Visitation to national parks in California shows annual and seasonal change during extreme drought and wet years
Jeffrey S. Jenkins, John T. Abatzoglou, Emily J. Wilkins, Elizabeth E. Perry
2023, PLOS Climate (2)
This study examines the influence of drought indicators on recreational visitation patterns to National Park Service units in California (USA) from 1980 to 2019. We considered mountain, arid, and coastal park types across a climate gradient where seasonal recreational opportunities are directly or indirectly dependent on water resources. Significant departures...
Predicting water quality in the Clark Fork near Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site, southwestern Montana
Christopher A. Ellison
2023, Fact Sheet 2023-3032
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provides a wide range of streamflow, groundwater, and water-quality data to Government, commercial, academic, and public users. The USGS has a record of success with using optical turbidity sensors to predict suspended-sediment concentrations in rivers and streams. Turbidity sensors collect backscatter signals from suspended particles...
SaTSeaD: Satellite Triangulated Sea Depth open-source bathymetry module for NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline
Monica Palaseanu-Lovejoy, Oleg Alexandrov, Jeffrey J. Danielson, Curt D. Storlazzi
2023, Remote Sensing (15)
We developed the first-ever bathymetric module for the NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline (ASP) open-source topographic software called Satellite Triangulated Sea Depth, or SaTSeaD, to derive nearshore bathymetry from stereo imagery. Correct bathymetry measurements depend on water surface elevation, and whereas previous methods considered the water surface horizontal, our bathymetric...
Functional gene composition and metabolic potential of deep-sea coral-associated microbial communities
Zoe A. Pratte, Frank J. Stewart, Christina A. Kellogg
2023, Coral Reefs (42) 1011-1023
Over the past decade, an abundance of 16S rRNA gene surveys have provided microbiologists with data regarding the prokaryotes present in a coral-associated microbial community. Functional gene studies that provide information regarding what those microbes might do are fewer, particularly for non-tropical corals. Using the GeoChip...
Bighorn sheep associations: Understanding tradeoffs of sociality and implications for disease transmission
Marie Tosa, Mark Biel, Tabitha A. Graves
2023, PeerJ (11)
Sociality directly influences mating success, survival rates, and disease, but ultimately likely evolved for its fitness benefits in a challenging environment. The tradeoffs between the costs and benefits of sociality can operate at multiple scales, resulting in different interpretations of animal behavior. We investigated the influence of intrinsic (e.g., relatedness,...
Salinization and sedimentation drive contrasting assembly mechanisms of planktonic and sediment-bound bacterial communities in agricultural streams
Stephen E. DeVilbiss, Jason M. Taylor, Matthew B. Hicks
2023, Global Change Biology (29) 5615-5633
Agriculture is the most dominant land use globally and is projected to increase in the future to support a growing human population but also threatens ecosystem structure and services. Bacteria mediate numerous biogeochemical pathways within ecosystems. Therefore, identifying linkages between stressors associated with agricultural land use and responses of bacterial...
Validity of the Landsat surface reflectance archive for aquatic science: Implications for cloud-based analysis
Daniel Andrade Maciel, Nima Pahlevan, Claudio Clemente Faria Barbosa, Evlyn Marcia Leao de Moraes de Novo, Rejane Souza Paulino, Vitor Souza Martins, Eric Vermote, Christopher J. Crawford
2023, Limnology and Oceanography Letters (8) 820-858
Originally developed for terrestrial science and applications, the US Geological Survey Landsat surface reflectance (SR) archive spanning ~ 40 yr of observations has been increasingly utilized in large-scale water-quality studies. These products, however, have not been rigorously validated using in situ measured reflectance. This letter quantifies and demonstrates the quality of the...
Response in the water quality of Delavan Lake, Wisconsin, to changes in phosphorus loading—Setting new goals for loading from its drainage basin
Dale M. Robertson, Benjamin J. Siebers, Reed A. Fredrick
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5073
During 1989–92, an extensive rehabilitation project was completed in and around Delavan Lake, Wisconsin, to improve the lake’s water quality. However, in 2016, the lake was listed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as impaired for excessive algal growth (high chlorophyll a concentrations), and high phosphorus input was listed...
Estimating streambed hydraulic conductivity for selected streams in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain using continuous resistivity profiling methods—Delta region
Ryan F. Adams, Benjamin Miller, Wade H. Kress, Burke J. Minsley, James R. Rigby
2023, Scientific Investigations Map 3500
Introduction The Mississippi Alluvial Plain is one of the most important agricultural regions in the United States, and crop productivity relies on groundwater irrigation from an aquifer system whose full capacity is unknown. Groundwater withdrawals from the Mississippi River Valley alluvial aquifer have resulted in substantial groundwater-level declines and reductions...
Urban stream restorations increase floodplain soil carbon and nutrient retention along a chronosequence
Katrina Nicole Napora, Gregory E. Noe, Changwoo Ahn, Meghan Q.N. Fellows
2023, Ecological Engineering (195)
Stream restoration is a common management practice to meet regulatory or voluntary efforts to improve water quality via nutrient and carbon (C) retention, including in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. However, most restoration projects have few quantifiable measures of project success, no standard metrics, and rarely collect pre-restoration data. Storage of...
Development and application of a qPCR-based genotyping assay for Ophidiomyces ophidiicola to investigate the epidemiology of ophidiomycosis
Ellen Haynes, Jeffrey M. Lorch, Matthew C. Allender
2023, PLoS ONE (18)
Ophidiomycosis (snake fungal disease) is an infectious disease caused by the fungus Ophidiomyces ophidiicola to which all snake species appear to be susceptible. Significant variation has been observed in clinical presentation, progression of disease, and response to treatment, which may be due to genetic variation in the causative agent. Recent phylogenetic analysis...
Acoustic ducting by shelf water streamers at the New England shelfbreak
Jennifer J. Johnson, Ying-Tsong Lin, Arthur E. Newhall, Glen G. Gawarkiewicz, David P. Knobles, Jason Chaytor, William S.. Hodgkiss
2023, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (3)
Greater sound speed variability has been observed at the New England shelfbreak due to a greater influence from the Gulf Stream with increased meander amplitudes and frequency of Warm Core Ring (WCR) generation. Consequently, underwater sound propagation in the area also becomes more variable. This paper presents field observations of...
Long short-term memory models to quantify long-term evolution of streamflow discharge and groundwater depth in Alabama
Hossein Gholizadeh, Yong Zhang, Jonathan Frame, Xiufen Gu, Christopher Green
2023, Science of the Total Environment (901)
Long short-term memory (LSTM) models have been shown to be efficient for rainfall-runoff modeling, and to a lesser extent, for groundwater depth forecasting. In this study, LSTMs were applied to quantify the spatiotemporal evolution of surface and subsurface hydrographs in Alabama in the Southeastern United States,...
Resilience of riparian vegetation productivity to early 21st century drought in northern California, USA
Paul Selmants, Caroline Rose Conrad, Tamara Wilson, Miguel L. Villarreal
2023, Ecosphere (14)
Drought and intensive land use can interact as stressors on riparian vegetation, especially along rivers flowing through seasonally dry landscapes. Knowledge of past riparian vegetation response to drought and land use change can provide land managers with a better understanding of changes induced by...
Toxic algae in inland waters of the conterminous United States—A review and synthesis
Reynaldo Patino, Victoria Christensen, Jennifer L. Graham, Jane S. Rogosch, Barry H. Rosen
2023, Water (15)
Cyanobacteria are the most common toxigenic algae in inland waters. Their toxins can affect the health of aquatic and terrestrial organisms, including humans. Other algal groups, such as haptophytes (e.g., Prymnesium parvum) and euglenoids (e.g., Euglena sanguinea), can also form harmful algal blooms (HABs) whose toxins cause injury to...
A seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean during the Last Interglacial
Flor Vermassen, Matt O’Regan, Agatha de Boer, Freederik Schenk, Mohammad Razmjooei, Gabriel West, Thomas M. Cronin, Martin Jakobsson, Helen Coxall
2023, Nature Geoscience (16) 723-729
The extent and seasonality of Arctic sea ice during the Last Interglacial (129,000 to 115,000 years before present) is poorly known. Sediment-based reconstructions have suggested extensive ice cover in summer, while climate model outputs indicate year-round conditions in the Arctic Ocean ranging from ice free to...
Evidence of population-level impacts and resiliency for Gulf of Mexico shelf taxa following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
W.F. Patterson, K.L. Robinson, B.K. Barnett, M. Campbell, D.C. Chagaris, J. P. Chanton, K. Daly, D. Hanisko, F. Hernandez, S.A. Murawski, A.G. Pollock, D. Portnoy, Erin L. Pulster
2023, Frontiers in Marine Science (10)
The goal of this paper was to review the evidence of population-level impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (DWH) on Gulf of Mexico (GOM) continental shelf taxa, as well as evidence of resiliency following the DWH. There is considerable environmental and biological evidence that GOM shelf taxa were exposed to...
Sacramento River nutrient change study
Lisa Thompson, Timothy D. Mussen, Michael Cook, Justin Nordin, James Noss, Ursula Bigler, Srividhya Ramamoorthy, Gry Mine Berg, Sara Driscoll, Clifton Herrmann, Wim J. Kimmerer, Toni Ignoffo, Tamara E. C. Kraus, Joseph K. Fackrell, Brian Bergamaschi, Marianne Guerin, Richard Rachiele
2023, Report
The Sacramento River Nutrient Change Study (SRiNCS) was developed with input from multiple stakeholders in the Delta Regional Monitoring Program, as well as the State Water Contractors. We tracked the effects of changes in nutrient loading resulting from a short-term wastewater hold at the Sacramento River Wastewater Treatment Plant (SRWTP)....
Understanding drivers of mercury in lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush), a top-predator fish in southwest Alaska's parklands
Krista K. Bartz, Michael P. Hannam, Tammy L. Wilson, Ryan F. Lepak, Jacob M. Ogorek, Daniel Young, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, David P. Krabbenhoft
2023, Environmental Pollution (330)
Mercury (Hg) is a widespread element and persistent pollutant, harmful to fish, wildlife, and humans in its organic, methylated form. The risk of Hg contamination is driven by factors that regulate Hg loading, methylation, bioaccumulation, and biomagnification. In remote locations, with infrequent access and limited data, understanding the relative importance...
The During Nearshore Event Experiment (DUNEX): A collaborative coastal community experiment to address coastal resilience
Jessamin A. Straub, Mary A. Cialone, Britt Raubenheimer, Jenna A. Brown, Nicole Elko, Katherine L. Brodie
2023, Shore & Beach (91) 23-29
The During Nearshore Event Experiment (DUNEX) was a large-scale coastal field effort focused on improving understanding of during-storm nearshore processes to ultimately develop predictive technologies, engineering solutions, and actions to enhance coastal resilience. The experiments were conducted on the North Carolina coast by a multidisciplinary group of over 30 research...
Evaluation of alternative groundwater-withdrawal scenarios on water levels in Kingsbury Pond, upper Charles River Basin, eastern Massachusetts
Paul M. Barlow, Paul J. Friesz, Jeffrey R. Barbaro
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5083
Kingsbury Pond is a glacial kettle pond in the town of Norfolk, Massachusetts, in the Mill River Basin, which is part of the Upper Charles River Basin in eastern Massachusetts. The pond is hydraulically connected to the surrounding groundwater-flow system, and water levels in the pond fluctuate in response to...
DNA in the water: How genetic tools are aiding the fight against invasive grass carp in Lake Erie
Stephen Frank Spear
2023, Newsletter, Buckeye Bulletin
The article describes two USGS projects that are using eDNA to help inform grass carp management in Lake Erie. The article was requested by the Ohio Water Environment Association given the relevance and interest of the issue to its members....
Waterfowl show spatiotemporal trends in influenza A H5 and H7 infections but limited taxonomic variation
Cody M. Kent, Sarah N. Bevins, Jennifer M. Mullinax, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Diann Prosser
2023, Ecological Applications (33)
Influenza A viruses in wild birds pose threats to the poultry industry, wild birds, and human health under certain conditions. Of particular importance are wild waterfowl, which are the primary reservoir of low pathogenicity influenza viruses that ultimately cause high pathogenicity outbreaks in poultry farms. Despite much work on the...
An introduction to lesions and histology of scleractinian corals
Aine C. Hawthorn, Ilze K. Berzins, Michelle Dennis, Matti Kiupel, Alisa L. Newton, Esther C. Peters, Vicente Avila Reyes, Thierry M. Work
2023, Veterinary Pathology (60) 529-546
Stony corals (Scleractinia) are in the Phylum Cnidaria (cnidae referring to various types of stinging cells). They may be solitary or colonial, but all secrete an external, supporting aragonite skeleton. Large, colonial members of this phylum are responsible for the accretion of coral reefs in tropical and...
Satellite tracking reveals use of Biscayne National Park by sea turtles tagged in multiple locations
Kristen Hart, Allison Benscoter, Haley M. Turner, Michael Cherkiss, Andrew Crowder, Jacquelyn C. Guzy, David Roche, Christopher R. Sasso, Glenn D. Goodwin, Derek A. Burkholder
2023, Regional Studies in Marine Science (65)
Although historical observations date back to the 1800’s, there is little information on sea turtle occupancy within Biscayne National Park (BNP). The park is located along the Florida reef tract and is dominated by the Gulfstream, which acts as a corridor for many marine animals. Here we used satellite telemetry to determine areas of use in...
