Use of spatial capture–recapture to estimate density of Andean bears in northern Ecuador
Santiago Molina, Angela K. Fuller, Dana J. Morin, J. Andrew Royle
2017, Ursus (28) 117-126
The Andean bear (Tremarctos ornatus) is the only extant species of bear in South America and is considered threatened across its range and endangered in Ecuador. Habitat loss and fragmentation is considered a critical threat to the species, and there is a lack of knowledge regarding its distribution and abundance....
Gradients in Catostomid assemblages along a reservoir cascade
Leandro E. Miranda, Kevin R. Keretz, Chelsea R. Gilliland
2017, River Research and Applications (33) 983-990
Serial impoundment of major rivers leads to alterations of natural flow dynamics and disrupts longitudinal connectivity. Catostomid fishes (suckers, family Catostomidae) are typically found in riverine or backwater habitats yet are able to persist in impounded river systems. To the detriment of conservation, there is limited information about distribution of...
Estimating ages of Utah chubs by use of pectoral fin rays, otoliths, and scales
Kayla M Griffin, Zachary S. Beard, John M. Flinders, Michael C. Quist
2017, Western North American Naturalist (77) 189-194
Utah chub Gila atraria is native to the Upper Snake River system in Wyoming and Idaho and to the Lake Bonneville Basin in Utah and southeastern Idaho. However, the Utah chub has been introduced into many other waterbodies in the western United States, where it competes with ecologically and economically important species....
Diet composition of age-0 fishes in created habitats of the Lower Missouri River
Trevor A. Starks, James M. Long
2017, The American Midland Naturalist (178) 112-122
Channelization of the Missouri River has greatly reduced the availability of shallow water habitats used by many larval and juvenile fishes and contributed to imperilment of floodplain-dependent biota. Creation of small side channels, or chutes, is being used to restore shallow water habitat and reverse negative environmental effects associated with...
Physical response of a back-barrier estuary to a post-tropical cyclone
Alexis Beudin, Neil Kamal Ganju, Zafer Defne, Alfredo Aretxabaleta
2017, Journal of Geophysical Research C: Oceans (122) 5888-5904
This paper presents a modeling investigation of the hydrodynamic and sediment transport response of Chincoteague Bay (VA/MD, USA) to Hurricane Sandy using the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere-Wave-Sediment-Transport (COAWST) modeling system. Several simulation scenarios with different combinations of remote and local forces were conducted to identify the dominant physical processes. While 80% of...
Autonomous acoustic recorders reveal complex patterns in avian detection probability
Sarah J. Thompson, Colleen M. Handel, Lance B. McNew
2017, Journal of Wildlife Management (81) 1228-1241
Avian point‐count surveys are typically designed to occur during periods when birds are consistently active and singing, but seasonal and diurnal patterns of detection probability are often not well understood and may vary regionally or between years. We deployed autonomous acoustic recorders to assess how avian availability for detection (i.e.,...
10Be dating of late Pleistocene megafloods and Cordilleran Ice Sheet retreat in the northwestern United States
Andrea M. Balbas, Aaron M. Barth, Peter U. Clark, Jorie Clark, Marc A. Caffee, Jim E. O'Connor, Victor R. Baker, Kevin Konrad, Bruce Bjornstad
2017, Geology (45) 583-586
During the late Pleistocene, multiple floods from drainage of glacial Lake Missoula further eroded a vast anastomosing network of bedrock channels, coulees, and cataracts, forming the Channeled Scabland of eastern Washington State (United States). However, the timing and exact pathways of these Missoula floods remain poorly constrained, thereby limiting our...
A new species of freshwater eel-tailed catfish of the genus Tandanus (Teleostei: Plotosidae) from coastal rivers of mid-northern New South Wales, Australia
Stuart A. Welsh, Dean R. Jerry, Damien Burrows, Meaghan L. Rourke
2017, Copeia (105) 229-236
Tandanus bellingerensis, new species, is described based on specimens from four river drainages (Bellinger, Macleay, Hastings, and Manning rivers) of the mid-northern coast of New South Wales, Australia. Previously, three species were recognized in the genus Tandanus: T. tropicanus of the wet tropics region of northeast Queensland, T. tandanus of the Murray-Darling drainage and coastal...
Decadal declines in avian herbivore reproduction: density-dependent nutrition and phenological mismatch in the Arctic
Megan V. Ross, Ray T. Alisaukas, David C. Douglas, Dana K. Kellett
2017, Ecology (98) 1869-1883
A full understanding of population dynamics depends not only on estimation of mechanistic contributions of recruitment and survival, but also knowledge about the ecological processes that drive each of these vital rates. The process of recruitment in particular may be protracted over several years, and can depend on numerous ecological...
A proposal for amending administrative law to facilitate adaptive management
Robin K. Craig, J.B. Ruhl, Ellie Brown, Byron K. Williams
2017, Environmental Research Letters (12) 1-17
In this article we examine how federal agencies use adaptive management. In order for federal agencies to implement adaptive management more successfully, administrative law must adapt to adaptive management, and we propose changes in administrative law that will help to steer the current process out of a dead end. Adaptive...
Heat as a groundwater tracer in shallow and deep heterogeneous media: Analytical solution, spreadsheet tool, and field applications
Barret L. Kurylyk, Dylan J. Irvine, Sean K. Carey, Martin A. Briggs, Dale D. Werkema, Mariah Bonham
2017, Hydrological Processes (31) 2648-2661
Groundwater flow advects heat, and thus, the deviation of subsurface temperatures from an expected conduction‐dominated regime can be analysed to estimate vertical water fluxes. A number of analytical approaches have been proposed for using heat as a groundwater tracer, and these have typically assumed a homogeneous medium. However, heterogeneous thermal...
The interacting roles of climate, soils, and plant production on soil microbial communities at a continental scale
Mark P. Waldrop, JoAnn M. Holloway, David B. Smith, Martin B. Goldhaber, R. E. Drenovsky, K. M. Scow, R. Dick, Daniel M. Howard, Bruce K. Wylie, James B. Grace
2017, Ecology (98) 1957-1967
Soil microbial communities control critical ecosystem processes such as decomposition, nutrient cycling, and soil organic matter formation. Continental scale patterns in the composition and functioning of microbial communities are related to climatic, biotic, and edaphic factors such as temperature and precipitation, plant community composition, and soil carbon, nitrogen, and pH....
Evaluating population expansion of black bears using spatial capture-recapture
Catherine C. Sun, Angela K. Fuller, Matthew P. Hare, Jeremy E. Hurst
2017, Journal of Wildlife Management (81) 814-823
The population of American black bears (Ursus americanus) in southern New York, USA has been growing and expanding in range since the 1990s. This has motivated a need to anticipate future patterns of range expansion. We conducted a non-invasive, genetic, spatial capture-recapture (SCR) study to estimate black bear density and...
Puffins reveal contrasting relationships between forage fish and ocean climate in the North Pacific
William J. Sydeman, John F. Piatt, Sarah Ann Thompson, Marisol Garcia-Reyes, Scott A. Hatch, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Leslie Slater, Jeffrey C. Williams, Nora A. Rojek, Stephani G. Zador, Heather M. Renner
2017, Fisheries Oceanography (26) 379-395
Long-term studies of predator food habits (i.e., ‘predator-based sampling’) are useful for identifying patterns of spatial and temporal variability of forage nekton in marine ecosystems. We investigated temporal changes in forage fish availability and relationships to ocean climate by analyzing diet composition of three puffin species (horned puffin Fratercula corniculata, tufted...
Geomorphology of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko
Samuel P. D. Birch, Y. Tang, A. G. Hayes, Randolph L. Kirk, D. Bodewitz, H. Campins, Y. Fernandez, R. de Freitas Bart, N. W. Kutsop, H. Sierks, J. M. Soderblom, S. W. Squyres, J.-B. Vincent
2017, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (469) S50-S67
We present a global geomorphological map of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P/C-G) using data acquired by the Rosetta Orbiter’s OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera. The images used in our study were acquired between 2014 August and 2015 May, before 67P/C-G passed through perihelion. Imagery of the Southern hemisphere was included in our study, allowing us...
Landform features and seasonal precipitation predict shallow groundwater influence on temperature in headwater streams
Zachary C. Johnson, Craig D. Snyder, Nathaniel P. Hitt
2017, Water Resources Research (53) 5788-5812
Headwater stream responses to climate change will depend in part on groundwater‐surface water exchanges. We used linear modeling techniques to partition likely effects of shallow groundwater seepage and air temperature on stream temperatures for 79 sites in nine focal watersheds using hourly air and water temperature measurements collected during summer...
Grassland bird productivity in warm season grass fields in southwest Wisconsin
Carolyn M. Byers, Christine Ribic, David W. Sample, John D. Dadisman, Michael Guttery
2017, The American Midland Naturalist (178) 47-63
Surrogate grasslands established through federal set-aside programs, such as U.S. Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), provide important habitat for grassland birds. Warm season grass CRP fields as a group have the potential for providing a continuum of habitat structure for breeding birds, depending on how the fields are...
Population dynamics of brown trout (Salmo trutta) in Spruce Creek Pennsylvania: A quarter-century perspective
Gary D. Grossman, Robert F. Carline, Tyler Wagner
2017, Freshwater Biology (62) 1143-1154
We examined the relationship between density-independent and density-dependent factors on the demography of a dense, relatively unexploited population of brown trout in Spruce Creek Pennsylvania between 1985 and 2011.Individual PCAs of flow and temperature data elucidated groups of years with multiple high flow versus multiple low flow...
Seasonal movements and multiscale habitat selection of Whooping Crane (Grus americana) in natural and agricultural wetlands
Bradley A. Pickens, Sammy L. King, Phillip L. Vasseur, Sara E. Zimorski, Will Selman
2017, Waterbirds (40) 322-333
Eleven of 15 species of cranes (family: Gruidae) are considered vulnerable or endangered, and the increase of agriculture and aquaculture at the expense of natural wetlands and grasslands is a threat to Gruidae worldwide. A reintroduced population of Whooping Crane (Grus americana) was studied in coastal and agricultural wetlands of...
Lake nutrient stoichiometry is less predictable than nutrient concentrations at regional and sub-continental scales
Sarah M. Collins, Samantha K. Oliver, Jean-Francois Lapierre, Emily H. Stanley, John R. Jones, Tyler Wagner, Patricia A. Soranno
2017, Ecological Applications (27) 1529-1540
Production in many ecosystems is co-limited by multiple elements. While a known suite of drivers associated with nutrient sources, nutrient transport, and internal processing controls concentrations of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) in lakes, much less is known about whether the drivers of single nutrient concentrations can also explain spatial...
Monitoring water content dynamics of biological soil crusts
Michael H. Young, Lynn F. Fenstermaker, Jayne Belnap
2017, Journal of Arid Environments (142) 41-49
Biological soil crusts (hereafter, “biocrusts”) dominate soil surfaces in nearly all dryland environments. To better understand the influence of water content on carbon (C) exchange, we assessed the ability of dual-probe heat-pulse (DPHP) sensors, installed vertically and angled, to measure changes in near-surface water content. Four DPHP sensors were installed...
Microbial-sized, carboxylate-modified microspheres as surrogate tracers in a variety of subsurface environments: An overview
Ronald W. Harvey, David W. Metge, Denis R. LeBlanc
2017, Procedia Earth and Planetary Science (17) 372-375
Since 1986, fluorescent carboxylate-modified polystyrene/latex microspheres (FCM) have been co-injected into aquifers along with conservative tracers and viruses, bacteria, and (or) protozoa. Use of FCM has resulted in new information about subsurface transport behaviors of microorganisms in fractured crystalline rock, karst limestone, soils, and granular aquifers. FCM have been used...
Yellowstone grizzly bears: Ecology and conservation of an icon of wildness
P.J. White, Kerry A. Gunther, Frank T. van Manen, editor(s)
2017, Book
No abstract available....
Response of deep groundwater to land use change in desert basins of the Trans-Pecos region, Texas, USA: Effects on infiltration, recharge, and nitrogen fluxes
Wendy Marie Robertson, J.K. Bohlke, John M. Sharp
2017, Hydrological Processes (31) 2349-2364
Quantifying the effects of anthropogenic processes on groundwater in arid regions can be complicated by thick unsaturated zones with long transit times. Human activities can alter water and nutrient fluxes, but their impact on groundwater is not always clear. This study of basins in the Trans-Pecos region of Texas links...
Tracking the fate of nitrate through pulse-flow wetlands: A mesocosm scale 15N enrichment tracer study
Tiffany L. Messer, Michael R. Burchell, J.K. Bohlke, Craig R. Tobias
2017, Ecological Engineering (106) 597-608
Quantitative information about the fate of applied nitrate (NO3-N) in pulse-flow constructed wetlands is essential for designing wetland treatment systems and assessing their nitrogen removal services for agricultural and stormwater applications. Although many studies have documented NO3-N losses in wetlands, controlled experiments indicating the relative importance of different processes and...
