Using multiple data types and integrated population models to improve our knowledge of apex predator population dynamics
Florent Bled, Jerrold L. Belant, Lawrence J. Van Daele, Nathan Svoboda, David D. Gustine, Grant V. Hilderbrand, Victor G. Barnes Jr.
2017, Ecology and Evolution (7) 9531-9543
Current management of large carnivores is informed using a variety of parameters, methods, and metrics; however, these data are typically considered independently. Sharing information among data types based on the underlying ecological, and recognizing observation biases, can improve estimation of individual and global parameters. We present...
Inequity in ecosystem service delivery: Socioeconomic gaps in the public-private conservation network
Amy M. Villamagna, Beatriz Mogollon, Paul L. Angermeier
2017, Ecology and Society (22)
Conservation areas, both public and private, are critical tools to protect biodiversity and deliver important ecosystem services (ES) to society. Although societal benefits from such ES are increasingly used to promote public support of conservation, the number of beneficiaries, their identity, and the magnitude of benefits are largely unknown for...
Summer and winter space use and home range characteristics of Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in eastern North America
Tricia A. Miller, Robert P. Brooks, Michael J. Lanzone, Jeff Cooper, Kieran O’Malley, David Brandes, Adam E. Duerr, Todd E. Katzner
2017, The Condor (119) 697-719
Movement behavior and its relationship to habitat provide critical information toward understanding the effects of changing environments on birds. The eastern North American population of Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) is a genetically distinct and small population of conservation concern. To evaluate the potential responses of this population to changing landscapes,...
Taphonomic problems in reconstructing sea-level history from the late Quaternary marine terraces of Barbados
Daniel R. Muhs, Kathleen R. Simmons
2017, Quaternary Research (88) 409-429
Although uranium series (U-series) ages of growth-position fossil corals are important to Quaternary sea-level history, coral clast reworking from storms can yield ages on a terrace dating to more than one high-sea stand, confounding interpretations of sea-level history. On northern Barbados, U-series ages corals from a thick storm deposit are...
Oiling accelerates loss of salt marshes, southeastern Louisiana
Michael Beland, Trent W. Biggs, Dar A. Roberts, Seth H. Peterson, Raymond F. Kokaly, Sarai Piazza
2017, PLoS ONE (12)
The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill damaged thousands of km2 of intertidal marsh along shorelines that had been experiencing elevated rates of erosion for decades. Yet, the contribution of marsh oiling to landscape-scale degradation and subsequent land loss has been difficult to quantify. Here, we applied advanced remote...
Sediment deposition and sources into a Mississippi River floodplain lake; Catahoula Lake, Louisiana
Karen D. Latuso, Richard F. Keim, Sammy L. King, David C. Weindorf, Ronald D. DeLaune
2017, Catena (156) 290-297
Floodplain lakes are important wetlands on many lowland floodplains of the world but depressional floodplain lakes are rare in the Mississippi River Alluvial Valley. One of the largest is Catahoula Lake, which has existed with seasonally fluctuating water levels for several thousand years but is now in an increasingly hydrologically...
Biocrust ecology: Unifying micro- and macro-scales to confront global change
Scott Ferrenberg, Sasha C. Reed
2017, New Phytologist (216) 643-646
Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are communities of microbes, lichens and bryophytes living at the soil surface in drylands (Fig. 1; Belnap et al., 2016). Biocrusts occur on all continents and can comprise a majority of cover in some systems (Belnap et al., 2016). While species diversity and distributions have long...
Groundwater data collection for the Quinault Indian Nation, Grays Harbor and Jefferson Counties, Washington
Sue C. Kahle, Elisabeth T. Fasser, Theresa D. Olsen
2017, Data Series 1071
Groundwater data were collected on the Quinault Indian Reservation to provide the Quinualt Indian Nation (QIN) with basic knowledge of the existing wells and springs on the reservation, and to establish a water-level network to be monitored by QIN to begin building a long-term groundwater dataset. The 327 mi2...
Reply to ‘Marsh vulnerability to sea-level rise’
Matthew L. Kirwan, Stijn Temmerman, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Sergio Fagherazzi
2017, Nature Climate Change (7) 756-757
Response to Parkinson et al. Rebuttal of Kirwan, M. L., Temmerman, S., Skeehan, E. E., Guntenspergen, G. R.,& Fagherazzi, S. (2016). Overestimation of marsh vulnerability to sea level rise. Nature Climate Change, 6(3):253-2601....
Vulnerable transportation and utility assets near actively migrating streams in Indiana
Benjamin J. Sperl
2017, Data Series 1068
An investigation was completed by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs that found 1,132 transportation and utility assets in Indiana are vulnerable to fluvial erosion hazards due to close proximity to actively migrating streams. Locations of transportation assets (bridges, roadways, and...
Monitoring storm tide and flooding from Hurricane Matthew along the Atlantic coast of the United States, October 2016
Eric R. Frantz, Michael J. Byrne Sr., Andral W. Caldwell, Stephen L. Harden
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1122
IntroductionHurricane Matthew moved adjacent to the coasts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The hurricane made landfall once near McClellanville, South Carolina, on October 8, 2016, as a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) deployed a temporary monitoring network of...
Towards a comprehensive water quality modeling of Barnegat Bay: Development of ROMS to WASP Coupler
Zafer Define, Frederick J. Spitz, Vincent T. DePaul, Tim A. Wool
2017, Journal of Coastal Research (78) 34-45
The Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) has been coupled with the Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (WASP) to be used in a comprehensive analysis of water quality in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey. The coupler can spatially aggregate hydrodynamic information in ROMS cells into larger WASP segments. It can also be...
Flood-inundation maps for the White River at Noblesville, Indiana
Zachary W. Martin
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5123
Digital flood-inundation maps for a 7.5-mile reach of the White River at Noblesville, Indiana, were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Indiana Department of Transportation. The flood-inundation maps, which can be accessed through the USGS Flood Inundation Mapping Science website at https://water.usgs.gov/osw/flood_inundation/, depict...
Patterns of spatial distribution of golden eagles across North America: How do they fit into existing landscape-scale mapping systems?
Jessi L. Brown, Bryan Bedrosian, Douglas A. Bell, Melissa A. Braham, Jeff Cooper, Ross H. Crandall, Joe DiDonato, Robert Domenech, Adam E. Duerr, Todd E. Katzner, Michael J. Lanzone, David W. LaPlante, Carol L. McIntyre, Tricia A. Miller, Robert K. Murphy, Adam Shreading, Steven J. Slater, Jeff P. Smith, Brian W. Smith, James W. Watson, Brian Woodbridge
2017, Journal of Raptor Research (51) 197-215
Conserving wide-ranging animals requires knowledge about their year-round movements and resource use. Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) exhibit a wide range of movement patterns across North America. We combined tracking data from 571 Golden Eagles from multiple independent satellite-telemetry projects from North America to provide a comprehensive look at the magnitude...
Home range, den selection and habitat use of Carolina northern flying squirrels (Glaucomys sabrinus coloratus)
Corinne A. Diggins, Alexander Silvis, Christine A. Kelly, W. Mark Ford
2017, Wildlife Research (44) 427-237
Context: Understanding habitat selection is important for determining conservation and management strategies for endangered species. The Carolina northern flying squirrel (CNFS; Glaucomys sabrinus coloratus) is an endangered subspecies found in the high-elevation montane forests of the southern Appalachians, USA. The primary use of nest boxes to monitor CNFS has provided...
The 3D Elevation Program national indexing scheme
Cindy A. Thatcher, Hans Karl Heidemann, Jason M. Stoker, Diane F. Eldridge
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3073
The 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) acquires high-resolution elevation data for the Nation. This program has been operating under an opportunity-oriented approach, acquiring light detection and ranging (lidar) projects of varying sizes scattered across the United States. As a result, the national 3DEP elevation layer...
Transgressive-regressive cycles in the metalliferous, oil-shale-bearing Heath Formation (Upper Mississippian), central Montana
Julie A. Dumoulin, Craig A. Johnson, Karen D. Kelley, Palma J. Botterell, Paul C. Hackley, Clint Scott, John F. Slack
2017, Stratigraphy (14) 97-122
The Upper Mississippian Heath Formation, which accumulated in the Big Snowy Trough of central Montana, has been known for three decades to contain mudrocks highly enriched in Zn, V, Mo, Ni and other metals, and source rocks for oil. The unit has more recently been recognized as a prospective tight...
Synopsis of the Fourth International Percid Fishes Symposia
Brian Schmidt, Dana Castle, Edward F. Roseman, Toomas Saat, Hannu Lehtonen
2017, Fisheries (42) 567-570
Percids play an integral role in food webs and freshwater fisheries of the world. Anthropogenic stressors such as pollution, overfishing, invasive species, and climate change threaten percid diversity and the sustainability of economically important fisher-ies. The International Percid Fish...
Before and after retrofit behavior and performance of a 55-story tall building inferred from distant earthquake and ambient vibration data
Mehmet Celebi, Toshihide Kashima, S. Farid Ghahari, Shin Koyama, Ertuğrul Taciroğlu, Izuru Okawa
2017, Earthquake Spectra (33) 1599-1626
A sparsely instrumented 55-story building in Osaka, Japan had recorded unprecedented, severe and long-duration long-period resonating responses during the March 11, 2011 M9.0 Tohoku earthquake that occurred at 767 km distance. Thereafter, studies of the records resulted in implementation of a significant retrofit design, comprising dampers and buckling restrained braces...
Observationally constrained surface mass balance of Larsen C ice shelf, Antarctica
Peter Kuipers Munneke, Daniel Mcgrath, Brooke Medley, Adrian Luckman, Suzanne Bevan, Bernd Kulessa, Daniela Jansen, Adam Booth, Paul Smeets, B. Hubbard, David Ashmore, Michiel Van den Broeke, Heidi Sevestre, K. Steffen, Andrew Shepard, Noel Gourmelen
2017, The Cryosphere (11) 2411-2426
The surface mass balance (SMB) of the Larsen C ice shelf (LCIS), Antarctica, is poorly constrained due to a dearth of in situ observations. Combining several geophysical techniques, we reconstruct spatial and temporal patterns of SMB over the LCIS. Continuous time series of snow height (2.5–6 years) at five locations allow...
Before and after retrofit behavior and performance of a 55-story tall building inferred from distant earthquake and ambient vibration data
Mehmet Celebi, Toshihide Kashima, S. F. Ghahari, Shin Koyama, Ertugrul Tacirogle, Izuru Okawa
2017, Earthquake Spectra (33) 1599-1626
A sparsely instrumented 55-story building in Osaka, Japan, had recorded unprecedented, severe, and long-duration, long-period resonating responses during the 11 March 2011 M9.0 Tohoku earthquake that occurred at 767 km distance. Thereafter, studies of the records resulted in the implementation of a significant retrofit design, comprising dampers and buckling restrained...
Assessing the risk of non-native marine species in the Bering Sea
Jesika Reimer, Amanda Droghini, Anthony S. Fischbach, Jordan Watson, Bonnie Bernard, Aaron Poe
2017, Report
Invasive species are one of the leading global conservation concerns, which can have strong, negative impacts on ecosystems, vulnerable species, and valuable natural resources. Arctic regions have experienced a relatively low number of biological introductions to date. Their geographical remoteness, cold waters, and presence of sea ice present challenging conditions...
Remote sensing for wetland mapping and historical change detection at the Nisqually River Delta
Laurel Ballanti, Kristin B. Byrd, Isa Woo, Christopher Ellings
2017, Sustainability (9) 1-32
Coastal wetlands are important ecosystems for carbon storage and coastal resilience to climate change and sea-level rise. As such, changes in wetland habitat types can also impact ecosystem functions. Our goal was to quantify historical vegetation change within the Nisqually River watershed relevant to carbon storage, wildlife habitat, and wetland...
Environmental niche models for riverine desert fishes and their similarity according to phylogeny and functionality
James E. Whitney, Joanna B. Whittier, Craig P. Paukert
2017, Ecosphere (8) 1-21
Environmental filtering and competitive exclusion are hypotheses frequently invoked in explaining species' environmental niches (i.e., geographic distributions). A key assumption in both hypotheses is that the functional niche (i.e., species traits) governs the environmental niche, but few studies have rigorously evaluated this assumption. Furthermore, phylogeny could be associated with these...
Geologic road guides for the Southern Canadian Cordillera--Viewing geology and tectonics along major highways
Warren J. Nokleberg, Raymond A. Price
Thomas K. Bundtzen, Warren J. Nokleberg, Raymond A. Price, David W. Scholl, David B. Stone, editor(s)
2017, Book chapter, Dynamic geology of the Northern Cordillera (Alaska and western Canada) and adjacent marine areas: Tectonics, hazards, and resources
The Geologic Road Guides for the Southern Canadian Cordillera provide a layperson’s understanding of the major geologic units and their tectonic origins along portions of two sets of major highways corridors, herein termed the Southern Road Guide and the Northern Road Guide. The two routes are shown on the Southern...
