Assessment of critical minerals: Updated application of an early-warning screening methodology
Erin A. McCullough, Nedal Nassar
2017, Mineral Economics (30) 257-272
Increasing reliance on non-renewable mineral resources reinforces the need for identifying potential supply constraints before they occur. The US National Science and Technology Council recently released a report that outlines a methodology for screening potentially critical minerals based on three indicators: supply risk (R), production growth (<i class="EmphasisTypeItalic...
Measuring the role of seagrasses in regulating sediment surface elevation
Maria Potouroglou, James C. Bull, Ken W. Krauss, Hilary A. Kennedy, Marco Fusi, Daniele Daffonchio, Mwita M. Mangora, Michael N. Githaiga, Karen Diele, Mark Huxham
2017, Scientific Reports (7)
Seagrass meadows provide numerous ecosystem services and their rapid global loss may reduce human welfare as well as ecological integrity. In common with the other ‘blue carbon’ habitats (mangroves and tidal marshes) seagrasses are thought to provide coastal defence and encourage sediment stabilisation and surface elevation. A sophisticated understanding of...
Annual estimates of recharge, quick-flow runoff, and ET for the contiguous U.S. using empirical regression equations
Meredith Reitz, Ward E. Sanford, Gabriel B. Senay, J. Cazenas
2017, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (53) 961-983
This study presents new data-driven, annual estimates of the division of precipitation into the recharge, quick-flow runoff, and evapotranspiration (ET) water budget components for 2000-2013 for the contiguous United States (CONUS). The algorithms used to produce these maps ensure water budget consistency over this broad spatial scale, with contributions from...
Pitted terrains on (1) Ceres and implications for shallow subsurface volatile distribution
H.G. Sizemore, Thomas Platz, Norbert Schorghofer, Thomas Prettyman, Maria Christina De Sanctis, David A. Crown, Nico Schmedemann, Andeas Nessemann, Thomas Kneissl, Simone Marchi, Paul M. Schenk, Michael T. Bland, B.E. Schmidt, Kynan H.G. Hughson, F. Tosi, F Zambon, S.C. Mest, R.A. Yingst, D.A. Williams, C.T. Russell, C.A. Raymond
2017, Geophysical Research Letters (44) 6570-6578
Prior to the arrival of the Dawn spacecraft at Ceres, the dwarf planet was anticipated to be ice-rich. Searches for morphological features related to ice have been ongoing during Dawn's mission at Ceres. Here we report the identification of pitted terrains associated with fresh Cerean impact craters. The Cerean pitted...
Multiple-source tracking: Investigating sources of pathogens, nutrients, and sediment in the Upper Little River Basin, Kentucky, water years 2013–14
Angela S. Crain, Mac A. Cherry, Tanja N. Williamson, Aubrey R. Bunch
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5086
The South Fork Little River (SFLR) and the North Fork Little River (NFLR) are two major headwater tributaries that flow into the Little River just south of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Both tributaries are included in those water bodies in Kentucky and across the Nation that have been reported with declining water...
Restoring tides to reduce methane emissions in impounded wetlands: A new and potent Blue Carbon climate change intervention
Kevin D. Kroeger, Stephen Crooks, Serena Moseman-Valtierra, Jianwu Tang
2017, Scientific Reports (7)
Coastal wetlands are sites of rapid carbon (C) sequestration and contain large soil C stocks. Thus, there is increasing interest in those ecosystems as sites for anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission offset projects (sometimes referred to as “Blue Carbon”), through preservation of existing C stocks or creation of new wetlands to...
Ancient lakes, Pleistocene climates and river avulsions structure the phylogeography of a large but little-known rock scorpion from the Mojave and Sonoran deserts
Matthew R. Graham, Dustin A. Wood, Jonathan A. Henault, Zachary J. Valois, Paula E. Cushing
2017, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (122) 133-146
Recent syntheses of phylogeographical data from terrestrial animals in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts have revealed a complex history of geologic and climatic vicariance events. We studied the phylogeography of Smeringurus vachoni to see how vicariance events may have impacted a large, endemic rock scorpion. Additionally, we used the phylogeographical data to...
Isolation and characterization of the fall Chinook aquareovirus
Negar Makhsous, Nicole L. Jensen, Katherine H. Haman, William N. Batts, Keith R. Jerome, James Winton, Alexander L. Greninger
2017, Virology Journal (14) 1-7
BackgroundSalmon are paramount to the economy, ecology, and history of the Pacific Northwest. Viruses constitute one of the major threats to salmon health and well-being, with more than twenty known virus species that infect salmon. Here, we describe the isolation and characterization of the fall...
Nitrate reduction mechanisms and rates in an unconfined eogenetic karst aquifer in two sites with different redox potential
Wesley R. Henson, Laibin Huang, Wendy D. Graham, Andrew Ogram
2017, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (122) 1062-1077
This study integrates push-pull tracer tests (PPTT) with microbial characterization of extracted water via quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and reverse transcriptase qPCR (RT-qPCR) of selected functional N transformation genes to quantify nitrate reduction mechanisms and rates in sites with different redox potential in a karst aquifer. PPTT treatments with...
Facultative parasitism by the bivalve Kurtiella pedroana in the sand crab Emerita analoga
Ritin Bhaduri, Paul Valentich-Scott, Mark Hilgers, Rajvir Singh, Mikaila Hickman, Kevin D. Lafferty
2017, Journal of Parasitology (103) 646-651
It is rare that an organism capable of independent or commensalistic existence can also become endoparasitic on a host. In this study, we documented a potential step toward parasitism in the commensal clam Kurtiella pedroana (Bivalvia: Galeommatoidea). Galeommatoideans are known commensals of various invertebrates, including crustaceans. Emerita analoga (Decapoda: Hippidae)...
Standardization and application of an index of community integrity for waterbirds in the Chesapeake Bay, USA
Diann J. Prosser, Jessica L. Nagel, Paul Marban, Luo Ze, Daniel D. Day, R. Michael Erwin
2017, Waterbirds (40) 233-251
In recent decades, there has been increasing interest in the application of ecological indices to assess ecosystem condition in response to anthropogenic activities. An Index of Waterbird Community Integrity was previously developed for the Chesapeake Bay, USA. However, the scoring criteria were not defined well enough to generate scores for...
Food abundance, prey morphology, and diet specialization influence individual sea otter tool use
Jessica A. Fujii, Katherine Ralls, M. Tim Tinker
2017, Behavioral Ecology (28) 1206-1216
Sea otters are well-known tool users, employing objects such as rocks or shells to break open invertebrate prey. We used a series of generalized linear mixed effect models to examine observational data on prey capture and tool use from 211 tagged individuals from 5 geographically defined study areas throughout the...
What mediates tree mortality during drought in the southern Sierra Nevada?
Tarin Paz-Kagan, Philip Brodrick, Nicholas R. Vaughn, Adrian J. Das, Nathan L. Stephenson, Koren R. Nydick, Gregory P. Asner
2017, Ecological Applications (27) 2443-2457
Severe drought has the potential to cause selective mortality within a forest, thereby inducing shifts in forest species composition. The southern Sierra Nevada foothills and mountains of California have experienced extensive forest dieback due to drought stress and insect outbreak. We used high-fidelity imaging spectroscopy (HiFIS) and light detection and...
Water-level trends and potentiometric surfaces in the Nacatoch Aquifer in northeastern and southwestern Arkansas and in the Tokio Aquifer in southwestern Arkansas, 2014–15
Kirk D. Rodgers
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5090
The Nacatoch Sand in northeastern and southwestern Arkansas and the Tokio Formation in southwestern Arkansas are sources of groundwater for agricultural, domestic, industrial, and public use. Water-level altitudes measured in 51 wells completed in the Nacatoch Sand and 42 wells completed in the Tokio Formation during 2014 and 2015 were used...
A record of change - Science and elder observations on the Navajo Nation
Margaret M. Hiza-Redsteer, Stephen M. Wessells
2017, General Information Product 181
A Record of Change - Science and Elder Observations on the Navajo Nation is a 25-minute documentary about combining observations from Navajo elders with conventional science to determine how tribal lands and culture are affected by climate change. On the Navajo Nation, there is a shortage of historical climate data,...
The Great Acceleration and the disappearing surficial geologic record
Jason A. Rech, Kathleen B. Springer, Jeffrey S. Pigati
2017, GSA Today (27) 8-9
The surficial geologic record is the relatively thin veneer of young (<~1 Ma) and mostly unconsolidated sediments that cover portions of Earth’s terrestrial surface (Fig. 1). Once largely ignored as “overburden” by geologists, surficial deposits are now studied to address a wide range of issues related to the sustainability of...
Monarch butterfly population decline in North America: identifying the threatening processes
Wayne E. Thogmartin, Ruscena Wiederholt, Karen Oberhauser, Ryan G. Drum, Jay E. Diffendorfer, Sonia Altizer, Orley R. Taylor, John M. Pleasants, Darius J. Semmens, Brice X. Semmens, Richard A. Erickson, Kaitlin Libby, Laura Lopez-Hoffman
2017, Royal Society Open Science (4)
The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) population in North America has sharply declined over the last two decades. Despite rising concern over the monarch butterfly's status, no comprehensive study of the factors driving this decline has been conducted. Using partial least-squares regressions and time-series analysis, we investigated climatic and habitat-related factors...
Assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the Lower Indus Basin, Pakistan, 2017
Christopher J. Schenk, Marilyn E. Tennyson, Timothy R. Klett, Thomas M. Finn, Tracey J. Mercier, Stephanie B. Gaswirth, Kristen R. Marra, Phuong A. Le, Sarah J. Hawkins, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3034
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean undiscovered, technically recoverable resources of 164 million barrels of oil and 24.6 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Lower Indus Basin, Pakistan....
The extremely divergent maternally- and paternally-transmitted mitochondrial genomes are co-expressed in somatic tissues of two freshwater mussel species with doubly uniparental inheritance of mtDNA
Sophie Breton, Karim Bouvet, Gabrielle Auclair, Stephanie Ghazal, Bernard E. Sietman, Nathan A. Johnson, Stefano Bettinazzi, Donald T. Dtewart, Davide Guerra
2017, PLoS ONE (12) 1-13
Freshwater mussel species with doubly uniparental inheritance (DUI) of mtDNA are unique because they are naturally heteroplasmic for two extremely divergent mtDNAs with ~50% amino acid differences for protein-coding genes. The paternally-transmitted mtDNA (or M mtDNA) clearly functions in sperm in these species, but it is still unknown whether it...
The land-sea interface: A source of high-quality phytoplankton to support secondary production
Monika Winder, Jacob Carstensen, Aaron W.E. Galloway, Hans H. Jakobsen, James E. Cloern
2017, Limnology and Oceanography (62) S258-S271
Coastal-estuarine systems are among the most productive marine ecosystems and their special role in producing harvestable fish and shellfish has been attributed to high primary production fueled by nutrient runoff from land and efficient trophic transfer. Here we ask if phytoplankton species composition and their food quality based on the percentage of long-chain...
Geospatial tools effectively estimate nonexceedance probabilities of daily streamflow at ungauged and intermittently gauged locations in Ohio
William H. Farmer, G. F. Koltun
2017, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies (13) 208-221
Study regionThe state of Ohio in the United States, a humid, continental climate.Study focusThe estimation of nonexceedance probabilities of daily streamflows as an alternative means of establishing the relative magnitudes of streamflows associated with hydrologic and water-quality observations.New hydrological insights for the regionSeveral methods...
Characterizing Golden Eagle risk to lead and anticoagulant rodenticide exposure: A review
Garth Herring, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Jeremy A. Buck
2017, Journal of Raptor Research (51) 273-292
Contaminant exposure is among the many threats to Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) populations throughout North America, particularly lead poisoning and anticoagulant rodenticides (AR). These threats may act in concert with others (e.g., lead poisoning and trauma associated with striking objects) to exacerbate risk. Golden Eagles are skilled hunters but also...
Fatal attraction? Intraguild facilitation and suppression among predators
Kelly J. Sivy, Casey B. Pozzanghera, James B. Grace, Laura R. Prugh
2017, The American Naturalist (190) 663-679
Competition and suppression are recognized as dominant forces that structure predator communities. Facilitation via carrion provisioning, however, is a ubiquitous interaction among predators that could offset the strength of suppression. Understanding the relative importance of these positive and negative interactions is necessary to anticipate community-wide responses to apex predator declines...
Morphologic evolution of the wilderness area breach at Fire Island, New York—2012–15
Cheryl J. Hapke, Timothy R. Nelson, Rachel E. Henderson, Owen T. Brenner, Jennifer L. Miselis
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1116
IntroductionHurricane Sandy, which made landfall on October 29, 2012, near Atlantic City, New Jersey, had a significant impact on the coastal system along the south shore of Long Island, New York. A record significant wave height of 9.6 meters (m) was measured at wave buoy 44025, approximately 48...
Seasonality of intraspecific mortality by gray wolves
L. David Mech, Shannon Barber-Meyer
2017, Journal of Mammalogy (98) 1538-1546
Of 41 adult wolf-killed gray wolves (Canis lupus) and 10 probably or possibly killed by wolves from 1968 through 2014 in the Superior National Forest (SNF) in northeastern Minnesota, most were killed in months leading up to and immediately following the breeding season, which was primarily February. This finding is...
