Seasonal timing of first rain storms affects rare plant population dynamics
J.M. Levine, A. K. McEachern, C. Cowan
2011, Ecology (92) 2236-2247
A major challenge in forecasting the ecological consequences of climate change is understanding the relative importance of changes to mean conditions vs. changes to discrete climatic events, such as storms, frosts, or droughts. Here we show that the first major storm of the growing season strongly influences the population dynamics...
Mineralogical and geochemical evidence for hydrothermal activity at the west wall of 12°50′N core complex (Mid-Atlantic ridge): a new ultramafic-hosted seafloor hydrothermal deposit?
Vesselin Dekov, Tanya Boycheva, Ulf Halenius, Kjell Billstrom, George D. Kamenov, Wayne C. Shanks, Jens Stummeyer
2011, Marine Geology (288) 90-102
Dredging along the west wall of the core complex at 12°50′N Mid-Atlantic Ridge sampled a number of black oxyhydroxide crusts and breccias cemented by black and dark brown oxyhydroxide matrix. Black crusts found on top of basalt clasts (rubble) are mainly composed of Mn-oxides (birnessite, 10-Å manganates) with thin films...
Dispersal, mortality, and predation on recently-stocked rainbow trout in Dale Hollow Lake, Tennessee
Tomas J. Ivasauskas, Phillip William Bettoli
2011, Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (65) 83-91
Forty-four hatchery-raised rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) were implanted with ultrasonic tags and stocked into Dale Hollow Lake, Tennessee, and tracked at least once per week for eight weeks to describe post-stocking dispersal rates, movements, and habitat use. Dispersal followed a three-stage pattern characterized by rapid movement away from each stocking...
Coluber (= Masticophis) flagellum piceus (Red Racer). Arboreal/nocturnal behavior
Phil A. Medica
2011, Herpetological Review (42) 612-613
Many species of snakes display arboreal behavior and are often found in vegetation many meters above ground. Mojave Desert snake species rarely get very far above the ground surface and are perhaps limited by predominantly low growing vegetation. Coluber flagellum piceus is considered strictly diurnal and although may ascend vegetation...
The Index of Biological Integrity and the bootstrap revisited: an example from Minnesota streams
Christine L. Dolph, Aleksey Y. Sheshukov, Christopher J. Chizinski, Bruce C. Vondracek, Bruce Wilson
2010, Ecological Indicators (10) 527-537
Multimetric indices, such as the Index of Biological Integrity (IBI), are increasingly used by management agencies to determine whether surface water quality is impaired. However, important questions about the variability of these indices have not been thoroughly addressed in the scientific literature. In this study, we used a bootstrap approach...
Using landscape limnology to classify freshwater ecosystems for multi-ecosystem management and conservation
Patricia A. Soranno, Kendra Spence Cheruvelil, Katherine E. Webster, Mary T. Bremigan, Tyler Wagner, Craig A. Stow
2010, BioScience (60) 440-454
Governmental entities are responsible for managing and conserving large numbers of lake, river, and wetland ecosystems that can be addressed only rarely on a case-by-case basis. We present a system for predictive classification modeling, grounded in the theoretical foundation of landscape limnology, that creates a tractable number of ecosystem classes...
Mercury monitoring in fish using a non-lethal tissue biopsy method
J. Ackerson, Christopher J. Schmitt, Michael J. McKee, William G. Brumbaugh
2010, Missouri Department of Conservation Science Notes (5)
The occurrence of mercury in fish is well-known and often occurs at levels that warrant restricted consumption by sensitive human populations. Because of this, local wildlife and health agencies have developed monitoring programs to identify the magnitude of fish contamination and changes through time. Monitoring mercury levels in fish typically...
Mineral resource of the month: platinum group metals
Patricia J. Loferski
2010, Earth (55) 28-29
The article focuses on platinum group metals (PGMs) and their properties. According to the author, PGMs, which include iridium, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhodium, and ruthenium, are among the rarest mineral commodities in the Earth's crust. PGMs are primarily used as catalytic converters that clean harmful exhaust from vehicle engines. They...
Model-based evaluation of highly and low pathogenic avian influenza dynamics in wild birds
Viviane Hénaux, Michael D. Samuel, Christine M. Bunck
2010, PLoS ONE (5)
There is growing interest in avian influenza (AI) epidemiology to predict disease risk in wild and domestic birds, and prevent transmission to humans. However, understanding the epidemic dynamics of highly pathogenic (HPAI) viruses remains challenging because they have rarely been detected in wild birds. We used modeling to integrate available...
Prevalence of antibodies to type A influenza virus in wild avian species using two serologic assays
Justin D. Brown, M. Page Luttrell, Roy D. Berghaus, Whitney Kistler, Shamus P. Keeler, Andrea Howey, Benjamin Wilcox, Jeffrey S. Hall, Larry Niles, Amanda Dey, Gregory Knutsen, Kristen Fritz, David E. Stallknecht
2010, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (46) 896-911
Serologic testing to detect antibodies to avian influenza (AI) virus has been an underused tool for the study of these viruses in wild bird populations, which traditionally has relied on virus isolation and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). In a preliminary study, a recently developed commercial blocking enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay...
Improving inferences from fisheries capture-recapture studies through remote detection of PIT tags
David A. Hewitt, Eric C. Janney, Brian S. Hayes, Rip S. Shively
2010, Fisheries (35) 217-231
Models for capture-recapture data are commonly used in analyses of the dynamics of fish and wildlife populations, especially for estimating vital parameters such as survival. Capture-recapture methods provide more reliable inferences than other methods commonly used in fisheries studies. However, for rare or elusive fish species, parameter estimation is often...
Interfacing models of wildlife habitat and human development to predict the future distribution of puma habitat
Christopher L. Burdett, Kevin R. Crooks, David M. Theobald, Kenneth R. Wilson, Erin E. Boydston, Lisa A. Lyren, Robert N. Fisher, T. Winston Vickers, Scott A. Morrison, Walter M. Boyce
2010, Ecosphere (1) Article 4
The impact of human land uses on ecological systems typically differ relative to how extensively natural conditions are modified. Exurban development is intermediate-intensity residential development that often occurs in natural landscapes. Most species-habitat models do not evaluate the effects of such intermediate levels of human development and even fewer predict...
Interacting parasites
Kevin D. Lafferty
2010, Science (330) 187-188
Parasitism is the most popular life-style on Earth, and many vertebrates host more than one kind of parasite at a time. A common assumption is that parasite species rarely interact, because they often exploit different tissues in a host, and this use of discrete resources limits competition (<a id="xref-ref-1-1"...
Uncloaking a cryptic, threatened rail with molecular markers: origins, connectivity and demography of a recently-discovered population
Philippe Girard, John Y. Takekawa, Steven R. Beissinger
2010, Conservation Genetics (11) 2409-2418
The threatened California Black Rail lives under dense marsh vegetation, is rarely observed, flies weakly and has a highly disjunct distribution. The largest population of rails is found in 8–10 large wetlands in San Francisco Bay (SF Bay), but a population was recently discovered in the foothills of the Sierra...
Thresholds in forest bird occurrence as a function of the amount of early-seral broadleaf forest at landscape scales
M.G. Betts, J.C. Hagar, J.W. Rivers, J.D. Alexander, K. McGarigal, B.C. McComb
2010, Ecological Applications (20) 2116-2130
Recent declines in broadleaf-dominated, early-seral forest globally as a function of intensive forest management and/or fire suppression have raised concern about the viability of populations dependent on such forest types. However, quantitative information about the strength and direction of species associations with broadleaf cover at landscape scales are rare. Uncovering...
Thermomagmatic evolution of Mesoproterozoic crust in the Blue Ridge of SW Virginia and NW North Carolina: Evidence from U-Pb geochronology and zircon geothermometry
Richard P. Tollo, John N. Aleinikoff, Joseph L. Wooden, Frank K. Mazdab, Scott Southworth, Mark C. Fanning
2010, GSA Memoirs (206) 589-596
New geologic mapping, petrology, and U-Pb geochronology indicate that Mesoproterozoic crust near Mount Rogers consists of felsic to mafic meta-igneous rocks emplaced over 260 m.y. The oldest rocks are compositionally diverse and migmatitic, whereas younger granitoids are porphyritic to porphyroclastic. Cathodoluminescence imaging indicates that zircon from four representative units preserves...
Flying over an infected landscape: Distribution of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 risk in South Asia and satellite tracking of wild waterfowl
Marius Gilbert, Scott H. Newman, John Y. Takekawa, Leo Loth, Chandrashekhar Biradar, Diann J. Prosser, Sivananinthaperumal Balachandran, Mandava Venkata Subba Rao, Taej Mundkur, Baoping Yan, Zhi Xing, Yuansheng Hou, Nyambayar Batbayar, Natsagdorj Tseveenmayadag, Lenny Hogerwerf, Jan Slingenbergh, Xiangming Xiao
2010, EcoHealth (7) 448-458
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus persists in Asia, posing a threat to poultry, wild birds, and humans. Previous work in Southeast Asia demonstrated that HPAI H5N1 risk is related to domestic ducks and people. Other studies discussed the role of migratory birds in the long distance spread of...
Spatially explicit inference for open populations: Estimating demographic parameters from camera-trap studies
Beth Gardner, Juan Reppucci, Mauro Lucherini, J. Andrew Royle
2010, Ecology (91) 3376-3383
We develop a hierarchical capture–recapture model for demographically open populations when auxiliary spatial information about location of capture is obtained. Such spatial capture–recapture data arise from studies based on camera trapping, DNA sampling, and other situations in which a spatial array of devices records encounters of unique individuals. We integrate...
Recent ecological divergence despite migration in sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka)
Scott A. Pavey, Jennifer L. Nielsen, Troy R. Hamon
2010, Evolution (64) 1773-1783
Ecological divergence may result when populations experience different selection regimes, but there is considerable discussion about the role of migration at the beginning stages of divergence before reproductive isolating mechanisms have evolved. However, detection of past migration is difficult in current populations and tools to differentiate genetic similarities due to...
Deterring off-trail hiking in protected natural areas: Evaluating options with surveys and unobtrusive observation: Final report
K.A. Hockett, Y.F. Clark, J.L. Leung, Marion, L. Park
2010, Report
This report presents the results of research conducted on the 96-acre Bear Island along the Billy Goat Trail, Section A (BGT) that evaluated visitor motivations for off-trail hiking and the efficacy of four treatments designed to reduce this activity. This research was prompted by concerns about the impact of an...
Effects of urbanization on carnivore species distribution and richness
Miguel A. Ordenana, Kevin R. Crooks, Erin E. Boydston, Robert N. Fisher, Lisa M. Lyren, Shalene Siudyla, Christopher D. Haas, Sierra Harris, Stacie A. Hathaway, Greta M. Turschak, A. Keith Miles, Dirk H. Van Vuren
2010, Journal of Mammalogy (91) 1322-1331
Urban development can have multiple effects on mammalian carnivore communities. We conducted a meta-analysis of 7,929 photographs from 217 localities in 11 camera-trap studies across coastal southern California to describe habitat use and determine the effects of urban proximity (distance to urban edge) and intensity (percentage of area urbanized) on...
High tsunami frequency as a result of combined strike-slip faulting and coastal landslides
Matthew J. Hornbach, Nicole Braudy, Richard W. Briggs, Marie-Helene Cormier, Marcy B. Davis, John B. Diebold, Nicole Dieudonne, Roby Douilly, Cliff Frohlich, Sean P.S. Gulick, Harold E. Johnson III, Paul Mann, Cecilia McHugh, Katherine Ryan-Mishkin, Carol S. Prentice, Leonardo Seeber, Christopher C. Sorlien, Michael S. Steckler, Steeve Julien Symithe, Frederick W. Taylor, John Templeton
2010, Nature Geoscience (3) 783-788
Earthquakes on strike-slip faults can produce devastating natural hazards. However, because they consist predominantly of lateral motion, these faults are rarely associated with significant uplift or tsunami generation. And although submarine slides can generate tsunami, only a few per cent of all tsunami are believed to be triggered in this...
Habitat suitability and conservation of the giant gartersnake (Thamnophis gigas) in the Sacramento Valley of California
Brian J. Halstead, Glenn D. Wylie, Michael L. Casazza
2010, Copeia (2010) 591-599
Resource managers often have little information regarding the habitat requirements and distribution of rare species. Factor analysis-based habitat suitability models describe the ecological niche of a species and identify locations where these conditions occur on the landscape using existing occurrence data.We used factor analyses to assess the suitability of habitats...
Contribution of PAHs from coal-tar pavement sealcoat and other sources to 40 U.S. lakes
Peter C. Van Metre, Barbara Mahler
2010, Science of the Total Environment (409) 334-344
Contamination of urban lakes and streams by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) has increased in the United States during the past 40 years. We evaluated sources of PAHs in post-1990 sediments in cores from 40 lakes in urban areas across the United States using a contaminant mass-balance receptor model and including...
A rapid, strong, and convergent genetic response to urban habitat fragmentation in four divergent and widespread vertebrates
Kathleen Semple Delaney, Seth P.D. Riley, Robert N. Fisher
2010, PLoS ONE (5)
Background: Urbanization is a major cause of habitat fragmentation worldwide. Ecological and conservation theory predicts many potential impacts of habitat fragmentation on natural populations, including genetic impacts. Habitat fragmentation by urbanization causes populations of animals and plants to be isolated in patches of suitable habitat that are surrounded by non-native...
