Survival outcome patterns revealed by deploying advanced tags in quantity: Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) survivals after release from trawl catches through expedited sorting
Craig S. Rose, Julie K. Nielsen, John Gauvin, Tim Loher, Suresh Sethi, Andrew C. Seitz, Michael B. Courtney, Paige Drobny
2019, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (76) 2215-2224
Bycatch of Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) limits many trawl fisheries in Alaska and greatly concerns stakeholders from local communities and fisheries that rely on Pacific halibut. To reduce Pacific halibut mortality, trawlers in the Bering Sea that target flatfish have been developing expedited release procedures to sort Pacific halibut from...
Plasticity in elk migration timing is a response to changing environmental conditions
Gregory J.M. Rickbeil, Jerod A. Merkle, Greg Anderson, M. Paul Atwood, Jon P. Beckmann, Eric K. Cole, Alyson B. Courtemanch, Sarah Dewey, David D. Gustine, Matthew Kauffman, Douglas E. McWhirter, Tony W. Mong, Kelly Proffitt, Patrick J. White, Arthur D. Middleton
2019, Global Change Biology (25) 2368-2381
Migration is an effective behavioral strategy for prolonging access to seasonal resources and may be a resilient strategy for ungulates experiencing changing climatic conditions. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), elk are the primary ungulate, with approximately 20,000 individuals migrating to exploit seasonal gradients in forage...
Tsunamigenic splay faults imply a long-term asperity in southern Prince William Sound, Alaska
Lee Liberty, Daniel S. Brothers, Peter J. Haeussler
2019, Geophysical Research Letters (46) 3764-3772
Coseismic slip partitioning and uplift over multiple earthquake cycles is critical to understanding upper‐plate fault development. Bathymetric and seismic reflection data from the 1964 Mw9.2 Great Alaska earthquake rupture area reveal sea floor scarps along the tsunamigenic Patton Bay/Cape Cleare/Middleton Island fault system. The faults splay from...
Extreme reduction in nutritional value of a key forage fish during the Pacific marine heatwave of 2014–2016
Vanessa R. von Biela, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, John F. Piatt, Brielle Heflin, Sarah K. Schoen, Jannelle Trowbridge, Chelsea Clawson
2019, Marine Ecology Progress Series (613) 171-182
Pacific sand lance Ammodytes personatus are a key forage fish in the North Pacific for many species of salmon, groundfish, seabirds, and marine mammals and have historically been important to predators in relatively warm years. However, extreme declines in the nutritional value of sand lance in Prince William Sound, Alaska, USA,...
Estimating the energy expenditure of free‐ranging polar bears using tri‐axial accelerometers: A validation with doubly labeled water
Anthony M. Pagano, Terrie M. Williams
2019, Ecology and Evolution (9) 4210-4219
Measures of energy expenditure can be used to inform animal conservation and management, but methods for measuring the energy expenditure of free‐ranging animals have a variety of limitations. Advancements in biologging technologies have enabled the use of dynamic body acceleration derived from accelerometers as a proxy for energy expenditure. Although...
Migratory goose arrival time plays a larger role in influencing forage quality than advancing springs in an Arctic coastal wetland
Karen H. Beard, Ryan T. Choi, A. Joshua Leffer, Lindsay Carlson, Katharine C. Kelsey, Joel A. Schmutz, Jeffrey Welker
2019, PLoS ONE (14)
With warmer springs, herbivores migrating to Arctic breeding grounds may experience phenological mismatches between their energy demands and the availability of high quality forage. However, the timing of high quality forage relative to the timing of grazing is often unknown. In coastal western Alaska, approximately one million migratory geese arrive...
Towards determining spatial methane distribution on Arctic permafrost bluffs with an unmanned aerial system
Ferdinand K. J. Oberle, Ann E. Gibbs, Bruce M. Richmond, Li H. Erikson, Mark P. Waldrop, Peter W. Swarzenski
2019, SN Applied Sciences (1) 1-9
Arctic permafrost stores vast amounts of methane (CH4) in subsurface reservoirs. Thawing permafrost creates areas for this potent greenhouse gas to be released to the atmosphere. Identifying ‘hot spots’ of methane flux on a local scale has been limited by the spatial scales of traditional ground-based or satellite-based methane-sampling methods....
Current trends and future directions in swan research: Insights from the 6th International Swan Symposium
Kevin Wood, Lei Cao, P. Clausen, Craig R. Ely, L. Luigujoe, Eileen Rees, Jeffrey Snyder, D. Solovyeva, R. Wlodarczyk
2019, Wildfowl
Given their popularity with researchers and public alike, together with their welldocumented importance in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, fundamental and applied research on swans continues to develop in the 21st century. The 6th International Swan Symposium (6th ISS), was held at the Estonian University of Life Sciences in Tartu, Estonia,...
Late-Glacial paleoecology of the Middle Susitna Valley, Alaska: Environmental context for human dispersal
Nancy H. Bigelow, Joshua D. Reuther, Kristi L. Wallace, Émilie Saulnier-Talbot, Katherine Mullikey, Matthew Wooller
2019, Frontiers Earth Science Journal (7)
We present here the results of multi-proxy analyses (sediment geochemistry, diatoms, and pollen) from sediment cores collected at four lakes in the middle Susitna Valley, Alaska. These lakes form a transect from the tundra to the boreal forest. The retrieved cores span from ~12,000 cal yr BP to the present,...
An assessment of plant species differences on cellulose oxygen isotopes from two Kenai Peninsula, Alaska peatlands: Implications for hydroclimatic reconstructions
Miriam Jones, Lesleigh Anderson, Katherine Keller, Bailey Nash, Virginia Littell, Matthew J. Wooller, Chelsea Jolley
2019, Frontiers in Earth Science (7)
Peat cores are valuable archives of past environmental change because they accumulate plant organic matter over millennia. While studies have primarily focused on physical, ecological, and some biogeochemical proxies, cores from peatlands have increasingly been used to interpret hydroclimatic change using stable isotope analyses of cellulose preserved in plant remains....
Influenza A prevalence and subtype diversity in migrating teal sampled along the United States Gulf Coast
Deborah Carter, Paul T. Link, Patrick Walther, Andrew M. Ramey, David E. Stallknecht, Rebecca L. Poulson
2019, Avian Diseases (63) 165-171
Wild birds in the order Anseriformes are important reservoirs for influenza A viruses (IAV); however, IAV prevalence and subtype diversity may vary by season, even at the same location. To better understand the ecology of IAV during waterfowl migration through the Gulf Coast of the United States (Louisiana and Texas),...
Spatiotemporal remote sensing of ecosystem change and causation across Alaska
Neal J. Pastick, M. Torre Jorgenson, Scott J. Goetz, Benjamin M. Jones, Bruce K. Wylie, Burke J. Minsley, Hélène Genet, Joseph F. Knight, David K. Swanson, Janet C. Jorgenson
2019, Global Change Biology (25) 1171-1189
Contemporary climate change in Alaska has resulted in amplified rates of press and pulse disturbances that drive ecosystem change with significant consequences for socio‐environmental systems. Despite the vulnerability of Arctic and boreal landscapes to change, little has been done to characterize landscape change and associated drivers across northern high‐latitude ecosystems....
Dropstones in lacustrine sediments as a record of snow avalanches - A validation of the proxy by combining satellite imagery and varve chronology at Kenai Lake (south-central Alaska)
Sien Thys, Maarten Van Daele, Nore Praet, Britta J.L. Jensen, Thomas Van Dyck, Peter J. Haeussler, Elke Vandekerkhove, Veerle Cnudde, Marc De Batist
2019, Quaternary Geochronology (2)
Snow avalanches cause many fatalities every year and damage local economies worldwide. The present-day climate change affects the snowpack and, thus, the properties and frequency of snow avalanches. Reconstructing snow avalanche records can help us understand past variations in avalanche frequency and their relationship to climate change. Previous avalanche records...
The black brant population is declining based on mark recapture
James S. Sedinger, Thomas V. Riecke, Alan G. Leach, David H. Ward
2019, Journal of Wildlife Management (83) 627-637
Annual survival and recruitment in black brant (Branta bernicla nigricans) have declined since the 1990s, yet aerial surveys of the global population have been stable or even increasing over the past decade. We used a combination of a Lincoln estimator based on harvest information and band recoveries, and marked‐unmarked ratios...
Flexible timing of annual movements across consistently used sites by Marbled Godwits breeding in Alaska
Daniel R. Ruthrauff, T. Lee Tibbitts, Robert E. Gill Jr.
2019, The Auk (136) 1-11
The study of avian movement has detailed a spectrum of strategies for the timing and use of sites throughout the annual cycle, from near randomness to complete consistency. New tracking devices now permit the repeated tracking of individual animals throughout the annual cycle, detailing previously unappreciated levels of variation within...
Spatial distribution of band recoveries of black brant
Alan G. Leach, David H. Ward, James S. Sedinger, Thomas V. Riecke, Jerry W. Hupp, Robert J. Ritchie
2019, Journal of Wildlife Management (83) 304-311
On average, band recovery rates of adult black brant (Branta bernicla nigricans) more than doubled between the 2000s and 2010s. However, the spatial distribution of band recoveries of black brant has not been reported. Our objective was to describe the spatial distribution of band recoveries of black brant since 1990....
On the eruption age and provenance of the Old Crow tephra
Seth D. Burgess, Matthew Coble, Jorge A. Vazquez, Michelle L. Coombs, Kristi L. Wallace
2019, Quaternary Science Reviews (207) 64-79
Tephrochronology is used to correlate and reconstruct geographically disparate sedimentary records of changing environment, climate, and landscape throughout geologic time. Single tephra layers represent isochronous markers across broad regions, thus accurate and precise radiometric constraints on the timing of eruption are critical to their...
Pace and process of active folding and fluvial incision across the Kantishna Hills anticline, central Alaska
Adrian Bender, Richard O. Lease, Peter J. Haeussler, Tammy M. Rittenour, Lee B. Corbett, Paul R. Bierman, Marc W. Caffee
2019, Geophysical Research Letters (46) 3235-3244
Rates of northern Alaska Range thrust system deformation are poorly constrained. Shortening at the system's west end is focused on the Kantishna Hills anticline. Where the McKinley River cuts across the anticline, the landscape records both Late Pleistocene deformation and climatic change. New optically stimulated luminescence and cosmogenic 10Be depth profile...
Wasting disease and static environmental variables drive sea star assemblages in the northern Gulf of Alaska
Brenda Konar, Timothy J. Mitchell, K. Iken, Thomas Dean, Daniel Esler, Mandy Lindeberg, Benjamin Pister, Ben P. Weitzman
2019, Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology (520) 1-10
Sea stars are ecologically important in rocky intertidal habitats where they can play an apex predator role, completely restructuring communities. The recent sea star die-off throughout the eastern Pacific, known as Sea Star Wasting Disease, has prompted a need to understand spatial and temporal patterns of sea star assemblages and...
Micro-geographic population genetic structure within Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) in Beaufort Sea of Alaska
Robert E. Wilson, George K. Sage, Kate Wedemeyer, Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Damian M. Menning, Megan C. Gravley, R. John Nelson, Sandra L. Talbot
2019, ICES Journal of Marine Science (76) 1713-1721
Many marine organisms show significant levels of genetic heterogeneity on local spatial scales despite exhibiting limited genetic structure at large geographic scales which can be produced through a variety of mechanisms. The Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) is a circumpolar species and is a vital species in Arctic food webs. To...
Negligible cycling of terrestrial carbon in many lakes of the arid circumpolar landscape
Matthew J. Bogard, Catherine D. Kuhn, Sarah Ellen Johnston, Robert G. Striegl, Gordon W. Holtgrieve, Mark M. Dornblaser, Robert G. M. Spencer, Kimberly P. Wickland, David E. Butman
2019, Nature Geoscience (12) 180-185
High-latitude environments store nearly half of the planet’s below-ground organic carbon (OC), mostly in perennially frozen permafrost soils. Climatic changes drive increased export of terrestrial OC into many aquatic networks, yet the role that circumpolar lakes play in mineralizing this carbon is unclear. Here we directly evaluate ecosystem-scale OC cycling...
US Topo Product Standard
Larry R. Davis, Kristin A. Fishburn, Helmut Lestinsky, Laurence R. Moore, Jennifer L. Walter
2019, Techniques and Methods 11-B2
This document defines a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) digital topographic map. This map product series, named “US Topo,” is modeled on the now historical USGS 7.5-minute (1:24,000 scale) topographic map series produced and printed by the USGS from 1947 to 2006. US Topo maps have the...
Heightened immune system function in polar bears using terrestrial habitats
John P. Whiteman, Henry J. Harlow, George M. Durner, Eric V. Regehr, Steven C. Amstrup, Merav Ben-David
2019, Physiological and Biochemical Zoology (92) 1-11
Climate change is altering the distribution of some wildlife species while warming temperatures are facilitating the northward expansion of pathogens, potentially increasing disease risk. Melting of Arctic sea ice is causing polar bears (Ursus maritimus) of the Southern Beaufort Sea (SBS) to increasingly spend summer on land, where they may...
Brood size affects future reproduction in a long-lived bird with precocial young
Alan Leach, James Sedinger, Thomas Riecke, Amanda Van Dellen, David H. Ward, Sean Boyd
2019, American Naturalist (193) 458-471
Estimation of trade-offs between current reproduction and future survival and fecundity of long-lived vertebrates is essential to understanding factors that shape optimal reproductive investment. Black brant geese (Branta bernicla nigricans) fledge more goslings, on average, when their broods are experimentally enlarged to be greater than the most common clutch size...
Seasonal distribution of Dall's porpoise in Prince William Sound, Alaska
J.R. Moran, M.B. O'Dell, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Jan M Straley, D.M.S. Dickson
2019, Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography (147) 164-172
Dall's porpoise, Phocoenoides dalli, are a conspicuous predator in the Prince William Sound ecosystem, yet there has been little effort directed towards monitoring this species since the 1980s, prior to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. We used vessel-based surveys to examine the seasonal distribution of Dall's porpoise in the waters...
