What determines water temperature dynamics in the San Francisco Bay-Delta system?
Julia Vroom, Mick Van der Wegen, Rosanne C. Martyr-Koller, Lisa Lucas
2017, Water Resources Research (53) 9901-9921
Water temperature is an important factor determining estuarine species habitat conditions. Water temperature is mainly governed by advection (e.g., from rivers) and atmospheric exchange processes varying strongly over time (day-night, seasonally) and the spatial domain. On a long time scale, climate change will impact water temperature in estuarine systems due...
Probing magma reservoirs to improve volcano forecasts
Jacob B. Lowenstern, Thomas W. Sisson, Shaul Hurwitz
2017, Eos, Earth and Space Science News (98)
When it comes to forecasting eruptions, volcano observatories rely mostly on real-time signals from earthquakes, ground deformation, and gas discharge, combined with probabilistic assessments based on past behavior [Sparks and Cashman, 2017]. There is comparatively less reliance on geophysical and petrological understanding of subsurface magma reservoirs....
Relative performance of three stream bed stability indices as indicators of stream health
Paul C Kusnierz, Christopher Holbrook
2017, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (189) 1-10
Bed stability is an important stream habitat attribute because it affects geomorphology and biotic communities. Natural resource managers desire indices of bed stability that can be used under a wide range of geomorphic conditions, are biologically meaningful, and are easily incorporated into sampling protocols. To eliminate potential bias due to...
Evidence for a climate-induced ecohydrological state shift in wetland ecosystems of the southern Prairie Pothole Region
Owen P. McKenna, David M. Mushet, Donald O. Rosenberry, James W. LaBaugh
2017, Climatic Change (145) 273-287
Changing magnitude, frequency, and timing of precipitation can influence aquatic-system hydrological, geochemical, and biological processes, in some cases resulting in system-wide shifts to an alternate state. Since the early 1990s, the southern Prairie Pothole Region has been subjected to an extended period of increased wetness resulting in marked changes to...
Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center—Celebrating 50 years of science
Jane E. Austin, Terry L. Shaffer, Lawrence D. Igl, Douglas H. Johnson, Gary L. Krapu, Diane L. Larson, L. David Mech, David M. Mushet, Marsha A. Sovada
2017, Circular 1434
The Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center (NPWRC) celebrated its 50-year anniversary in 2015. This report is written in support of that observance. We document why and how the NPWRC came to be and describe some of its many accomplishments and the influence the Center’s research program has had on natural...
Near-field receiving water monitoring of trace metals and a benthic community near the Palo Alto Regional Water Quality Control Plant in south San Francisco Bay, California; 2016
Daniel J. Cain, Janet K. Thompson, Francis Parchaso, Sarah A. Pearson, A. Robin Stewart, Mathew Turner, David Barasch, Samuel N. Luoma
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1135
Trace-metal concentrations in sediment and in the clam Macoma petalum (formerly reported as Macoma balthica), clam reproductive activity, and benthic macroinvertebrate community structure were investigated in a mudflat 1 kilometer south of the discharge of the Palo Alto Regional Water Quality Control Plant (PARWQCP) in south San Francisco Bay,...
Was the Mw 7.5 1952 Kern County, California, earthquake induced (or triggered)?
Susan E. Hough, Victor C. Tsai, Robert Walker, Fred Aminzadeh
2017, Journal of Seismology (21) 1613-1621
Several recent studies have presented evidence that significant induced earthquakes occurred in a number of oil-producing regions during the early and mid-twentieth century related to either production or wastewater injection. We consider whether the 21 July 1952 Mw 7.5 Kern County earthquake might have been induced by production in the Wheeler...
Temporal constraints on the potential role of fry odors as cues of past reproductive success for spawning lake trout
Tyler J. Buchinger, J. Ellen Marsden, Thomas R. Binder, Mar Huertas, Ugo Bussy, Ke Li, James E. Hanson, Charles C. Krueger, Weiming Li, Nicholas S. Johnson
2017, Ecology and Evolution (7) 10196-10206
Deciding where to reproduce is a major challenge for most animals. Many select habitats based upon cues of successful reproduction by conspecifics, such as the presence of offspring from past reproductive events. For example, some fishes select spawning habitat following odors released by juveniles whose rearing habitat overlaps with spawning...
Examining the value of global seasonal reference evapotranspiration forecasts to support FEWS NET’s food insecurity outlooks
Shraddhanand Shukla, Daniel McEvoy, Michael Hobbins, Gregory Husak, Justin Huntington, Chris Funk, Denis Macharia, James P. Verdin
2017, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology (56) 2941-2949
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) team provides food insecurity outlooks for several developing countries in Africa, Central Asia, and Central America. This study describes development of a new global reference evapotranspiration (ETo) seasonal reforecast and skill evaluation with a particular emphasis on the potential use of this...
Movements and habitat use of White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons frontalis) during the remigial molt in arctic Alaska, USA
Paul L. Flint, Brandt W. Meixell
2017, Waterbirds (40) 272-281
Proposed oil and gas leasing in the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska has raised questions about possible impacts of development on molting Greater White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons frontalis) and their habitats. We used GPS transmitters to record fine-scale location data of molting and post-molt White-fronted Geese to assess patterns of...
Methods for converting continuous shrubland ecosystem component values to thematic National Land Cover Database classes
Matthew B. Rigge, Leila Gass, Collin G. Homer, George Z. Xian
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1119
The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) provides thematic land cover and land cover change data at 30-meter spatial resolution for the United States. Although the NLCD is considered to be the leading thematic land cover/land use product and overall classification accuracy across the NLCD is high, performance and consistency in...
Hydrogeology and water quality of sand and gravel aquifers in McHenry County, Illinois, 2009–14, and comparison to conditions in 1979
Amy M. Gahala
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5112
Baseline conditions for the sand and gravel aquifers (groundwater) in McHenry County, Illinois, were assessed using data from a countywide network of 44 monitoring wells collecting continuous water-level data from 2009–14. In 2010, water-quality data were collected from 41 of the monitoring wells, along with five additional monitoring wells...
Organizing the pantry: cache management improves quality of overwinter food stores in a montane mammal
Rhiannon P. Jakopak, L. Embere Hall, Anna D. Chalfoun
2017, Journal of Mammalogy (98) 1674-1681
Many mammals create food stores to enhance overwinter survival in seasonal environments. Strategic arrangement of food within caches may facilitate the physical integrity of the cache or improve access to high-quality food to ensure that cached resources meet future nutritional demands. We used the American pika (Ochotona princeps), a food-caching...
Best practices for assessing forage fish fisheries-seabird resource competition
William J. Sydeman, Sarah Ann Thompson, Tycho Anker-Nilssen, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Ashley Bennison, Sophie Bertrand, Philipp Boersch-Supan, Charlotte Boyd, Nicole C. Bransome, Robert J.M. Crawford, Francis Daunt, Robert W. Furness, Dimas Gianuca, Amanda Gladics, Laura Koehn, Jennifer W. Lang, Elizabeth Loggerwell, Taryn L. Morris, Elizabeth M. Phillips, Jennifer Provencher, Andre E. Punt, Claire Saraux, Lynne Shannon, Richard B. Sherley, Alejandro Simeone, Ross M. Wanless, Sarah Wanless, Stephani Zador
2017, Fisheries Research (194) 209-221
Worldwide, in recent years capture fisheries targeting lower-trophic level forage fish and euphausiid crustaceans have been substantial (∼20 million metric tons [MT] annually). Landings of forage species are projected to increase in the future, and this harvest may affect marine ecosystems and predator-prey interactions by removal or redistribution of biomass...
Monitoring eradication of European mouflon sheep from the Kahuku Unit of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park
Seth Judge, Steven C. Hess, Jonathan K. Faford, Dexter Pacheco, Christina Leopold
2017, Pacific Science (71) 425-436
European mouflon (Ovis gmelini musimon), the world's smallest wild sheep, have proliferated and degraded fragile native ecosystems in the Hawaiian Islands through browsing, bark stripping, and trampling, including native forests within Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park (HAVO). HAVO resource managers initiated ungulate control efforts in the 469 km2 Kahuku Unit after it...
Plastic ingestion by Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes from Kure Atoll, Hawai'i: Linking chick diet remains and parental at-sea foraging distributions
K. David Hyrenbach, Michelle M. Hester, Josh Adams, Andrew J. Titmus, Pam Michael, Travis Wahl, Chih-Wei Chang, Amarisa Marie, Cynthia Vanderlip
2017, Marine Ornithology: Journal of Seabird Research and Conservation (45) 225-236
We quantified the incidence (percentage of samples with plastic) and loads (mass, volume) of four plastic types (fragments, line, sheet, foam) ingested by Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes chicks raised on Kure Atoll, the westernmost Hawaiian colony. All 25 samples contained plastic, mostly in the form of foam and line. On...
Implementing Nepal's national building code—A case study in patience and persistence
Lucy Arendt, Ayse Hortacsu, Kishor S. Jaiswal, John Bevington, Surya Shrestha, Forrest Lanning, Garmalia Mentor-William, Ghazala Naeem, Kate Thibert
2017, Earthquake Spectra (33) S167-S183
The April 2015 Gorkha Nepal earthquake revealed the relative effectiveness of the Nepal Standard, or national building code (NBC), and irregular compliance with it in different parts of Nepal. Much of the damage to more than half a million Nepal's residential structures may be attributed to the prevalence of owner-built...
The nexus of fun and nutrition: Recreational fishing is also about food
Steven J. Cooke, William M. Twardek, Robert J. Lennox, Aaron J. Zolderdo, Shannon D. Bower, Lee F. G. Gutowsky, Andy J. Danylchuk, Robert Arlinghaus, Beard Jr.
2017, Fish and Fisheries (19) 2012-224
Recreational fishing is a popular activity in aquatic ecosystems around the globe using a variety of gears including rod and line and to a lesser extent handlines, spears, bow and arrow, traps and nets. Similar to the propensity to engage in voluntary catch-and-release, the propensity to harvest fishes strongly varies...
Where can wolves live and how can we live with them?
L. David Mech
2017, Biological Conservation (210) 310-317
In the contiguous 48 United States, southern Canada, and in Europe, wolves (Canis lupus) have greatly increased and expanded their range during the past few decades.They are prolific, disperse long distances, readily recolonize new areas where humans allow them, and are difficult to control when populations become established.Because wolves originally...
Selective transport of palynomorphs in marine turbiditic deposits: An example from the Ascension-Monterey Canyon system offshore central California
Mary McGann
2017, Quaternary International (469) 120-140
The pollen assemblage of a deep-sea core (15G) collected at lower bathyal depths (3491 m) on a levee of Monterey Canyon off central California was investigated to gain insights into the delivery processes of terrigenous material to submarine fans and the effect this transport has on the palynological record. Thirty-two...
An unparalleled opportunity for an important ecological study
L. David Mech, Shannon Barber-Meyer, Juan Carlos Blanco, Luigi Boitani, Ludwig N. Carbyn, Glenn D. DelGuidice, Steven H. Fritts, Djuro Huber, O. Liberg, Brent Patterson, Richard P. Thiel
2017, BioScience (67) 875-876
Wolves (Canis lupus) and moose (Alces americanus) have been studied since 1958 on 540-square-kilometer Isle Royale National Park, in Lake Superior. Wolves arrived there across the ice around 1949, and the population once increased to about 50, averaging about 25 annually (Mech 1966, Jordan et al. <a class="link...
Applying citizen-science data and mark-recapture models to estimate numbers of migrant golden eagles in an important bird area in eastern North America
Andrew J. Dennhardt, Adam E. Duerr, David Brandes, Todd E. Katzner
2017, The Condor (119) 817-831
Estimates of population abundance are important to wildlife management and conservation. However, it can be difficult to characterize the numbers of broadly distributed, low-density, and elusive bird species. Although Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) are rare, difficult to detect, and broadly distributed, they are concentrated during their autumn migration at monitoring...
Shallow microearthquakes near Chongqing, China triggered by the Rayleigh waves of the 2015 M7.8 Gorkha, Nepal earthquake
Libo Han, Zhigang Peng, Christopher W. Johnson, Frederick Pollitz, Lu Li, Baoshan Wang, Jing Wu, Qiang Li, Hongmei Wei
2017, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (479) 231-240
We present a case of remotely triggered seismicity in Southwest China by the 2015/04/25 M7.8 Gorkha, Nepal earthquake. A local magnitude ML3.8 event occurred near the Qijiang district south of Chongqing city approximately 12 min after the Gorkha mainshock. Within 30km of this ML3.8 event there are 62 earthquakes since...
Delayed seismicity rate changes controlled by static stress transfer
Kayla A. Kroll, Keith B. Richards-Dinger, James H. Dieterich, Elizabeth S. Cochran
2017, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (122) 7951-7965
On 15 June 2010, a Mw5.7 earthquake occurred near Ocotillo, California, in the Yuha Desert. This event was the largest aftershock of the 4 April 2010 Mw7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah (EMC) earthquake in this region. The EMC mainshock and subsequent Ocotillo aftershock provide an opportunity to test the Coulomb failure hypothesis (CFS). We...
Strong SH-to-Love wave scattering off the Southern California Continental Borderland
Chunquan Yu, Zhongwen Zhan, Egill Hauksson, Elizabeth S. Cochran
2017, Geophysical Research Letters (44) 10208-10215
Seismic scattering is commonly observed and results from wave propagation in heterogeneous medium. Yet, deterministic characterization of scatterers associated with lateral heterogeneities remains challenging. In this study, we analyze broadband waveforms recorded by the Southern California Seismic Network and observe strongly scattered Love waves following the arrival of teleseismic SH...
