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We develop a crustal deformation model to determine fault‐slip rates for the western United States (WUS) using the Zeng and Shen (2014) method that is based on a combined inversion of Global Positioning System (GPS) velocities and geological slip‐rate constraints. The model consists of six blocks with...

Deformed wing virus (DWV) is a major pathogen of concern to apiculture, and recent reports have indicated the local predominance and potential virulence of recombinants between DWV and a related virus, Varroa destructor virus 1 (VDV). However, little is known about the frequency and titer of VDV and recombinants relative...

Earthquake-induced landslide (EQIL) inventories are essential tools to extend our knowledge of the relationship between earthquakes and the landslides they can trigger. Regrettably, such inventories are difficult to generate and therefore scarce, and the available ones differ in terms of their quality and level of completeness. Moreover, access to existing...

Stormwater runoff and associated pollutants from urban areas in the greater Chesapeake Bay Watershed (CBW) impair local streams and downstream ecosystems, despite urbanized land comprising only 7% of the CBW area. More recently, stormwater best management practices (BMPs) have been implemented in a low impact development (LID) manner to treat...

The term resilience describes stress–response patterns across scientific disciplines. In ecology, advances have been made to clearly define resilience based on underlying mechanistic assumptions. Engineering resilience (rebound) is used to describe the ability of organisms to recover from adverse conditions (disturbances), which is termed the rate of recovery. By contrast,...

Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) populations in the western United States provide many benefits to local economies but can also cause considerable damage to agriculture, particularly damage to lucrative crops. Limited information exists to understand resource selection of mule deer in response to annual variation in crop rotation and climatic conditions....

Quantifying the frequency, duration, and elevation range of fog or cloud immersion is essential to estimate cloud water deposition in water budgets and to understand the ecohydrology of cloud forests. The goal of this study was to develop a low-cost and high spatial-coverage method to detect occurrence of cloud immersion...

Multibeam acoustic backscatter has considerable utility for remote characterization of spatially heterogeneous bed sediment composition over vegetated and unvegetated riverbeds of mixed sand and gravel. However, the use of high-frequency, decimeter-resolution acoustic backscatter for sediment classification in shallow water is hampered by significant topographic contamination of the signal. In mixed...

Here we explore the potential of spring-related, surface and subsurface carbonates as an archive of paleoenvironmental change at Barrancas Blancas, located in the broadest and driest sector of the Atacama Desert at 24.5°S. From these deposits we present a new stable isotopic record of paleoenvironmental conditions over portions of the...

The conservation of many wildlife species requires understanding the demographic effects of climate change, including interactions between climate change and harvest, which can provide cultural, nutritional or economic value to humans.We present a demographic model that is based on the polar bear Ursus maritimus life cycle and includes density-dependent...

The Mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus) is classified as a Species of Greatest Conservation Need by the state of Vermont. There is concern regarding status of populations in the Lake Champlain basin because of habitat alteration and potential effects of 3-trifluromethyl-4-nitrophenol (TFM), a chemical used to control Sea Lamprey (Petromyzon marinus). The...

We developed a foraging model for young fishes that incorporates handling and digestion rate to estimate daily food consumption. Feeding trials were used to quantify functional feeding response, satiation, and gut evacuation rate. Once parameterized, the foraging model was then applied to evaluate effects of prey type, prey density, water...

Chronic wasting disease is a fatal, neurological disease caused by an infectious prion protein, which affects economically and ecologically important members of the family Cervidae. Single nucleotide polymorphisms within the prion protein gene have been linked to differential susceptibility to the disease in many species. Wildlife managers are seeking to...

Understanding the speciation of divalent mercury (Hg(II)) in aquatic systems containing dissolved organic matter (DOM) and sulfide is necessary to predict the conversion of Hg(II) to bioavailable methylmercury. We used X-ray absorption spectroscopy to characterize the structural order of mercury in Hg(II)–DOM–sulfide systems for a range of sulfide concentration (1–100...

Groundwater pumping for agriculture is a major driver causing declines of global freshwater ecosystems, yet the ecological consequences for stream fish assemblages are rarely quantified. We combined retrospective (1950–2010) and prospective (2011–2060) modeling approaches within a multiscale framework to predict change in Great Plains stream fish assemblages associated with groundwater...

Climate change has already influenced lake temperatures globally, but understanding future change is challenging. The response of lakes to changing climate drivers is complex due to the nature of lake-atmosphere coupling, ice cover, and stratification. To better understand the diversity of lake responses to climate change and give managers insight...

Responses in lake temperatures to climate warming have primarily been characterized using seasonal metrics of surface-water temperatures such as summertime or stratified period average temperatures. However, climate warming may not affect water temperatures equally across seasons or depths. We analyzed a long-term dataset (1981–2015) of biweekly water temperature data in...

The timescales of magma genesis, ascent, storage and degassing at Kīlauea volcano, Hawai‘i are addressed by measuring 238U-series radionuclide abundances in lava and tephra erupted between 1982 and 2008. Most analyzed samples represent lavas erupted by steady effusion from Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō and Kūpahianaha from 1983 to 2008. Also included are samples...

Experimental studies evaluating the effects of food availability on the movement of free-ranging animals generally involve food supplementation rather than suppression. Both approaches can yield similar insights, but we were interested in the potential for using food suppression for the management and control of invasive predators, in particular, the brown...

Nutritional ecology forms the interface between environmental variability and large herbivore behaviour, life history characteristics, and population dynamics. Forage conditions in arid and semi-arid regions are driven by unpredictable spatial and temporal patterns in rainfall. Diet selection by herbivores should be directed towards overcoming the most pressing nutritional limitation (i.e....

If animals are independently detected during surveys, many methods exist for estimating animal abundance despite detection probabilities <1. Common estimators include double-observer models, distance sampling models and combined double-observer and distance sampling models (known as mark-recapture-distance-sampling models; MRDS). When animals reside in groups, however, the assumption of independent detection is...

We investigate the scientific and communicative value of time-lapse imagery by exploring applications for data collection and visualization. Time-lapse imagery has a myriad of possible applications to study and depict ecosystems and can operate at unique temporal and spatial scales to bridge the gap between large-scale satellite imagery projects and...

The philosopher John Passmore distinguished between (1) “problems in ecology,” or what we might call problems in scientific understanding of ecological change, and (2) “ecological problems,” or what we might call problems faced by societies due to ecological change. The spread of eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana) and conversion of the...

We know little about the breeding behavior of most nocturnal raptors. Nest attendance and prey delivery rates can be used as indices of relative habitat quality or extent of parental care. We used video cameras to document and observe prey delivery rates, nest attendance and bout durations at two northern...

Research focusing on biodiversity responses to the interactions of ecosystem size and anthropogenic stressors are based mainly on correlative gradient studies, and may therefore confound size-stress relationships due to spatial context and differences in local habitat features across ecosystems. We investigated how local factors related to anthropogenic stressors (e.g.,eutrophication) interact...