Repeated detection of carbapenemase-producing Escherichia coli in gulls inhabiting Alaska, USA
Christina Ahlstrom, Andrew M. Ramey, Hanna Woksepp, Jonas Bonnedahl
2019, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (63)
We report the first detection of carbapenemase-producing Escherichia coli in Alaska and in wildlife in the United States. Wild bird (gull) feces sampled at three locations in Southcentral Alaska yielded isolates that harbored plasmid-encoded blaKPC-2 or chromosomally-encoded blaOXA-48, and genes associated with antimicrobial resistance to up to eight antibiotic classes....
Technical comment on “Global pattern of nest predation is disrupted by climate change in shorebirds”
Martin Bulla, Jeroen Reneerkens, Emily L. Weiser, Aleksandr Sokolov, Audrey R. Taylor, Benoit Sittler, Brian J McCaffery, Daniel R. Ruthrauff, Daniel H. Catlin, David C. Payer, David H. Ward, Diana V Solovyeva, Eduardo SA Santos, Eldar Rakhimberdiev, Erica Nol, Eunbi Kwon, Glen S. Brown, Glenda D Hevia, H. River Gates, James A. Johnson, Jan A. van Gils, Jannik Hansen, Jean-Francois Lamarre, Jennie Rausch, Jesse R. Conklin, Joe Liebezeit, Joel Bety, Johannes Lang, José A. Alves, Juan Fernandez-Elipe, Klaus-Michael Exo, Loic Bollache, Marcelo Bertellotti, Marie-Andree Giroux, Martijn van de Pol, Matthew D. Johnson, Megan L. Boldenow, Mihai Valcu, Mikhail Soloviev, Natalya Sokolova, Nathan R. Senner, Nicholas Lecomte, Nicolas Meyer, Niels Martin Schmidt, Olivier Gilg, Paul A Smith, Paula Machin, Rebecca L McGuire, Ricardo AS Cerboncini, Richard Ottvall, Rob SA van Bemmelen, Rose J Swift, Sara T Saalfeld, Sara E Jamieson, Stephen C. Brown, Theunis Piersma, Tomas Albrecht, Veronica L D'Amico, Richard B. Lanctot, Bart Kempenaers
2019, Science (364)
Kubelka et al. (Report, 9 November 2018, p. 680-683) claim that climate change has disrupted patterns of nest predation in shorebirds. They report that predation rates have increased since the 1950s, especially in the Arctic. We describe methodological problems with their analyses and argue that there is no solid statistical...
Ecosystem scale loss of grazing habitat impacted by abundance of dominant herbivores
Brian D. Uher-Koch, Joel A. Schmutz, Heather M. Wilson, R Michael Anthony, Thomas L Day, Thomas F Fondell, Brian T. Person, James S. Sedinger
2019, Ecosphere (10)
Grazing lawns, patches of grazing tolerant plants with high nutrient value, provide important habitat for herbivores, and changes in abundance can impact herbivore populations. Grazing lawns are maintained in quality and quantity by repeated grazing and are a result of a positive feedback since the availability of grazing lawn...
Prevalence and diversity of avian blood parasites in a resident northern passerine
Caroline R. Van Hemert, Brandt W. Meixell, Matthew M. Smith, Colleen M. Handel
2019, Parasites & Vectors (12)
Background: Climate-related changes are expected to influence the prevalence and distribution of vector-borne haemosporidian parasites at northern latitudes, although baseline information about resident birds is still lacking. In this study, we investigated prevalence and genetic diversity of Plasmodium, Haemoproteus, and Leucocytozoon parasites infecting the Northwestern Crow (Corvus caurinus), a non-migratory...
Geographic variation in the intensity of warming and phenological mismatch between Arctic shorebirds and invertebrates
Enubi Kwon, Emily L. Weiser, Richard B. Lanctot, Stephen C. Brown, H. River Gates, H. Grant Gilchrist, Steve J. Kendall, David B. Lank, Joseph R. Liebezeit, Laura McKinnon, Erica Nol, David C. Payer, Jennie Rausch, Sarah T. Saalfeld, Daniel J. Rinella, Nathan R. Senner, David Ward, Paul A. Smith, Robert C. Wissman, Brett K. Sandercock
2019, Ecological Monographs (89)
Responses to climate change can vary across functional groups and trophic levels, leading to a temporal decoupling of trophic interactions or ‘phenological mismatches.’ Despite a growing number of single-species studies that identified phenological mismatches as a nearly universal consequence of climate change, we have a limited understanding of the spatial...
Viable long-term gas hydrate testing site confirmed on the Alaska north slope
Ray Boswell, Scott Marsteller, Nori Okinaka, Motoi Wakatsuki, Timothy S. Collett, Robert Hunter, Tom Walsh, David Itter, Stephen Crumley
2019, Fire in the Ice: NETL Methane Hydrate Newsletter (19) 1-5
In December 2018, data acquired in a Stratigraphic Test Well drilled from the 7-11-12 pad in the western part of the Prudhoe Bay Unit, Alaska North Slope confirmed the occurrence of two high-quality reservoirs fully saturated with gas hydrate. The drilling was the initial phase of a planned, three-well program...
Energy depletion and stress levels of Sockeye Salmon migrating at the northern edge of their distribution
Michael P. Carey, Kevin D. Keith, Merlyn Schelske, Charlie Lean, Stephen D. McCormick, Amy M. Regish, Christian E. Zimmerman
2019, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (148) 757-797
The physiological challenge for anadromous fish to migrate upriver is influenced by river temperature, but the impacts of river temperature can be difficult to predict due to an incomplete understanding of how temperature influences migration costs, especially in high‐latitude (>60°N) ecosystems. To assess temperature influences on...
Coast to coast: High genomic connectivity in North American scoters
Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Robert E. Wilson, Philip Lavretsky, Sandra L. Talbot
2019, Ecology and Evolution (9) 7246-7261
Dispersal shapes demographic processes and therefore is fundamental to understanding biological, ecological, and evolutionary processes acting within populations. However, assessing population connectivity in scoters (Melanitta sp.) is challenging as these species have large spatial distributions that span remote landscapes, have varying nesting distributions (disjunct vs. continuous), exhibit...
Spatio-temporal population change of Arctic-breeding waterbirds on the Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska
Courtney L. Amundson, Paul L. Flint, Robert A Stehn, Robert Platte, Heather M. Wilson, William W. Larned, Julian B. Fischer
2019, Avian Conservation and Ecology (14)
Rapid physical changes that are occurring in the Arctic are primary drivers of landscape change and thus may drive population dynamics of Arctic-breeding birds. Despite the importance of this region to breeding and molting waterbirds, lack of a comprehensive analysis of historic data has hindered quantifying avian population change. We...
Late Quaternary vegetation development following deglaciation of northwestern Alexander Archipelago, Alaska
Thomas A. Ager
2019, Frontiers in Earth Science (7) 1-25
The Cordilleran Ice sheet covered most of southeastern Alaska during the Last Glacial Interval (LGI: Marine Isotope Stage 2). Ice began to recede from western Alexander Archipelago ~17,000 + 700 yr BP. In this study pollen analysis and radiocarbon dating of three sediment cores were used to reconstruct, for...
Handbook to the partners in flight population estimates database, version 3.0
Tom Will, Jessica C. Stanton, Kenneth V. Rosenberg, Arvind O. Panjabi, Alaine Camfield, Allison Shaw, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Peter J. Blancher
2019, Partners in Flight Technical Publication 7
This document describes the content of Version 3.0 of the Partners in Flight (PIF) Population Estimates Database, which provides population estimates for breeding USA/Canada landbirds at several geographic scales following the Partners in Flight approach described initially in Rich et al. (2004) and by Rosenberg and Blancher (2005) and most...
Variability in shelf sedimentation in response to fluvial sediment supply and coastal erosion over the past 1,000 years in Monterey Bay, CA, United States
Joseph Carlin, Jason A. Addison, Amy Wagner, Valerie Evelyn Schwartz, Jamie Hayward, Victoria Severin
2019, Frontiers in Earth Science (7)
Continental shelf environments are uniquely situated to capture some of the most dynamic processes on Earth including climatic variability and anthropogenic modifications to coastal systems. Understanding how these processes have affected sediment delivery and accumulation on the shelf in the past may provide insight into potential changes in...
The influence of body size, condition, and age on recruitment of four Alaskan brown bear populations
Grant V. Hilderbrand, David Gustine, Kyle Joly, Buck Mangipane, William Leacock, Matthew Cameron, Mathew Sorum, Lindsey Mangipane, Joy Erlenbach
2019, Ursus (2) 111-118
Recruitment of brown bear (Ursus arctos) offspring into a population is the product of initial cub production and subsequent survival and is a critical component of overall population status and trend. We investigated the relationship between maternal body size, body condition, and age (as a surrogate for gained experience) and...
Mortality of Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) and other alcids during an unusual mortality event in the eastern Bering Sea
Timothy Jones, Laura M. Divine, Heather Renner, Susan Knowles, Kathi A. Lefebvre, Hillary K. Burgess, Charlie Wright, Julia K. Parrish
2019, PLoS ONE (14)
Mass mortality events are increasing in frequency and magnitude, potentially linked with ongoing climate change. In October 2016 through January 2017, St. Paul Island situated at the shelf-edge of the Bering Sea, Alaska, experienced a mortality event of alcids (family: Alcidae), with over 350 carcasses recovered. Almost three-quarters of the...
Evidence for frequent, large tsunamis spanning locked and creeping parts of the Aleutian megathrust
Robert C. Witter, Richard W. Briggs, Simon E. Engelhart, Guy R. Gelfenbaum, Richard D Koehler, Alan R. Nelson, SeanPaul La Selle, Reide Corbett, Kristi L. Wallace
2019, Geological Society of America Bulletin (131) 707-729
At the eastern end of the 1957 Andreanof Islands magnitude-8.6 earthquake rupture, Driftwood Bay (Umnak Island) and Stardust Bay (Sedanka Island) lie along presently locked and creeping parts of the Aleutian megathrust, respectively, based on satellite geodesy onshore. Both bays, located 200-km apart, face the Aleutian trench and harbor coastal...
Development and characterization of polymorphic microsatellite markers in Northern Fulmar, Fulmarus glacialis (Procellariformes), and cross-species amplification in eight other seabirds
Megan C. Gravley, George K. Sage, Andrew M. Ramey, Scott A. Hatch, Verena A. Gill, Jolene R. Rearick, Aevar Petersen, Sandra L. Talbot
2019, Genes and Genomics (41) 1015-1026
BackgroundIn the North Pacific, northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) forms extensive colonies in few locales, which may lead to limited gene flow and locale-specific population threats. In the Atlantic, there are thousands of colonies of varying sizes and in Europe the species is considered...
Global phylodynamic analysis of avian paramyxovirus-1 provides evidence of inter-host transmission and intercontinental spatial diffusion
Joseph T. Hicks, Kiril M. Dimitrov, Claudio L. Afonso, Andrew M. Ramey, Justin Bahl
2019, BMC Evolutionary Biology (19)
BackgroundAvian avulavirus (commonly known as avian paramyxovirus-1 or APMV-1) can cause disease of varying severity in both domestic and wild birds. Understanding how viruses move among hosts and geography would be useful for informing prevention and control efforts. A Bayesian statistical framework was employed to...
Evidence of Culiseta mosquitoes as vectors for Plasmodium parasites in Alaska
Matthew M. Smith, Caroline R. Van Hemert, Colleen M. Handel
2019, Journal of Vector Ecology (44) 68-75
Mosquito vectors play a crucial role in the distribution of avian Plasmodium parasites worldwide. At northern latitudes, where climate warming is most pronounced, there are questions about possible changes in the abundance and distribution of Plasmodium parasites, their vectors, and their impacts to avian hosts. To better understand the transmission of Plasmodium among...
Geochemical factors controlling dissolved elemental mercury and methylmercury formation in Alaskan wetlands of varying trophic status
Brett Poulin, Joseph N. Ryan, Michael Tate, David Krabbenhoft, Mark E Hines, Tamar Barkay, Jeffra Schaefer, George R. Aiken
2019, Environmental Science & Technology (53) 6203-6213
Transformations of aqueous inorganic divalent mercury (Hg(II)i) to volatile dissolved gaseous mercury (Hg(0)(aq)) and toxic methylmercury (MeHg) governs mercury bioavailability and fate in northern ecosystems. This study quantified concentrations of aqueous mercury species (Hg(II)i, Hg(0)(aq), MeHg) and relevant geochemical constituents in pore waters of eight Alaskan wetlands that differ in...
A unified catalog of earthquake hypocenters and magnitudes at volcanoes in Alaska—1989 to 2018
John Power, Paul A. Friberg, Matthew M. Haney, Thomas Parker, Scott D. Stihler, James P. Dixon
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5037
The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) has maintained an earthquake catalog since 1989 that now contains over 120,000 hypocenters and magnitudes that occurred near Alaskan volcanoes. Since 1989 the seismic instrumentation and data acquisition and processing techniques have undergone numerous changes as computer systems and seismic processing software have advanced and...
The benthic foraminifera cassidulina from the Arctic Ocean: Application to paleoceanography and biostratigraphy
Thomas M. Cronin, Julia Seidenstein, Katherine Keller, Kristin McDougall-Reid, Ana Reufer, Laura Gemery
2019, Micropaleontology (65) 105-125
We investigated the morphology, biostratigraphy, shell stable isotope composition and paleogeography of the common Arctic benthic foraminifera, Cassidulina teretis (Tappan 1951) (sometimes assigned to Islandiella (Nørvang 1958), for application to Quaternary paleoceanography. Cassidulina teretis, which has been studied by several generations of Arctic foraminiferal specialists, is used in Arctic Ocean...
Emperor geese (Anser canagicus) are exposed to a diversity of influenza A viruses, are infected during the non-breeding period and contribute to intercontinental viral dispersal
Andrew M. Ramey, Brian D. Uher-Koch, Andrew B. Reeves, Joel A. Schmutz, Rebecca L. Poulson, David E. Stallknecht
2019, Transboundary and Emerging Diseases (66) 1958-1970
Emperor geese (Anser canagicus) are endemic to coastal areas within Beringia and have previously been found to have antibodies to or to be infected with influenza A viruses (IAVs) in Alaska. In this study, we use virological, serological and tracking data to further elucidate the role of emperor geese in...
Responses of Native American cultural heritage to changes in environmental setting
Gustavo A. Bisbal, Chas E Jones Jr.
2019, AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples (15) 359-367
Cultural expressions of American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) reflect the relationship between AIAN and the plant and animal species present in an area. Different forces that modify that relationship and influence those expressions can potentially shape AIAN cultural heritage and even compromise their cultural identity. Herein, we propose seven...
State of knowledge on current exposure, fate and potential health effects of contaminants in polar bears from the circumpolar Arctic
Heli Routti, Todd C. Atwood, Thea Bechshoft, Andrei N. Boltunov, Tomasz M. Ciesielski, Jean-Pierre Desforges, Rune Dietz, Geir W. Gabrielsen, Bjørn Munro Jenssen, Robert J. Letcher, Melissa A. McKinney, A. Morris, F. Riget, Christian Sonne, Bjarne Styrishave, Sabrina Tartu
2019, Science of Total Environment (664) 1063-1083
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is among the Arctic species exposed to the highest concentrations of long-range transported bioaccumulative contaminants, such as halogenated organic compounds and mercury. Contaminant exposure is considered to be one of the largest threats to polar bears after the loss...
Monitoring long-term changes in forage fish distribution, abundance and body condition
Mayumi L. Arimitsu, John F. Piatt
2019, Report
We collected data on forage fish abundance, distribution and body condition in Prince William Sound, Alaska during summers in 2012 through 2016. This included acoustic – trawl surveys, aerial-acoustic surveys, opportunistic sampling where we encountered forage aggregations, and concurrent measurements of forage fish habitat. Acoustic indices of density suggest low...
