Insect community responses to climate and weather across elevation gradients in the Sagebrush Steppe, eastern Oregon
David S. Pilliod, Ashley T. Rohde
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1183
Executive SummaryIn this study, the U.S. Geological Survey investigated the use of insects as bioindicators of climate change in sagebrush steppe shrublands and grasslands in the Upper Columbia Basin. The research was conducted in the Stinkingwater and Pueblo mountain ranges in eastern Oregon on lands administered by the Bureau...
Wetland shoreline recession in the Mississippi River Delta from petroleum oiling and cyclonic storms
Amina Rangoonwala, Cathleen E. Jones, Elijah W. Ramsey III
2016, Geophysical Research Letters (43) 11,652-11,660
We evaluate the relative impact of petroleum spill and storm surge on near-shore wetland loss by quantifying the lateral movement of coastal shores in upper Barataria Bay, Louisiana (USA), between June 2009 and October 2012, a study period that extends from the year prior to the Deepwater Horizon spill to...
GIS-based identification of areas that have resource potential for critical minerals in six selected groups of deposit types in Alaska
Susan M. Karl, James V. Jones III, Timothy S. Hayes, editor(s)
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1191
Alaska has considerable potential for undiscovered mineral resources. This report evaluates potential for undiscovered critical minerals in Alaska. Critical minerals are those for which the United States imports more than half of its total supply and which are largely derived from nations that cannot be considered reliable trading partners. In...
Flood-inundation maps for the Yellow River at Plymouth, Indiana
Chad D. Menke, Aubrey R. Bunch, Moon H. Kim
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5117
Digital flood-inundation maps for a 4.9-mile reach of the Yellow River at Plymouth, Indiana (Ind.), were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs. The flood-inundation maps, which can be accessed through the USGS Flood Inundation Mapping Science Web site...
Conductivity response to intraplate deformation: Evidence for metamorphic devolatilization and crustal‐scale fluid focusing
Stephan Thiel, Paul Soeffky, Lars Krieger, Klaus Regenauer-Lieb, Jared R. Peacock, Graham Heinson
2016, Geophysical Research Letters (43) 11,236-11,244
We present two‐dimensional electrical resistivity models of two 40 km magnetotelluric (MT) profiles across the Frome Embayment to the east of the northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia. The lower crust shows low resistivity of 10 Ω m at around 30 km depth. The middle crust is dominated by resistive (>1000 Ω m) basement rocks underlying the...
Probability of acoustic transmitter detections by receiver lines in Lake Huron: results of multi-year field tests and simulations
Todd A. Hayden, Christopher M. Holbrook, Thomas Binder, John M. Dettmers, Steven J. Cooke, Christopher S. Vandergoot, Charles C. Krueger
2016, Animal Biotelemetry (4) 1-14
BackgroundAdvances in acoustic telemetry technology have led to an improved understanding of the spatial ecology of many freshwater and marine fish species. Understanding the performance of acoustic receivers is necessary to distinguish between tagged fish that may have been present but not detected and from...
Patterns of diel variation in nitrate concentrations in the Potomac River
Douglas A. Burns, Matthew P. Miller, Brian Pellerin, Paul D. Capel
2016, Freshwater Science (35) 1117-1132
The Potomac River is a large source of N to Chesapeake Bay, where reducing nutrient loads is a focus of efforts to improve trophic status. Better understanding of NO3– loss, reflected in part by diel variation in NO3– concentrations, may refine model predictions of N loads to the Bay. We...
Bioenergy production and forest landscape change in the southeastern United States
Jennifer K. Costanza, Robert C. Abt, Alexa McKerrow, Jaime A. Collazo
2016, GCB Bioenergy (9) 924-939
Production of woody biomass for bioenergy, whether wood pellets or liquid biofuels, has the potential to cause substantial landscape change and concomitant effects on forest ecosystems, but the landscape effects of alternative production scenarios have not been fully assessed. We simulated landscape change from 2010 to 2050 under five scenarios...
Interannual water-level fluctuations and the vegetation of prairie potholes: Potential impacts of climate change
Arnold van der Valk, David M. Mushet
2016, Wetlands (36) 397-406
Mean water depth and range of interannual water-level fluctuations over wet-dry cycles in precipitation are major drivers of vegetation zone formation in North American prairie potholes. We used harmonic hydrological models, which require only mean interannual water depth and amplitude of water-level fluctuations over a wet–dry cycle, to examine how...
Midcontinent Prairie-Pothole wetlands and climate change: An Introduction to the Supplemental Issue
David M. Mushet
2016, Wetlands (36) 223-228
The multitude of wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America forms one of Earth’s largest wetland complexes. The midcontinent location exposes this ecologically and economically important wetland system to a highly variable climate, markedly influencing ponded-water levels, hydroperiods, chemical characteristics, and biota of individual basins. Given their dominance...
River rating complexity
Robert R. Holmes Jr.
2016, Conference Paper, River flow 2016
Accuracy of streamflow data depends on the veracity of the rating model used to derive a continuous time series of discharge from the surrogate variables that can readily be collected autonomously at a streamgage. Ratings are typically represented as a simple monotonic increasing function (simple rating), meaning the discharge is...
A rare moderate‐sized (Mw 4.9) earthquake in Kansas: Rupture process of the Milan, Kansas, earthquake of 12 November 2014 and its relationship to fluid injection
George Choy, Justin L. Rubinstein, William L. Yeck, Daniel E. McNamara, Charles Mueller, Oliver S. Boyd
2016, Seismological Research Letters (87) 1433-1441
The largest recorded earthquake in Kansas occurred northeast of Milan on 12 November 2014 (Mw 4.9) in a region previously devoid of significant seismic activity. Applying multistation processing to data from local stations, we are able to detail the rupture process and rupture geometry of the mainshock, identify the causative fault...
Tradeoffs between physical captures and PIT tag antenna array detections: A case study for the Lower Colorado River Basin population of humpback chub (Gila cypha)
Kristen Nicole Pearson, William L. Kendall, Dana L. Winkelman, William R. Persons
2016, Fisheries Research (183) 263-274
A key component of many monitoring programs for special status species involves capture and handling of individuals as part of capture-recapture efforts for tracking population health and demography. Minimizing negative impacts from sampling, such as through reduced handling, aids prevention of negative impacts on species from monitoring efforts. Using simulation...
Groundwater quality from private domestic water-supply wells in the vicinity of petroleum production in Southwestern Indiana
Martin R. Risch, Cheryl A. Silcox
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1122
Quantifying seepage using heat as a tracer in selected irrigation canals, Walker River Basin, Nevada, 2012 and 2013
Ramon C. Naranjo, David W. Smith
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5133
The Walker River is an important source of water for western Nevada. The river provides water for agriculture and recharge to local aquifers used by several communities. Farmers began diverting water from the Walker River in the 1860s to support growing agricultural development. Over time, the reduced inflows into...
Compounds of emerging concern in the San Antonio River Basin, Texas, 2011–12
Rebecca B. Lambert, Stephen P. Opsahl
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3071
The City of San Antonio and the surrounding municipalities in Bexar County, Texas, are among the fastest growing cities in the Nation. Increases in residential and commercial development are changing runoff patterns and likely will increase chemical loads into streams. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the San Antonio...
Potash—A vital agricultural nutrient sourced from geologic deposits
Douglas B. Yager
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1167
This report summarizes the primary sources of potash in the United States. Potash is an essential nutrient that, along with phosphorus and nitrogen, is used as fertilizer for growing crops. Plants require sufficient potash to activate enzymes, which in turn catalyze chemical reactions important for water uptake and photosynthesis. When...
Assessment of undiscovered continuous oil resources in the Wolfcamp shale of the Midland Basin, Permian Basin Province, Texas, 2016
Stephanie B. Gaswirth, Kristen R. Marra, Paul G. Lillis, Tracey J. Mercier, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Christopher J. Schenk, Timothy R. Klett, Phuong A. Le, Marilyn E. Tennyson, Sarah J. Hawkins, Michael E. Brownfield, Janet K. Pitman, Thomas M. Finn
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3092
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey assessed technically recoverable mean resources of 20 billion barrels of oil and 16 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Wolfcamp shale in the Midland Basin part of the Permian Basin Province, Texas....
An optimal sample data usage strategy to minimize overfitting and underfitting effects in regression tree models based on remotely-sensed data
Yingxin Gu, Bruce K. Wylie, Stephen P. Boyte, Joshua J. Picotte, Danny Howard, Kelcy Smith, Kurtis Nelson
2016, Remote Sensing (8) 1-13
Regression tree models have been widely used for remote sensing-based ecosystem mapping. Improper use of the sample data (model training and testing data) may cause overfitting and underfitting effects in the model. The goal of this study is to develop an optimal sampling data usage strategy for any dataset and...
Critical considerations for the application of environmental DNA methods to detect aquatic species
Caren S. Goldberg, Cameron R. Turner, Kristy Deiner, Katy E. Klymus, Philip Francis Thomsen, Melanie A. Murphy, Stephen F. Spear, Anna McKee, Sara J. Oyler-McCance, Robert S. Cornman, Matthew B. Laramie, Andrew R. Mahon, Richard F. Lance, David S. Pilliod, Katherine M. Strickler, Lisette P. Waits, Alexander K. Fremier, Teruhiko Takahara, Jelger E. Herder, Pierre Taberlet
2016, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (7) 1299-1307
Species detection using environmental DNA (eDNA) has tremendous potential for contributing to the understanding of the ecology and conservation of aquatic species. Detecting species using eDNA methods, rather than directly sampling the organisms, can reduce impacts on sensitive species and increase the power of field surveys for...
Role of riparian shade on the fish assemblage of a reservoir littoral
C. D. Raines, Leandro E. Miranda
2016, Environmental Biology of Fishes (99) 753-760
Research into the effects of shade on reservoir fish assemblages is lacking, with most investigations focused on streams. Unlike many streams, the canopy in a reservoir shades only a narrow fringe of water adjacent to the shoreline, and may not have the influential effect on the aquatic environment reported in...
Using structural equation modeling to link human activities to wetland ecological integrity
E. William Schweiger, James B. Grace, David Cooper, Ben Bobowski, Mike Britten
2016, Ecosphere (7) 1-30
The integrity of wetlands is of global concern. A common approach to evaluating ecological integrity involves bioassessment procedures that quantify the degree to which communities deviate from historical norms. While helpful, bioassessment provides little information about how altered conditions connect to community response. More detailed information is needed for conservation...
Forecasting inundation from debris flows that grow during travel, with application to the Oregon Coast Range, USA
Mark E. Reid, Jeffrey A. Coe, Dianne Brien
2016, Geomorphology (273) 396-411
Many debris flows increase in volume as they travel downstream, enhancing their mobility and hazard. Volumetric growth can result from diverse physical processes, such as channel sediment entrainment, stream bank collapse, adjacent landsliding, hillslope erosion and rilling, and coalescence of multiple debris flows; incorporating these varied phenomena into physics-based debris-flow...
Effects of climate and water balance across grasslands of varying C3 and C4 grass cover
Dana L. Witwicki, Seth M. Munson, David P. Thoma
2016, Ecosphere (7)
Climate change in grassland ecosystems may lead to divergent shifts in the abundance and distribution of C3 and C4 grasses. Many studies relate mean climate conditions over relatively long time periods to plant cover, but there is still much uncertainty about how the balance of C3and C4 species will be...
Aquatic-macroinvertebrate communities of Prairie-Pothole wetlands and lakes under a changed climate
Kyle I. McLean, David M. Mushet, David A. Renton, Craig A. Stockwell
2016, Wetlands (36) 423-435
Understanding how aquatic-macroinvertebrate communities respond to changes in climate is important for biodiversity conservation in the Prairie Pothole Region and other wetland-rich landscapes. We sampled macroinvertebrate communities of 162 wetlands and lakes previously sampled from 1966 to 1976, a much drier period compared to our 2012–2013 sampling timeframe. To identify...
