The effect of beaver ponds on water quality in rural coastal plain streams
Christopher W. Bason, Daniel Kroes, Mark M. Brinson
2017, Southeastern Naturalist (16) 584-602
We compared water-quality effects of 13 beaver ponds on adjacent free-flowing control reaches in the Coastal Plain of rural North Carolina. We measured concentrations of nitrate, ammonium, soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP), and suspended sediment (SS) upstream and downstream of paired ponds and control reaches. Nitrate and SS concentrations decreased, ammonium...
Heterogeneous responses of temperate-zone amphibian populations to climate change complicates conservation planning
Erin L. Muths, Thierry A. Chambert, B. R. Schmidt, D. A. W. Miller, Blake R. Hossack, P. Joly, O. Grolet, D. M. Green, David S. Pilliod, M. Cheylan, Robert N. Fisher, R. M. McCaffery, M. J. Adams, W. J. Palen, J. W. Arntzen, J. Garwood, Gary M. Fellers, J. M. Thirion, A. Besnard, Evan H. Campbell Grant
2017, Scientific Reports (7) 1-10
The pervasive and unabated nature of global amphibian declines suggests common demographic responses to a given driver, and quantification of major drivers and responses could inform broad-scale conservation actions. We explored the influence of climate on demographic parameters (i.e., changes in the probabilities of survival and recruitment) using 31 datasets...
Attaching transmitters to waterbirds using one versus two subcutaneous anchors: Retention and survival trade-offs
Tyler Lewis, Daniel Esler, Brian D. Uher-Koch, Rian D. Dickson, Eric M. Anderson, Joseph R. Evenson, Jerry W. Hupp, Paul L. Flint
2017, Wildlife Society Bulletin (41) 691-700
A major challenge of wildlife telemetry is choosing an attachment technique that maximizes transmitter retention while minimizing negative side effects. For waterbirds, attachment of transmitters with subcutaneous anchors has been an effective and well-established technique, having been used on >40 species. This method was recently modified to include a second...
Sand pulses and sand patches on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon
Paul E. Grams, Daniel D. Buscombe, David J. Topping, Erich R. Mueller
2017, Conference Paper, RCEM 2017 – Back to Italy—The 10th Symposium on River, Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics
Alluvial sandbars occur in lateral recirculation zones (eddies) along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park (Schmidt, 1990). Resource managers periodically release controlled floods from the upstream Glen Canyon Dam to rebuild these bars (Grams et al., 2015), which erode during fluctuating dam releases, and by hillslope runoff and...
Groundwater model of the Great Basin carbonate and alluvial aquifer system version 3.0: Incorporating revisions in southwestern Utah and east central Nevada
Lynette E. Brooks
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5072
The groundwater model described in this report is a new version of previously published steady-state numerical groundwater flow models of the Great Basin carbonate and alluvial aquifer system, and was developed in conjunction with U.S. Geological Survey studies in Parowan, Pine, and Wah Wah Valleys, Utah....
Foundations of translational ecology
Carolyn A. F. Enquist, Stephen T. Jackson, Gregg M. Garfin, Frank W. Davis, Leah R. Gerber, Jeremy S. Littell, Jennifer L. Tank, Adam Terando, Tamara U. Wall, Benjamin S. Halpern, J. Kevin Hiers, Toni L. Morelli, Elizabeth McNie, Nathan L. Stephenson, Matthew A. Williamson, Connie A. Woodhouse, Laurie Yung, Mark W. Brunson, Kimberly R. Hall, Lauren M. Hallett, Dawn M. Lawson, Max A. Moritz, Koren R. Nydick, Amber Pairis, Andrea J. Ray, Claudia M. Regan, Hugh D. Safford, Mark W. Schwartz, M. Rebecca Shaw
2017, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (15) 541-550
Ecologists who specialize in translational ecology (TE) seek to link ecological knowledge to decision making by integrating ecological science with the full complement of social dimensions that underlie today's complex environmental issues. TE is motivated by a search for outcomes that directly serve the needs of natural resource managers and...
Evaluating factors driving population densities of mayfly nymphs in Western Lake Erie
Martin A. Stapanian, Patrick Kocovsky, Betsy L. Bodamer Scarbro
2017, Journal of Great Lakes Research (43) 1111-1118
Mayfly (Hexagenia spp.) nymphs have been widely used as indicators of water and substrate quality in lakes. Thermal stratification and the subsequent formation of benthic hypoxia may result in nymph mortality. Our goal was to identify potential associations between recent increases in temperature and eutrophication, which exacerbate hypoxic events in lakes,...
A survey of the amphibians of Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, South Carolina and Georgia
C. Kenneth Dodd Jr., William J. Barichivich
2017, Southeastern Naturalist (16) 529-545
From 2004 to 2006, we used a variety of sampling techniques to survey the amphibians of Savannah National Wildlife Refuge (SNWR), a large protected area straddling the lower portions of the Savannah River on the border between South Carolina and Georgia. We documented 22 amphibian species—15 frogs and 7 salamanders—with...
Interactions among invasive plants: Lessons from Hawai‘i
Carla M. D’Antonio, Rebecca Ostertag, Susan Cordell, Stephanie G. Yelenik
2017, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics (48) 521-541
Most ecosystems have multiple-plant invaders rather than single-plant invaders, yet ecological studies and management actions focus largely on single invader species. There is a need for general principles regarding invader interactions across varying environmental conditions, so that secondary invasions can be anticipated and managers can allocate resources toward pretreatment or...
Thermal tolerances of fishes occupying groundwater and surface-water dominated streams
Nicole Farless, Shannon K. Brewer
2017, Freshwater Science (36) 866-876
A thermal tolerance study mimicking different stream environments could improve our ecological understanding of how increasing water temperatures affect stream ectotherms and improve our ability to predict organism responses based on river classification schemes. Our objective was to compare the thermal tolerances of stream fishes of different habitat guilds among...
Investigating seagrass in Toxoplasma gondii transmission in Florida (Trichechus manatus latirostris) and Antillean (T. m. manatus) manatees
Heidi M. Wyrosdick, Richard W. Gerhold, Chunlei Su, Antonio A. Mignucci-Giannoni, Robert K. Bonde, Alycia Chapman, Carla Riviera-Perez, Jessica Martinez, Debra L. Miller
2017, Diseases of Aquatic Organisms (127) 65-69
Toxoplasma gondii is a feline protozoan reported to cause morbidity and mortality in manatees and other marine mammals. Given the herbivorous nature of manatees, ingestion of oocysts from contaminated water or seagrass is presumed to be their primary mode of infection. The objectives of this study were to investigate oocyst contamination...
Probabilistic tsunami hazard analysis: Multiple sources and global applications
Anita Grezio, Andrey Babeyko, Maria Ana Baptista, Jorn Behrens, Antonio Costa, Gareth Davies, Eric L. Geist, Sylfest Glimsdal, Frank I. Gonzalez, Jonathan Griffin, Carl B. Harbitz, Randall J. LeVeque, Stefano Lorito, Finn Løvholt, Rachid Omira, Christof Mueller, Raphael Paris, Thomas E. Parsons, Jascha Polet, William Power, Jacopo Selva, Mathilde B. Sorensen, Hong Kie Thio
2017, Reviews of Geophysics (55) 1158-1198
Applying probabilistic methods to infrequent but devastating natural events is intrinsically challenging. For tsunami analyses, a suite of geophysical assessments should be in principle evaluated because of the different causes generating tsunamis (earthquakes, landslides, volcanic activity, meteorological events, and asteroid impacts) with varying mean recurrence rates. Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Analyses...
Dynamic rupture modeling of the M7.2 2010 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake: Comparison with a geodetic model
Christos Kyriakopoulos, David D. Oglesby, Gareth J. Funning, Kenneth Ryan
2017, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (122) 10263-10279
The 2010 Mw 7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake is the largest event recorded in the broader Southern California-Baja California region in the last 18 years. Here we try to analyze primary features of this type of event by using dynamic rupture simulations based on a multifault interface and later compare our results with space...
Using carbon dioxide in fisheries and aquatic invasive species management
Hilary B. Treanor, Andrew M. Ray, Megan J. Layhee, Barnaby J. Watten, Jason A. Gross, Robert E. Gresswell, Molly A. H. Webb
2017, Fisheries (42) 621-628
To restore native fish populations, fisheries programs often depend on active removal of aquatic invasive species. Chemical removal can be an effective method of eliminating aquatic invasive species, but chemicals can induce mortality in nontarget organisms and persist in the environment. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an emerging alternative to traditional...
Reviews and syntheses: Field data to benchmark the carbon cycle models for tropical forests
Deborah A. Clark, Shinichi Asao, Rosie A. Fisher, Sasha C. Reed, Peter B. Reich, Michael G. Ryan, Tana E. Wood, Xiaojuan Yang
2017, Biogeosciences (14) 4663-4690
For more accurate projections of both the global carbon (C) cycle and the changing climate, a critical current need is to improve the representation of tropical forests in Earth system models. Tropical forests exchange more C, energy, and water with the atmosphere than any other class of land ecosystems. Further,...
A Bayesian-based system to assess wave-driven flooding hazards on coral reef-lined coasts
S. G. Pearson, Curt D. Storlazzi, A. R. van Dongeren, M. F. S. Tissier, A. J. H. M. Reniers
2017, Journal of Geophysical Research C: Oceans (122) 10099-10117
Many low-elevation, coral reef-lined, tropical coasts are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, sea level rise, and wave-induced flooding. The considerable morphological diversity of these coasts and the variability of the hydrodynamic forcing that they are exposed to make predicting wave-induced flooding a challenge. A process-based wave-resolving hydrodynamic model...
Correcting spacecraft jitter in HiRISE images
S. S. Sutton, A.K. Boyd, Randolph L. Kirk, Debbie Cook, Jean Backer, A. Fennema, R. Heyd, A.S. McEwen, S.D. Mirchandani
B. Wu, K. Di, J. Oberst, I. Karachevtseva, editor(s)
2017, Conference Paper, Proceedings: 2017 international symposium on planetary remote sensing and mapping (Volume XLII-3/W1)
Mechanical oscillations or vibrations on spacecraft, also called pointing jitter, cause geometric distortions and/or smear in high resolution digital images acquired from orbit. Geometric distortion is especially a problem with pushbroom type sensors, such as the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)....
Community tools for cartographic and photogrammetric processing of Mars Express HRSC images
Randolph L. Kirk, Elpitha Howington-Kraus, Kenneth L. Edmundson, Bonnie L. Redding, Donna M. Galuszka, Trent M. Hare, K. Gwinner
B. Wu, K. Di, J. Oberst, I. Karachevtseva, editor(s)
2017, Conference Paper, Proceedings: 2017 international symposium on planetary remote sensing and mapping (Volume XLII-3/W1)
The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on the Mars Express orbiter (Neukum et al. 2004) is a multi-line pushbroom scanner that can obtain stereo and color coverage of targets in a single overpass, with pixel scales as small as 10 m at periapsis. Since commencing operations in 2004 it has imaged...
A mass balance approach to investigate arsenic cycling in a petroleum plume
Brady A. Ziegler, Madeline E. Schreiber, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli, Ng. G.-H. Crystal
2017, Environmental Pollution (231) 1351-1361
Natural attenuation of organic contaminants in groundwater can give rise to a series of complex biogeochemical reactions that release secondary contaminants to groundwater. In a crude oil contaminated aquifer, biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons is coupled with the reduction of ferric iron (Fe(III)) hydroxides in aquifer sediments. As a result, naturally...
Quantifying animal movement for caching foragers: the path identification index (PII) and cougars, Puma concolor
Kirsten E. Ironside, David J. Mattson, Tad Theimer, Brian Jansen, Brandon Holton, Terence R. Arundel, Michael Peters, Joseph O. Sexton, Thomas C. Edwards Jr.
2017, Movement Ecology (5) 1-17
Relocation studies of animal movement have focused on directed versus area restricted movement, which rely on correlations between step-length and turn angles, along with a degree of stationarity through time to define behavioral states. Although these approaches may work well for grazing foraging strategies in a patchy landscape, species...
Mineralogical characterization of weathered outcrops as a tool for constraining water chemistry predictions during project planning
Tamara Diedrich, Paul Fix, Andrea L. Foster
2017, Conference Paper, Proceedings of IMWA 2017
Weathered samples from naturally exposed outcrops of troctolite associated with a magmatic Ni-Cu sulphide deposit were characterized by synchrotron-based micro-X-ray fluorescence mapping (µ-XRF) and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), as well as by lab-based X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and wet chemical methods. Metal mobility in weathered samples was assessed using a sequential leach...
An intertebrate ecosystem engineer likely covered under the umbrella of sage-grouse conservation
Jason D. Carlisle, David R. Stewart, Anna D. Chalfoun
2017, Western North American Naturalist (77) 450-463
Conservation practitioners often rely on areas designed to protect species of greatest conservation priority to also conserve co-occurring species (i.e., the umbrella species concept). The extent to which vertebrate species may serve as suitable umbrellas for invertebrate species, however, has rarely been explored. Sage-grouse (Centrocercus spp.) have high conservation priority throughout...
Comparison of two viewing methods for estimating largemouth bass and walleye ages from sectioned otoliths and dorsal spines
Eric J. Wegleitner, Daniel A. Isermann
2017, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (37) 1304-1310
Many biologists use digital images for estimating ages of fish, but the use of images could lead to differences in age estimates and precision because image capture can produce changes in light and clarity compared to directly viewing structures through a microscope. We used sectioned sagittal otoliths from 132 Largemouth...
Toward a unified near-field intensity map of the 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorkha, Nepal, Earthquake
Sujan Raj Adhikari, Gopi Baysal, Amod Dixit, Stacey Martin, Mattieu Landes, Remy Bossu, Susan E. Hough
2017, Earthquake Spectra (33) S21-S34
We develop a unified near-field shaking intensity map for the 25 April 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorkha, Nepal, earthquake by synthesizing intensities derived from macroseismic effects that were determined by independent groups using a variety of approaches. Independent assessments by different groups are generally consistent, with minor differences that are likely due...
Detrital zircon geochronology of quartzose metasedimentary rocks from parautochthonous North America, east-central Alaska
Cynthia Dusel-Bacon, Christopher S. Holm-Denoma, James V. Jones III, John N. Aleinikoff, James K. Mortensen
2017, Lithosphere (9) 927-952
We report eight new U-Pb detrital zircon ages for quartzose metasedimentary rocks from four lithotectonic units of parautochthonous North America in east-central Alaska: the Healy schist, Keevy Peak Formation, and Sheep Creek Member of the Totatlanika Schist in the northern Alaska Range, and the Butte assemblage in the northwestern Yukon-Tanana...
