnea M. Thomas, Sarah M. Elliott, Jenna E. Cavallin, Eric C. Randolph, Steven J. Choy, David Alvarez, Jo A. Banda, Daniel J. Gefell, Kathy Lee, Edward T. Furlong, Heiko L. Schoenfuss
2018, Environmental Pollution (236) 718-733
The Laurentian Great Lakes are a valuable natural resource that is affected by contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), including sex steroid hormones, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, and new generation pesticides. However, little is known about the fate and biological effects of CECs in tributaries to the Great Lakes....
Clayey landslide initiation and acceleration strongly modulated by soil swelling
William H. Schulz, Joel B. Smith, Gonghui Wang, Yao Jiang, Joshua J. Roering
2018, Geophysical Research Letters (45) 1888-1896
Largely unknown mechanisms restrain motion of clay-rich, slow-moving landslides that are widespread worldwide and rarely accelerate catastrophically. We studied a clayey, slow-moving landslide typical of thousands in northern California, USA, to decipher hydrologic-mechanical interactions that modulate landslide dynamics. Similar to some other studies, observed pore-water pressures correlated poorly with landslide...
Improving estimation of flight altitude in wildlife telemetry studies
Sharon A. Poessel, Adam E. Duerr, Jonathan C. Hall, Melissa A. Braham, Todd E. Katzner
2018, Journal of Applied Ecology (55) 2064-2070
Altitude measurements from wildlife tracking devices, combined with elevation data, are commonly used to estimate the flight altitude of volant animals. However, these data often include measurement error. Understanding this error may improve estimation of flight altitude and benefit applied ecology.There are a number of different approaches that have been...
Variability in soil-water retention properties and implications for physics-based simulation of landslide early warning criteria
Matthew A. Thomas, Benjamin B. Mirus, Brian D. Collins, Ning Lu, Jonathan W. Godt
2018, Landslides (15) 1265-1277
Rainfall-induced shallow landsliding is a persistent hazard to human life and property. Despite the observed connection between infiltration through the unsaturated zone and shallow landslide initiation, there is considerable uncertainty in how estimates of unsaturated soil-water retention properties affect slope stability assessment. This source of uncertainty is critical to evaluating...
Delineating and identifying long-term changes in the whooping crane (Grus americana) migration corridor
Aaron T. Pearse, Matt Rabbe, Lara M. Juliusson, Mark T. Bidwell, Lea Craig-Moore, David A. Brandt, Wade C. Harrell
2018, PLoS ONE (13) 1-15
Defining and identifying changes to seasonal ranges of migratory species is required for effective conservation. Historic sightings of migrating whooping cranes (Grus americana) have served as sole source of information to define a migration corridor in the Great Plains of North America (i.e., Canadian Prairies and United States Great Plains)...
Effects of host species and environment on the skin microbiome of Plethodontid salamanders
Carly R. Muletz-Wolz, Stephanie A. Yarwood, Evan H. Campbell Grant, Robert C. Fleischer, Karen R. Lips
2018, Journal of Animal Ecology (87) 341-353
The amphibian skin microbiome is recognized for its role in defence against pathogens, including the deadly fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). Yet, we have little understanding of evolutionary and ecological processes that structure these communities, especially for salamanders and closely related species. We investigated patterns in the distribution of...
Genomic evolution, recombination, and inter-strain diversity of chelonid alphaherpesvirus 5 from Florida and Hawaii green sea turtles with fibropapillomatosis
Cheryl L. Morrison, Luke R. Iwanowicz, Thierry M. Work, Elizabeth Fahsbender, Mya Breitbart, Cynthia R. Adams, Deborah D. Iwanowicz, Lakyn Sanders, Mathias Ackermann, Robert S. Cornman
2018, PeerJ (6) 1-33
Chelonid alphaherpesvirus 5 (ChHV5) is a herpesvirus associated with fibropapillomatosis (FP) in sea turtles worldwide. Single-locus typing has previously shown differentiation between Atlantic and Pacific strains of this virus, with low variation within each geographic clade. However, a lack of multi-locus genomic sequence data hinders understanding of the rate and...
The potential of unmanned aerial systems for sea turtle research and conservation: a review and future directions
Alan F. Rees, Larisa Avens, Katia Ballorain, Elizabeth Bevan, Annette C. Broderick, Raymond R. Carthy, Marjolijn J. A. Christianen, Gwenael Duclos, Michael R. Heithaus, David W. Johnston, Jeffrey C. Mangel, Frank V. Paladino, Kellie Pendoley, Richard D. Reina, Nathan J. Robinson, Robert Ryan, Seth T. Sykora-Bodie, Dominic Tilley, Miguel R. Varela, Elizabeth R. Whitman, Paul A. Whittock, Thane Wibbels, Brendan J. Godley
2018, Endangered Species Research (35) 81-100
The use of satellite systems and manned aircraft surveys for remote data collection has been shown to be transformative for sea turtle conservation and research by enabling the collection of data on turtles and their habitats over larger areas than can be achieved by surveys on foot or by boat....
Evaluating GPS biologging technology for studying spatial ecology of large constricting snakes
Brian Smith, Kristen M. Hart, Frank J. Mazzotti, Mathieu Basille, Christina M. Romagosa
2018, Animal Biotelemetry (6)
Background: GPS telemetry has revolutionized the study of animal spatial ecology in the last two decades. Until recently, it has mainly been deployed on large mammals and birds, but the technology is rapidly becoming miniaturized, and applications in diverse taxa are becoming possible. Large constricting snakes are...
Assessment of undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources in the Wyoming Thrust Belt Province, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah, 2017
Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, Marilyn E. Tennyson, Cheryl A. Woodall, Michael E. Brownfield, Phuong A. Le, Timothy R. Klett, Stephanie B. Gaswirth, Thomas M. Finn, Kristen R. Marra, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller
2018, Fact Sheet 2017-3091
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean undiscovered, technically recoverable resources of 26 million barrels of oil and 700 billion cubic feet of gas in the Wyoming Thrust Belt Province, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah....
Volume-weighted particle-tracking method for solute-transport modeling; Implementation in MODFLOW–GWT
Richard B. Winston, Leonard F. Konikow, George Z. Hornberger
2018, Techniques and Methods 6-A58
In the traditional method of characteristics for groundwater solute-transport models, advective transport is represented by moving particles that track concentration. This approach can lead to global mass-balance problems because in models of aquifers having complex boundary conditions and heterogeneous properties, particles can originate in cells having different pore volumes and...
Spatial patterns and temporal changes in atmospheric-mercury deposition for the midwestern USA, 2001–2016
Martin R. Risch, Donna M. Kenski
2018, Atmosphere (9) 1-20
Spatial patterns and temporal changes in atmospheric-mercury (Hg) deposition were examined in a five-state study area in the Midwestern USA where 32% of the stationary sources of anthropogenic Hg emissions in the continental USA were located. An extensive monitoring record for wet and dry Hg deposition was compiled for 2001–2016,...
Host-pathogen metapopulation dynamics suggest high elevation refugia for boreal toads
Brittany A. Mosher, Larissa L. Bailey, Erin L. Muths, Kathryn P. Huyvaert
2018, Ecological Applications (28) 926-937
Emerging infectious diseases are an increasingly common threat to wildlife. Chytridiomycosis, caused by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), is an emerging infectious disease that has been linked to amphibian declines around the world. Few studies exist that explore amphibian-Bd dynamics at the landscape scale, limiting our ability to identify which factors are...
