Enclosed nests may provide greater thermal than nest predation benefits compared with open nests across latitudes
Thomas E. Martin, Andy J. Boyce, Karolina Fierro-Calderon, Adam E. Mitchell, Connor E. Armstad, James C. Mouton, Evertius E. Bin Soudi
2017, Functional Ecology (31) 1231-1240
Nest structure is thought to provide benefits that have fitness consequences for several taxa. Traditionally, reduced nest predation has been considered the primary benefit underlying evolution of nest structure, whereas thermal benefits have been considered a secondary or even non-existent factor. Yet, the relative roles of these...
A land cover change detection and classification protocol for updating Alaska NLCD 2001 to 2011
Suming Jin, Limin Yang, Zhe Zhu, Collin G. Homer
2017, Remote Sensing of Environment (195) 44-55
Monitoring and mapping land cover changes are important ways to support evaluation of the status and transition of ecosystems. The Alaska National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2001 was the first 30-m resolution baseline land cover product of the entire state derived from circa 2001 Landsat imagery and geospatial ancillary data....
Comparison of burbot populations across adjacent native and introduced ranges
Annika W. Walters, Elizabeth G. Mandeville, W. Carl Saunders, Paul C. Gerrity, Joseph A. Skorupski, Zachary E. Underwood, Eric I. Gardunio
2017, Aquatic Invasions (12) 251-262
Introduced species are a threat to biodiversity. Burbot, Lota lota, a fish native to the Wind River Drainage, Wyoming and a species of conservation concern, have been introduced into the nearby Green River Drainage, Wyoming, where they are having negative effects on native fish species. We compared these native and...
Effects of temperature, total dissolved solids, and total suspended solids on survival and development rate of larval Arkansas River Shiner
Julia S. Mueller, Timothy B. Grabowski, Shannon K. Brewer, Thomas A. Worthington
2017, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (8) 79-88
Decreases in the abundance and diversity of stream fishes in the North American Great Plains have been attributed to habitat fragmentation, altered hydrological and temperature regimes, and elevated levels of total dissolved solids and total suspended solids. Pelagic-broadcast spawning cyprinids, such as the Arkansas River Shiner Notropis girardi, may be particularly vulnerable...
Water-level and recoverable water in storage changes, High Plains aquifer, predevelopment to 2015 and 2013–15
Virginia L. McGuire
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5040
The High Plains aquifer underlies 111.8 million acres (about 175,000 square miles) in parts of eight States—Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. Water-level declines began in parts of the High Plains aquifer soon after the beginning of substantial irrigation with groundwater in the aquifer area...
Assessment of frequency and duration of point counts when surveying for golden eagle presence
Ben R. Skipper, Clint W. Boal, Jo-Szu Tsai, Mark R. Fuller
2017, Wildlife Society Bulletin (41) 212-223
We assessed the utility of the recommended golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) survey methodology in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2013 Eagle Conservation Plan Guidance. We conducted 800-m radius, 1-hr point-count surveys broken into 20-min segments, during 2 sampling periods in 3 areas within the Intermountain West of the United...
Otolith marking of juvenile shortnose gar by immersion in oxytetracycline
Richard A. Snow, James M. Long
2017, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (37) 724-728
Oxytetracycline (OTC) has been used to mark a variety of fish species at multiple developmental stages; however, there is little information on batch-marking Lepisosteidae. Juvenile Shortnose Gar Lepisosteus platostomus (53 ± 3 mm TL) were seined from an Oklahoma State University research pond and transported to the Oklahoma Fishery Research...
Finite‐fault Bayesian inversion of teleseismic body waves
Brandon Clayton, Stephen H. Hartzell, Morgan P. Moschetti, Sarah E. Minson
2017, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (107) 1526-1544
Inverting geophysical data has provided fundamental information about the behavior of earthquake rupture. However, inferring kinematic source model parameters for finite‐fault ruptures is an intrinsically underdetermined problem (the problem of nonuniqueness), because we are restricted to finite noisy observations. Although many studies use least‐squares techniques to make the finite‐fault problem...
Motivations for enrollment into the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program in the James River Basin of South Dakota
Jarrett Pfrimmer, Larry M. Gigliotti, Joshua Stafford, David Schumann, Katie Bertrand
2017, Human Dimensions of Wildlife (22) 382-389
The Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) targets high-priority conservation needs (e.g., water quality, wildlife habitat) by paying landowners an annual rental rate to remove environmentally sensitive or agriculturally unproductive lands from rowcrop production, and then implement conservation practices on these lands. This study examined motivations of South Dakota landowners for...
Re-Os systematics and geochemistry of cobaltite (CoAsS) in the Idaho cobalt belt, Belt-Purcell Basin, USA: Evidence for middle Mesoproterozoic sediment-hosted Co-Cu sulfide mineralization with Grenvillian and Cretaceous remobilization
N.J. Saintilan, R.A. Creaser, Arthur A. Bookstrom
2017, Ore Geology Reviews (86) 509-525
We report the first study of the Re-Os systematics of cobaltite (CoAsS) using disseminated grains and massive sulfides from samples of two breccia-type and two stratabound deposits in the Co-Cu-Au Idaho cobalt belt (ICB), Lemhi subbasin to the Belt-Purcell Basin, Idaho, USA. Using a 185Re + 190Os spike solution, magnetic and non-magnetic...
Aerodynamic roughness length estimation with lidar and imaging spectroscopy in a shrub-dominated dryland
Aihua Li, Wenguang Zhao, Jessica J Mitchell, Nancy F. Glenn, Matthew J. Germino, Joel B. Sankey, Richard M. Allen
2017, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing (83) 415-427
The aerodynamic roughness length (Z0 m) serves an important role in the flux exchange between the land surface and atmosphere. In this study, airborne lidar (ALS), terrestrial lidar (TLS), and imaging spectroscopy data were integrated to develop and test two approaches to estimate Z0 m over a shrub dominated dryland study area in...
Historical patterns of acidification and increasing CO2 flux associated with Florida springs
Kira E. Barrera, Lisa L. Robbins
2017, Limnology and Oceanography (62) 2404-2417
Florida has one of the highest concentrations of springs in the world, with many discharging into rivers and predominantly into eastern Gulf of Mexico coast, and they likely influence the hydrochemistry of these adjacent waters; however, temporal and spatial trends have not been well studied. We present over 20 yr...
Divergence of seafloor elevation and sea level rise in coral reef ecosystems
Kimberly K. Yates, David G. Zawada, Nathan A. Smiley, Ginger Tiling-Range
2017, Biogeosciences (14) 1739-1772
Coral reefs serve as natural barriers that protect adjacent shorelines from coastal hazards such as storms, waves, and erosion. Projections indicate global degradation of coral reefs due to anthropogenic impacts and climate change will cause a transition to net erosion by mid-century. Here, we provide a comprehensive assessment of the...
Microhabitat selection of the Virginia Northern Flying Squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus fuscus Miller) in the central Appalachians
Corinne A. Diggins, W. Mark Ford
2017, Northeastern Naturalist (24) 173-190
Glaucomys sabrinus fuscus (Virginia Northern Flying Squirrel; VNFS) is a rare Sciurid that occurrs in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia and northwest Virginia. Previous work on this subspecies has confirmed close associations with Picea rubens (Red Spruce) at the landscape and stand levels in the region. However, ongoing Red Spruce restoration...
The recent warming trend in North Greenland
Anais J. Orsi, Kenji Kawamura, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Xavier Fettweis, Jason E. Box, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Gary D. Clow, Amaelle Landais, Jeffrey P. Severinghaus
2017, Geophysical Research Letters (44) 6235-6243
The Arctic is among the fastest warming regions on Earth, but it is also one with limited spatial coverage of multidecadal instrumental surface air temperature measurements. Consequently, atmospheric reanalyses are relatively unconstrained in this region, resulting in a large spread of estimated 30 year recent warming trends, which limits their use...
A physical model for extreme drought over southwest Asia
Andrew Hoell, Chris Funk, Mathew Barlow, Forrest Cannon
2017, Book chapter, Climate extremes: Patterns and mechanisms
The socioeconomic difficulties of southwest Asia, defined as the area bound by the domain 25°N–40°N and 40°E–70°E, are exacerbated by extreme precipitation deficits during the November–April rainy season. The precipitation deficits during many southwest Asia droughts have been examined in terms of the forcing by climate variability originating over the...
Harvest and group effects on pup survival in a cooperative breeder
David E. Ausband, Michael S. Mitchell, Carisa R. Stansbury, Jennifer L. Stenglein, Lisette P. Waits
2017, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (284)
Recruitment in cooperative breeders can be negatively affected by changes in group size and composition. The majority of cooperative breeding studies have not evaluated human harvest; therefore, the effects of recurring annual harvest and group characteristics on survival of young are poorly understood. We evaluated how harvest and groups affect...
Uncertainties in forecasting the response of polar bears to global climate change
David C. Douglas, Todd C. Atwood
Andy Butterworth, editor(s)
2017, Book chapter, Marine animal welfare
Several sources of uncertainty affect how precisely the future status of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) can be forecasted. Foremost are unknowns about the future levels of global greenhouse gas emissions, which could range from an unabated increase to an aggressively mitigated reduction. Uncertainties also arise because different climate...
Structured populations of Sulfolobus acidocaldarius with susceptibility to mobile genetic elements
Rika E. Anderson, Angela Kouris, Christopher H. Seward, Kate M. Campbell, Rachel J. Whitaker
2017, Genome Biology and Evolution (9) 1699-1710
The impact of a structured environment on genome evolution can be determined through comparative population genomics of species that live in the same habitat. Recent work comparing three genome sequences of Sulfolobus acidocaldarius suggested that highly structured, extreme, hot spring environments do not limit dispersal of this thermoacidophile, in contrast to other...
A decade of boreal rich fen greenhouse gas fluxes in response to natural and experimental water table variability
David Olefeldt, Eugénie S. Euskirchen, Jennifer W. Harden, Evan S. Kane, A. David McGuire, Mark P. Waldrop, Merritt R. Turetsky
2017, Global Change Biology (23) 2428-2440
Rich fens are common boreal ecosystems with distinct hydrology, biogeochemistry and ecology that influence their carbon (C) balance. We present growing season soil chamber methane emission (FCH4), ecosystem respiration (ER), net ecosystem exchange (NEE) and gross primary production (GPP) fluxes from a 9-years water table manipulation experiment in an Alaskan...
Aquatic ecosystems in a changing climate
Shreeram Inamdar, James B. Shanley, William H. McDowell
2017, Eos, Earth and Space Science News (98)
Extreme climate events (ECEs) such as tropical storms and hurricanes, thunderstorms, heat waves, droughts, ice storms, and snow storms have increased and are projected to further increase in intensity and frequency across the world. These events are expected to have significant consequences for aquatic ecosystems with the potential for large...
Calculation of in situ acoustic sediment attenuation using off-the-shelf horizontal ADCPs in low concentration settings
Dan Haught, Jeremy G. Venditti, Scott Wright
2017, Water Resources Research (53) 5017-5037
The use of “off-the-shelf” acoustic Doppler velocity profilers (ADCPs) to estimate suspended sediment concentration and grain-size in rivers requires robust methods to estimate sound attenuation by suspended sediment. Theoretical estimates of sediment attenuation require a priori knowledge of the concentration and grain-size distribution (GSD), making the method impractical to apply...
Ecological change drives a decline in mercury concentrations in southern Beaufort Sea polar bears
Melissa A. McKinney, Todd C. Atwood, Sara Pedro, Elizabeth L. Peacock
2017, Environmental Science & Technology (51) 7814-7822
We evaluated total mercury (THg) concentrations and trends in polar bears from the southern Beaufort Sea subpopulation from 2004 to 2011. Hair THg concentrations ranged widely among individuals from 0.6 to 13.3 μg g–1 dry weight (mean: 3.5 ± 0.2 μg g–1). Concentrations differed among sex and age classes: solitary adult...
Temporal genetic population structure and interannual variation in migration behavior of Pacific Lamprey Entosphenus tridentatus
Benjamin J. Clemens, Lance A. Wyss, Rebecca McCoun, Ian Courter, Lawrence Schwabe, Christopher Peery, Carl B. Schreck, Erin K. Spice, Margaret F. Docker
2017, Hydrobiologia (794) 223-240
Studies using neutral loci suggest that Pacific lamprey, Entosphenus tridentatus, lack strong spatial genetic population structure. However, it is unknown whether temporal genetic population structure exists. We tested whether adult Pacific lamprey: (1) show temporal genetic population structure; and (2) migrate different distances between years. We non-lethally sampled lamprey...
Complex mixtures of Pesticides in Midwest U.S. streams indicated by POCIS time-integrating samplers
Peter C. Van Metre, David Alvarez, Barbara Mahler, Lisa H. Nowell, Mark W. Sandstrom, Patrick W. Moran
2017, Environmental Pollution (220) 431-440
The Midwest United States is an intensely agricultural region where pesticides in streams pose risks to aquatic biota, but temporal variability in pesticide concentrations makes characterization of their exposure to organisms challenging. To compensate for the effects of temporal variability, we deployed polar organic chemical integrative samplers (POCIS) in 100...
