Hydroclimatology of the Missouri River basin
Erika K. Wise, Connie A. Woodhouse, Gregory J. McCabe, Gregory T. Pederson, Jeannine-Marie St. Jacques
2018, Journal of Hydrometeorology (19) 161-182
Despite the importance of the Missouri River for navigation, recreation, habitat, hydroelectric power, and agriculture, relatively little is known about the basic hydroclimatology of the Missouri River basin (MRB). This is of particular concern given the droughts and floods that have occurred over the past several decades and the potential...
Occupancy modeling of autonomously recorded vocalizations to predict distribution of rallids in tidal wetlands
Lydia L. Stiffler, James T. Anderson, Todd E. Katzner
2018, Wetlands (38) 605-612
Conservation and management for a species requires reliable information on its status, distribution, and habitat use. We identified occupancy and distributions of king (Rallus elegans) and clapper (R. crepitans) rail populations in marsh complexes along the Pamunkey and Mattaponi Rivers in Virginia, USA by modeling data...
Investigating runoff efficiency in upper Colorado River streamflow over past centuries
Connie A. Woodhouse, Gregory T. Pederson
2018, Water Resources Research (54) 286-300
With increasing concerns about the impact of warming temperatures on water resources, more attention is being paid to the relationship between runoff and precipitation, or runoff efficiency. Temperature is a key influence on Colorado River runoff efficiency, and warming temperatures are projected to reduce runoff efficiency. Here, we investigate the...
Snow sublimation in mountain environments and its sensitivity to forest disturbance and climate warming
Graham A. Sexstone, David W. Clow, Steven R. Fassnacht, Glen E. Liston, Christopher A. Hiemstra, John F. Knowles, Colin A. Penn
2018, Water Resources Research (54) 1191-1211
Snow sublimation is an important component of the snow mass balance, but the spatial and temporal variability of this process is not well understood in mountain environments. This study combines a process‐based snow model (SnowModel) with eddy covariance (EC) measurements to investigate (1) the spatio‐temporal variability of simulated snow sublimation...
Permafrost stores a globally significant amount of mercury
Paul F. Schuster, Kevin Schaefer, George R. Aiken, Ronald C. Antweiler, John F. DeWild, Joshua D. Gryziec, Alessio Gusmeroli, Gustaf Hugelius, Elchin E. Jafarov, David P. Krabbenhoft, Lin Liu, Nicole M. Herman-Mercer, Cuicui Mu, David A. Roth, Tim Schaefer, Robert G. Striegl, Kimberly P. Wickland, Tingjun Zhang
2018, Geophysical Research Letters (45) 1463-1471
Changing climate in northern regions is causing permafrost to thaw with major implications for the global mercury (Hg) cycle. We estimated Hg in permafrost regions based on in situ measurements of sediment total mercury (STHg), soil organic carbon (SOC), and the Hg to carbon ratio (RHgC) combined with maps of...
Semi-arid grassland bird responses to patch-burn grazing and drought
Susan K. Skagen, David J. Augustine, Justin D. Derner
2018, Journal of Wildlife Management (82) 445-456
As grassland birds of central North America experience steep population declines with changes in land use, management of remaining tracts becomes increasingly important for population viability. The integrated use of fire and grazing may enhance vegetation heterogeneity and diversity in breeding birds, but the subsequent effects on reproduction are unknown....
Can data from disparate long-term fish monitoring programs be used to increase our understanding of regional and continental trends in large river assemblages?
Timothy D. Counihan, Ian R. Waite, Andrew F. Casper, David L. Ward, Jennifer S. Sauer, Elise R. Irwin, Colin G. Chapman, Brian Ickes, Craig P. Paukert, John J. Kosovich, Jennifer M. Bayer
2018, PLoS ONE (13)
Understanding trends in the diverse resources provided by large rivers will help balance tradeoffs among stakeholders and inform strategies to mitigate the effects of landscape scale stressors such as climate change and invasive species. Absent a cohesive coordinated effort to assess trends in important large river resources, a logical starting...
A systematic surveillance programme for infectious salmon anaemia virus supports its absence in the Pacific Northwest of the United States
Lori L. Gustafson, Lynn H. Creekmore, Kevin R. Snekvik, Jayde A. Ferguson, Janet V. Warg, Marilyn Blair, Theodore R. Meyers, Bruce Stewart, Kenneth I. Warheit, John Kerwin, Andrew E. Goodwin, Linda D. Rhodes, Janet E. Whaley, Maureen K. Purcell, Collette Bentz, Desiree Shasa, Joel Bader, James R. Winton
2018, Journal of Fish Diseases (41) 337-346
In response to reported findings of infectious salmon anaemia virus (ISAV) in British Columbia (BC), Canada, in 2011, U.S. national, state and tribal fisheries managers and fish health specialists developed and implemented a collaborative ISAV surveillance plan for the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Accordingly, over a 3-1/2-year...
Flood of August 24–25, 2016, Upper Iowa River and Turkey River, northeastern Iowa
S. Mike Linhart, Padraic S. O’Shea
2018, Open-File Report 2017-1128
Major flooding occurred August 24–25, 2016, in the Upper Iowa River Basin and Turkey River Basin in northeastern Iowa following severe thunderstorm activity over the region. About 8 inches of rain were recorded for the 24-hour period ending at 4 p.m., August 24, at Decorah, Iowa, and about 6 inches...
Maturity of nearby faults influences seismic hazard from hydraulic fracturing
Maria Kozlowska, Michael R. Brudzinski, Paul A. Friberg, Robert J. Skoumal, Nicholas Baxter, Brian S. Currie
2018, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (115) E1720-E1729
Understanding the causes of human-induced earthquakes is paramount to reducing societal risk. We investigated five cases of seismicity associated with hydraulic fracturing (HF) in Ohio since 2013 that, because of their isolation from other injection activities, provide an ideal setting for studying the relations between high-pressure...
Development and validation of quantitative PCR assays to measure cytokine transcript levels in the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris)
Jason A. Ferrante, Margaret Hunter, James F.X. Wellehan
2018, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (54) 283-294
Cytokines have important roles in the mammalian response to viral and bacterial infections, trauma, and wound healing. Because of early cytokine production after physiologic stresses, the regulation of messenger RNA (mRNA) transcripts can be used to assess immunologic responses before changes in protein production. To detect and assess early immune...
The Colorado River and its deposits downstream from Grand Canyon in Arizona, California, and Nevada
Ryan S. Crow, Debra L. Block, Tracey J. Felger, Kyle House, Philip A. Pearthree, Brian F. Gootee, Ann M. Youberg, Keith A. Howard, L. Sue Beard
2018, Open-File Report 2018-1005
Understanding the evolution of the Colorado River system has direct implications for (1) the processes and timing of continental-scale river system integration, (2) the formation of iconic landscapes like those in and around Grand Canyon, and (3) the availability of groundwater resources. Spatial patterns in the position and type of...
Hydrogeophysics at societally relevant scales: Airborne electromagnetic applications and model structural uncertainty quantification
Burke J. Minsley, Nathan Leon Foks, Wade Kress, James R. Rigby
2018, Conference Paper, SEG technical program expanded abstracts 2018
There is a critical and growing need for information about subsurface geological properties and processes over sufficiently large areas that can inform key scientific and societal studies. Airborne geophysical methods fill a unique role in Earth observation because of their ability to detect deep subsurface properties at regional scales and...
Geomorphic identification of physical habitat features in a large, altered river system
L. Guertault, G. Fox, Shannon K. Brewer
2018, Conference Paper, River flow 2018 - Ninth international conference on fluvial hydraulics
Altered flow regimes in streams can significantly affect ecosystems and disturb ecological processes, leading to species loss and extinction. Many river management projects use stream classification and habitat assessment approaches to design practical solutions to reverse or mitigate adverse effects of flow regime alteration on stream systems. The objective of...
Development of a species status assessment process for decisions under the U.S. Endangered Species Act
David R. Smith, Nathan L. Allan, Conor P. McGowan, Jennifer A. Szymankski, Susan R. Oetker, Heather M. Bell
2018, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (9) 302-320
Decisions under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) require scientific input on the risk that the species will become extinct. A series of critiques on the role of science in ESA decisions have called for improved consistency and transparency in species risk assessments and clear distinctions between science input and...
Case study comparing multiple irrigated land datasets in Arizona and Colorado, USA
Hua Shi, Roger F. Auch, James Vogelmann, Min Feng, Matthew B. Rigge, Gabriel B. Senay, James Verdin
2018, Journal of American Water Resources Association (54) 505-526
While there are currently a number of irrigated land datasets available for the western United States (U.S.), there is uncertainty regarding in how they relate to each other. To help understand the characteristics of available irrigated datasets, we compared (1) the Cropland Data Layer (CDL), (2)...
Euler-vector clustering of GPS velocities defines microplate geometry in southwest Japan
James C. Savage
2018, JGR Solid Earth (123) 1954-1968
I have used Euler-vector clustering to assign 469 GEONET stations in southwest Japan to k clusters (k = 2, 3,..., 9) so that, for any k, the velocities of stations within each cluster are most consistent with rigid-block motion on a sphere. That is, I attempt to explain the raw (i.e., uncorrected for strain accumulation),...
Satellite psychrometric formulation of the operational simplified surface energy balance (SSEBop) model for quantifying and mapping evapotranspiration
Gabriel B. Senay
2018, Applied Engineering in Agriculture (34) 555-566
Remote sensing-based evapotranspiration (ET) can be derived using various methods, from soil moisture accounting to vegetation-index based approaches to simple and complex surface energy balance techniques. Due to the complexity of fully representing and parameterizing ET sub-processes, different models tend to diverge in their estimations. However, most models appear to...
Patterns of circulating corticosterone in a population of rattlesnakes afflicted with snake fungal disease: Stress hormones as a potential mediator of seasonal cycles in disease severity and outcomes
Craig M. Lind, Ignacio T. Moore, Caglar Akcay, Ben J. Vernasco, Jeffrey M. Lorch, Terence M. Farrell
2018, Physiological and Biochemical Zoology (91) 765-775
Snake fungal disease (SFD) is an emerging threat to snake populations in the United States. Fungal pathogens are often associated with a physiological stress response mediated by the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), and afflicted individuals may incur steep coping costs. The severity of SFD can vary seasonally; however, little is known...
Potential for western US seasonal snowpack prediction
Sarah B. Kapnick, Xiaosong Yang, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Thomas L. Delworth, Rich Gudgel, Sergey Malyshev, Paul C. D. Milly, Elena Shevliakova, Seth Underwood, Steven A. Margulis
2018, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (115) 1180-1185
Western US snowpack—snow that accumulates on the ground in the mountains—plays a critical role in regional hydroclimate and water supply, with 80% of snowmelt runoff being used for agriculture. While climate projections provide estimates of snowpack loss by the end of th ecentury and weather forecasts provide predictions of weather...
An historical overview and update of wolf-moose interactions in northeastern Minnesota
L. David Mech, John Fieberg, Shannon Barber-Meyer
2018, Wildlife Society Bulletin (42) 40-47
Wolf (Canis lupus) and moose (Alces americanus) populations in northeastern Minnesota, USA, have fluctuated for decades and, based on helicopter counts, moose numbers declined to a new low from 2006 to about 2012. Other steep declines were found in 1991 and 1998 during periods when moose counts were done with...
Determining on-fault earthquake magnitude distributions from integer programming
Eric L. Geist, Thomas E. Parsons
2018, Computers & Geosciences (111) 244-259
Earthquake magnitude distributions among faults within a fault system are determined from regional seismicity and fault slip rates using binary integer programming. A synthetic earthquake catalog (i.e., list of randomly sampled magnitudes) that spans millennia is first formed, assuming that regional seismicity follows a Gutenberg-Richter relation. Each earthquake in the...
Unifying concepts linking dissolved organic matter composition to persistence in aquatic ecosystems
Anne M. Kellerman, Francois Guillemette, David C. Podgorski, George R. Aiken, Kenna D. Butler, Robert G. M. Spencer
2018, Environmental Science & Technology (52) 2538-2548
The link between composition and reactivity of dissolved organic matter (DOM) is central to understanding the role aquatic systems play in the global carbon cycle; yet, unifying concepts driving molecular composition have yet to be established. We characterized 37 DOM isolates from diverse aquatic ecosystems, including their stable and radiocarbon...
High-energy, high-fat lifestyle challenges an Arctic apex predator, the polar bear
Anthony M. Pagano, George M. Durner, Karyn D. Rode, Todd C. Atwood, Stephen N. Atkinson, Elizabeth Peacock, Daniel P. Costa, Megan A. Owen, Terrie M. Williams
2018, Science (359) 568-572
Regional declines in polar bear (Ursus maritimus) populations have been attributed to changing sea ice conditions, but with limited information on the causative mechanisms. By simultaneously measuring field metabolic rates, daily activity patterns, body condition, and foraging success of polar bears moving on the spring sea ice, we found that...
Reproductive output and clutch phenology of female Agassiz's desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) in the Sonoran Desert region of Joshua Tree National Park
Jeffrey E. Lovich, Shellie R. Puffer, Mickey Agha, Joshua R. Ennen, Kathie Meyer-Wilkins, Laura A. Tennant, Amanda L Smith, Terence R. Arundel, Kathleen D. Brundige, Michael S. Vamstad
2018, Current Herpetology (37) 40-57
Agassiz's desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) reaches the southern edge of its range in the Sonoran Desert of California. The reproductive ecology of this wideranging species is understudied here compared to populations in the adjacent Mojave Desert. Understanding potential geographic variation in reproductive ecology is important for effective management of conservation-reliant...
