Endemic chronic wasting disease causes mule deer population decline in Wyoming
Melia DeVivo, David R. Edmunds, Matthew J. Kauffman, Brant A. Schumaker, Justin Binfet, Terry J. Kreeger, Bryan J. Richards, Hermann M. Schatzl, Todd Cornish
2017, PLoS ONE (12)
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathy affecting white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni), and moose (Alces alces shirasi) in North America. In southeastern Wyoming average annual CWD prevalence in mule deer exceeds 20% and appears to contribute to regional...
Seismic velocity site characterization of 10 Arizona strong-motion recording stations by spectral analysis of surface wave dispersion
Robert E. Kayen, Brad A. Carkin, Skye C. Corbett
2017, Open-File Report 2016-1208
Vertical one-dimensional shear wave velocity (VS) profiles are presented for strong-motion sites in Arizona for a suite of stations surrounding the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. The purpose of the study is to determine the detailed site velocity profile, the average velocity in the upper 30 meters of the profile...
At the forefront: evidence of the applicability of using environmental DNA to quantify the abundance of fish populations in natural lentic waters with additional sampling considerations
Stephen L. Klobucar, Torrey W. Rodgers, Phaedra Budy
2017, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (74) 2030-2034
Environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling has proven to be a valuable tool for detecting species in aquatic ecosystems. Within this rapidly evolving field, a promising application is the ability to obtain quantitative estimates of relative species abundance based on eDNA concentration rather than traditionally labor-intensive methods. We investigated the relationship between...
Quantifying long-term population growth rates of threatened bull trout: challenges, lessons learned, and opportunities
Phaedra Budy, Tracy Bowerman, Robert K. Al-Chokhachy, Mary Conner, Howard Schaller
2017, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (74) 2131-2143
Temporal symmetry models (TSM) represent advances in the analytical application of mark–recapture data to population status assessments. For a population of char, we employed 10 years of active and passive mark–recapture data to quantify population growth rates using different data sources and analytical approaches. Estimates of adult population growth rate...
A comparison of four porewater sampling methods for metal mixtures and dissolved organic carbon and the implications for sediment toxicity evaluations
Danielle M. Cleveland, William G. Brumbaugh, Donald D. MacDonald
2017, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (36) 2906-2915
Evaluations of sediment quality conditions are commonly conducted using whole-sediment chemistry analyses but can be enhanced by evaluating multiple lines of evidence, including measures of the bioavailable forms of contaminants. In particular, porewater chemistry data provide information that is directly relevant for interpreting sediment toxicity data. Various methods for sampling...
New interventions are needed to save coral reefs
Ken Anthony, Line K. Bay, Robert Costanza, Jennifer Firn, John Gunn, Peter Harrison, Andrew Heyward, Petra Lundgren, David Mead, Tom Moore, Peter J. Mumby, Madeleine J. H. van Oppen, John Robertson, Michael C. Runge, David J. Suggett, Britta Schaffelke, David Wachenfeld, Terry Walshe
2017, Nature Ecology & Evolution (1) 1420-1422
Since 2014, coral reefs worldwide have been subjected to the most extensive, prolonged and damaging heat wave in recorded history1. Large sections of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR) bleached in response to heat stress in 2016 and 2017 — the first back-to-back event on record. Such severe coral bleaching results...
Health and condition of endangered young-of-the-year Lost River and Shortnose suckers relative to water quality in Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon, 2014–2015
Summer M. Burdick, Carla M. Conway, Diane G. Elliott, Marshal S. Hoy, Amari Dolan-Caret, Carl O. Ostberg
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1134
Most mortality of endangered Lost River (Deltistes luxatus) and shortnose (Chasmistes brevirostris) suckers in Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon, occurs within the first year of life. Juvenile suckers in Clear Lake Reservoir, California, survive longer and may even recruit to the spawning populations. In a previous (2013–2014) study, the health and...
Design and methods of the Midwest Stream Quality Assessment (MSQA), 2013
Jessica D. Garrett, Jeffrey W. Frey, Peter C. Van Metre, Celeste A. Journey, Naomi Nakagaki, Daniel T. Button, Lisa H. Nowell
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1073
During 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment Project (NAWQA), in collaboration with the USGS Columbia Environmental Research Center, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Rivers and Streams Assessment (NRSA), and the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs assessed stream quality across the Midwestern United States. This Midwest...
HIF evaluation of In-Situ Aqua TROLL 400
Evan F. Tillman
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1086
The In-Situ Aqua TROLL 400 (Aqua TROLL 400) was tested at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologic Instrumentation Facility (HIF) against known standards over the Aqua TROLL 400’s operating temperature to verify the manufacturer’s stated accuracy specifications and the USGS recommendations for pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), and specific conductance (SC)....
Proceedings of the 11th United States-Japan natural resources panel for earthquake research, Napa Valley, California, November 16–18, 2016
Shane Detweiler, Frederick Pollitz, editor(s)
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1133
The UJNR Panel on Earthquake Research promotes advanced research toward a more fundamental understanding of the earthquake process and hazard estimation. The Eleventh Joint meeting was extremely beneficial in furthering cooperation and deepening understanding of problems common to both Japan and the United States.The meeting included productive exchanges of information...
Ephemeral seafloor sedimentation during dam removal: Elwha River, Washington
Melissa M. Foley, Jonathan A. Warrick
2017, Continental Shelf Research (150) 36-47
The removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams from the Elwha River in Washington, USA, resulted in the erosion and transport of over 10 million m3 of sediment from the former reservoirs and into the river during the first two years of the dam removal process. Approximately 90% of this...
U.S. Geological Survey experience with the residual absolutes method
E. William Worthington, Jurgen Matzka
2017, Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems (6) 419-427
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Geomagnetism Program has developed and tested the residual method of absolutes, with the assistance of the Danish Technical University's (DTU) Geomagnetism Program. Three years of testing were performed at College Magnetic Observatory (CMO), Fairbanks, Alaska, to compare the residual method with the null method. Results show that the two...
Phylogenetic distribution of a male pheromone that may exploit a nonsexual preference in lampreys
Tyler J. Buchinger, Ugo Bussy, Ke Li, Huiyong Wang, Mar Huertas, Cindy F. Baker, Liang Jia, Michael C. Hayes, Weiming Li, Nicholas S. Johnson
2017, Journal of Evolutionary Biology (30) 2244-2254
Pheromones are among the most important sexual signals used by organisms throughout the animal kingdom. However, few are identified in vertebrates, leaving the evolutionary mechanisms underlying vertebrate pheromones poorly understood. Pre-existing biases in receivers’ perceptual systems shape visual and auditory signaling systems, but studies on how receiver biases influence the...
Linking functional response and bioenergetics to estimate juvenile salmon growth in a reservoir food web
Craig A. Haskell, David A. Beauchamp, Stephen M. Bollens
2017, PLoS ONE (10) 1-21
Juvenile salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) use of reservoir food webs is understudied. We examined the feeding behavior of subyearling Chinook salmon (O. tshawytscha) and its relation to growth by estimating the functional response of juvenile salmon to changes in the density of Daphnia, an important component of reservoir food webs. We then estimated salmon...
Urban landscapes can change virus gene flow and evolution in a fragmentation-sensitive carnivore
Nicholas M. Fountain-Jones, Meggan E. Craft, W. Chris Funk, Chris Kozakiewicz, Daryl Trumbo, Erin E. Boydston, Lisa M. Lyren, Kevin R. Crooks, Justin S. Lee, Sue VandeWoude, Scott Carver
2017, Molecular Ecology (26) 6487-6498
Urban expansion has widespread impacts on wildlife species globally, including the transmission and emergence of infectious diseases. However, there is almost no information about how urban landscapes shape transmission dynamics in wildlife. Using an innovative phylodynamic approach combining host and pathogen molecular data with landscape characteristics and host traits, we...
Epicormic resprouting in fire-prone ecosystems
Juli G. Pausas, Jon E. Keeley
2017, Trends in Plant Science (22) 1008-1015
Many plants resprout from basal buds after disturbance, and this is common in shrublands subjected to high-intensity fires. However, resprouting after fire from epicormic (stem) buds is globally far less common. Unlike basal resprouting, post-fire epicormic resprouting is a key plant adaptation for retention of the arborescent skeleton after fire,...
Characterizing interactions between fire and other disturbances and their impacts on tree mortality in western U.S. Forests
Jeffrey M. Kane, J. Morgan Varner, Margaret R. Metz, Phillip J. van Mantgem
2017, Forest Ecology and Management (405) 188-199
Increasing evidence that pervasive warming trends are altering disturbance regimes and their interactions with fire has generated substantial interest and debate over the implications of these changes. Previous work has primarily focused on conditions that promote non-additive interactions of linked and compounded disturbances,...
Shelf evolution along a transpressive transform margin, Santa Barbara Channel, California
Samuel Y. Johnson, Stephen Hartwell, Christopher C. Sorlien, Peter Dartnell, Andrew C. Ritchie
2017, Geosphere (13) 2041-2077
High-resolution bathymetric and seismic reflection data provide new insights for understanding the post–Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ca. 21 ka) evolution of the ∼120-km-long Santa Barbara shelf, located within a transpressive segment of the transform continental margin of western North America. The goal is to determine how rising sea level, sediment supply,...
An improved camera trap for amphibians, reptiles, small mammals, and large invertebrates
Michael T. Hobbs, Cheryl S. Brehme
2017, PLoS ONE (12)
Camera traps are valuable sampling tools commonly used to inventory and monitor wildlife communities but are challenged to reliably sample small animals. We introduce a novel active camera trap system enabling the reliable and efficient use of wildlife cameras for sampling small animals, particularly reptiles, amphibians, small mammals and large...
Oxygen stable isotopic disparities among sympatric small land snail species from northwest Minnesota, USA
Yurena Yanes, Jeffrey C. Nekola, Jason A. Rech, Jeffery S. Pigati
2017, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (485) 715-722
The oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O) of land snail shells can be a valuable paleoenvironmental archive if the climatic parameters that influence the isotopic system are fully understood. Previous calibration studies have examined a limited number of species or individuals, and most have focused on larger (> 10 mm) taxa, which do not...
Multistressor predictive models of invertebrate condition in the Corn Belt, USA
Ian R. Waite, Peter C. Van Metre
2017, Freshwater Science (36) 901-914
Understanding the complex relations between multiple environmental stressors and ecological conditions in streams can help guide resource-management decisions. During 14 weeks in spring/summer 2013, personnel from the US Geological Survey and the US Environmental Protection Agency sampled 98 wadeable streams across the Midwest Corn Belt region of the USA for...
Physical properties of sidewall cores from Decatur, Illinois
Carolyn A. Morrow, J. Ole Kaven, Diane E. Moore, David A. Lockner
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1094
To better assess the reservoir conditions influencing the induced seismicity hazard near a carbon dioxide sequestration demonstration site in Decatur, Ill., core samples from three deep drill holes were tested to determine a suite of physical properties including bulk density, porosity, permeability, Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, and failure strength....
Recurrent Holocene movement on the Susitna Glacier Thrust Fault: The structure that initiated the Mw 7.9 Denali Fault earthquake, central Alaska
Stephen Personius, Anthony J. Crone, Patricia A. Burns, Nadine G. Reitman
2017, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (107) 1593-1609
We conducted a trench investigation and analyzed pre‐ and postearthquake topography to determine the timing and size of prehistoric surface ruptures on the Susitna Glacier fault (SGF), the thrust fault that initiated the 2002 Mw 7.9 Denali fault earthquake sequence in central Alaska. In two of our three hand‐excavated trenches, we found...
Bedrock geology of DFDP-2B, central Alpine Fault, New Zealand
Virginia G. Toy, Rupert Southerland, John Townend, Michael J. Allen, Leeza Becroft, Austin Boles, Carolyn Boulton, Brett Carpenter, Alan K. Cooper, Simon C. Cox, Christopher Daube, Daniel R. Faulkner, Angela Halfpenny, Naoki Kato, Stephen Keys, Martina Kirilova, Yusuke Kometani, Timothy Little, Elisabetta Mariani, Benjamin L. Melosh, Catriona D. Menzies, Luiz Morales, Chance Morgan, Hiroshi Mori, Andre Niemeijer, Richard Norris, David Prior, Katrina Sauer, Anja Schleicher, Norio Shigematsu, Damon A.H. Teagle, Harold Tobin, Robert Valdez, Jack Williams, Samantha Yeo, Laura-May Baratin, Nicolas C. Barth, Adrian Benson, Caroline Boese, Bernard Celerier, Calum J. Chamberlain, Ronald Conze, Jamie Coussens, Lisa Craw, Mai-Linh Doan, Jennifer L. Eccles, Jason Grieve, Julia Grochowski, Anton Gulley, Jamie Howarth, Katrina D. Zamudio, Lucie Janku-Capova, Tamara Nicole Jeppson, Robert M. Langridge, Deirdre Mallyon, Ray Marx, Cecile Massiot, Loren Mathewson, Josephine Moore, Osamu Nishikawa, Brent Pooley, Alex Pyne, Martha K. Savage, Doug Schmitt, Sam Taylor-Offord, Phaedra Upton, Konrad C. Weaver, Thomas Wiersberg, Martin Zimmer
2017, New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics (60) 497-518
During the second phase of the Alpine Fault, Deep Fault Drilling Project (DFDP) in the Whataroa River, South Westland, New Zealand, bedrock was encountered in the DFDP-2B borehole from 238.5–893.2 m Measured Depth (MD). Continuous sampling and meso- to microscale characterisation of whole rock cuttings established that, in...
FinDer v.2: Improved real-time ground-motion predictions for M2-M9 with seismic finite-source characterization
Maren Boese, Deborah Smith, Claude Felizardo, Men-Andrin Meier, Thomas H. Heaton, J.F. Clinton
2017, Geophysical Journal International (212) 725-742
Recent studies suggest that small and large earthquakes nucleate similarly, and that they often have indistinguishable seismic waveform onsets. The characterization of earthquakes in real time, such as for earthquake early warning, therefore requires a flexible modeling approach that allows a small earthquake to become large as fault rupture evolves...
