New findings of twisted-wing parasites (Strepsiptera) in Alaska
Molly Mcdermott
2016, Newsletter of the Alaska Entomological Society (9) 6-8
Strepsipterans are a group of insects with a gruesome life history and an enigmatic evolutionary past. Called ‘twisted-wing parasites’, they are minute parasitoids with a very distinct morphology (Figure 1). Alternatively thought to be related to ichneumon wasps, Diptera (flies), Coleoptera (beetles), and even Neuroptera (net-winged insects) (Pohl and Beutel,...
Mid-21st-century climate changes increase predicted fire occurrence and fire season length, Northern Rocky Mountains, United States
Karin L. Riley, Rachel A. Loehman
2016, Ecosphere (7)
Climate changes are expected to increase fire frequency, fire season length, and cumulative area burned in the western United States. We focus on the potential impact of mid-21st-century climate changes on annual burn probability, fire season length, and large fire characteristics including number and size for a study area in...
A suspended dive-net technique for catching territorial divers
Brian D. Uher-Koch, Daniel Rizzolo, Kenneth G. Wright, Joel A. Schmutz
2016, Ringing and Migration (31) 19-22
A variety of methods such as night-lighting and lift nets have been used to catch divers (Gavidae), although 24-hour daylight in the Arctic summer and the remote nature of field sites can make the use of these traditional methods impossible. Our research required capture of adult divers at remote locations...
Using thermal limits to assess establishment of fish dispersing to high-latitude and high-elevation watersheds
Karen M. Dunmall, Neil J. Mochnacz, Christian E. Zimmerman, Charles Lean, James D. Reist
2016, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (73) 1750-1758
Distributional shifts of biota to higher latitudes and elevations are presumably influenced by species-specific physiological tolerances related to warming temperatures. However, it is establishment rather than dispersal that may be limiting colonizations in these cold frontier areas. In freshwater ecosystems, perennial groundwater springs provide critical winter thermal refugia in these...
Space use of a dominant Arctic vertebrate: Effects of prey, sea ice, and land on Pacific walrus resource selection
William S. Beatty, Chadwick V. Jay, Anthony S. Fischbach, Jacqueline M. Grebmeier, Rebecca L. Taylor, Arny L. Blanchard, Stephen C. Jewett
2016, Biological Conservation (203) 25-32
Sea ice dominates marine ecosystems in the Arctic, and recent reductions in sea ice may alter food webs throughout the region. Sea ice loss may also stress Pacific walruses (Odobenus rosmarus divergens), which feed on benthic macroinvertebrates in the Bering and Chukchi seas. However, no studies have examined the effects...
A glacier runoff extension to the Precipitation Runoff Modeling System
Ashley E. Van Beusekom, Roland J. Viger
2016, Journal of Geophysical Research F: Earth Surface (121) 2001-2021
A module to simulate glacier runoff, PRMSglacier, was added to PRMS (Precipitation Runoff Modeling System), a distributed-parameter, physical-process hydrological simulation code. The extension does not require extensive on-glacier measurements or computational expense but still relies on physical principles over empirical relations as much as is feasible while maintaining model usability....
When winners become losers: Predicted nonlinear responses of arctic birds to increasing woody vegetation
Sarah J. Thompson, Colleen M. Handel, Rachel M. Richardson, Lance B. McNew
2016, PLoS ONE (11) 1-17
Climate change is facilitating rapid changes in the composition and distribution of vegetation at northern latitudes, raising questions about the responses of wildlife that rely on arctic ecosystems. One widely observed change occurring in arctic tundra ecosystems is an increasing dominance of deciduous shrub vegetation. Our goals were to examine...
Age, distribution and style of deformation in Alaska north of 60°N: Implications for assembly of Alaska
Thomas E. Moore, Stephen E. Box
2016, Tectonophysics (691) 133-170
The structural architecture of Alaska is the product of a complex history of deformation along both the Cordilleran and Arctic margins of North America involving oceanic plates, subduction zones and strike-slip faults and with continental elements of Laurentia, Baltica, and Siberia. We use geological constraints to assign regions of deformation...
Static and dynamic controls on fire activity at moderate spatial and temporal scales in the Alaskan boreal forest
Kirsten Barrett, Tatiana Loboda, A. David McGuire, Hélène Genet, Elizabeth Hoy, Eric Kasischke
2016, Ecosphere (7) 1-21
Wildfire, a dominant disturbance in boreal forests, is highly variable in occurrence and behavior at multiple spatiotemporal scales. New data sets provide more detailed spatial and temporal observations of active fires and the post-burn environment in Alaska. In this study, we employ some of these new data to analyze variations...
Climate-change signals in national atmospheric deposition program precipitation data
Gregory A. Wetherbee, M. Alisa Mast
2016, Climate Dynamics (47) 3141-3155
National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP)/National Trends Network precipitation type, snow-season duration, and annual timing of selected chemical wet-deposition maxima vary with latitude and longitude within a 35-year (1979–2013) data record for the contiguous United States and Alaska. From the NADP data collected within the region bounded by 35.6645°–48.782° north latitude...
Evaluation of gas production potential from gas hydrate deposits in National Petroleum Reserve Alaska using numerical simulations
Manish S. Nandanwar, Brian J. Anderson, Taiwo Ajayi, Timothy S. Collett, Margarita V. Zyrianova
2016, Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering (36) 760-772
An evaluation of the gas production potential of Sunlight Peak gas hydrate accumulation in the eastern portion of the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska (NPRA) of Alaska North Slope (ANS) is conducted using numerical simulations, as part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) gas hydrate Life Cycle Assessment program. A field...
Development of novel microsatellite markers for the Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) and their utility in cross-species amplification
Christy Haughey, George K. Sage, Gabriel Degange, Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Sandra L. Talbot
2016, Avian Biology Research (9) 195-199
The Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) is a large forest raptor with a Holarctic distribution and, in some portions of its range, a species of conservation concern. To augment previously reported genetic markers, 13 novel polymorphic microsatellite markers were developed to establish individual identification and familial relationships, to assess levels of...
Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA analyses of golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos canadensis) from three areas in western North America; initial results and conservation implications
Erica H. Craig, Jennifer R. Adams, Lisette P. Waits, Mark R. Fuller, Diana M. Whittington
2016, PLoS ONE (11)
Understanding the genetics of a population is a critical component of developing conservation strategies. We used archived tissue samples from golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos canadensis) in three geographic regions of western North America to conduct a preliminary study of the genetics of the North American subspecies, and to provide data...
Recurrent hybridization and recent origin obscure phylogenetic relationships within the ‘white-headed’ gull (Larus sp.) complex
Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Robert E. Wilson, Terry Chesser, Jean-Marc Pons, Pierre-Andre Crochet, Amy Driscoll, Carla Dove
2016, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution (103) 41-54
Species complexes that have undergone recent radiations are often characterized by extensive allele sharing due to recent ancestry and (or) introgressive hybridization. This can result in discordant evolutionary histories of genes and heterogeneous genomes, making delineating species limits difficult. Here we examine the phylogenetic relationships among a complex group of...
Large along-strike variations in the onset of Subandean exhumation: Implications for Central Andean orogenic growth
Richard O. Lease, T.A. Ehlers, E. Enkelmann
2016, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (451) 62-76
Plate tectonics drives mountain building in general, but the space-time pattern and style of deformation is influenced by how climate, geodynamics, and basement structure modify the orogenic wedge. Growth of the Subandean thrust belt, which lies at the boundary between the arid, high-elevation Central Andean Plateau and its humid, low-elevation...
Weak support for disappearance and restricted emergence/persistence of highly pathogenic influenza A in North American waterfowl
Andrew M. Ramey, Erica Spackman, Mia Kim Torchetti, Thomas J. DeLiberto
2016, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (113) E6551-E6552
Krauss et al. (1) use lack of detection of highly pathogenic (HP) H5 clade 2.3.4.4 (henceforth "H5") influenza A viruses (IAVs) from >22,000 wild bird samples collected in North America in 2014–2015 to argue that HP H5 IAVs disappeared from waterfowl and that unresolved mechanisms restrict emergence and perpetuation of...
Estimating denning date of wolves with daily movement and GPS location fix failure
Patrick B. Walsh, Suresh Sethi, Bryce C. Lake, Buck A. Mangipane, Ryan Nielson, Stacey Lowe
2016, Wildlife Society Bulletin (40) 663-668
We used Global Positioning System (GPS) radiotelemetry data from 7 breeding female wolves (Canis lupus; n = 14 dennings) in 3 regions across Alaska, USA, during 2008–2011 to develop and compare methods for estimating the onset of denning, and thus infer timing of parturition. We developed and tested 2 estimators based on a...
Recovery of sockeye salmon in the Elwha River, Washington, after dam removal: Dependence of smolt production on the resumption of anadromy by landlocked kokanee
Adam G. Hansen, Jennifer R. Gardner, David A. Beauchamp, Rebecca Paradis, Thomas P. Quinn
2016, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (145) 1303-1317
Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp. are adept at colonizing habitat that has been reopened to anadromous passage. Sockeye Salmon O. nerka are unique in that most populations require lakes to fulfill their life history. Thus, for Sockeye Salmon to colonize a system, projects like dam removals must provide access to lakes....
Daniel Goodman’s empirical approach to Bayesian statistics
Tim Gerrodette, Eric Ward, Rebecca L. Taylor, Lisa K. Schwarz, Tomoharu Eguchi, Paul Wade, Gina Himes Boor
2016, PeerJ
Bayesian statistics, in contrast to classical statistics, uses probability to represent uncertainty about the state of knowledge. Bayesian statistics has often been associated with the idea that knowledge is subjective and that a probability distribution represents a personal degree of belief. Dr. Daniel Goodman considered this viewpoint problematic for issues...
Comparison of mercury mass loading in streams to atmospheric deposition in watersheds of Western North America: Evidence for non-atmospheric mercury sources
Joseph L. Domagalski, Michael S. Majewski, Charles N. Alpers, Chris S. Eckley, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Liam N. Schenk, Susan Wherry
2016, Science of the Total Environment (568) 638-650
Annual stream loads of mercury (Hg) and inputs of wet and dry atmospheric Hg deposition to the landscape were investigated in watersheds of the Western United States and the Canadian-Alaskan Arctic. Mercury concentration and discharge data from flow gauging stations were used to compute annual mass loads with regression models....
Interaction between climate, volcanism, and isostatic rebound in Southeast Alaska during the last deglaciation
Summer Praetorius, Alan Mix, Britta Jensen, Duane Froese, Glenn A. Milne, Matthew Wolhowe, Jason A. Addison, Fred Prahl
2016, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (452) 79-89
Observations of enhanced volcanic frequency during the last deglaciation have led to the hypothesis that ice unloading in glaciated volcanic terrains can promote volcanism through decompression melting in the shallow mantle or a reduction in crustal magma storage time. However, a direct link between regional climate change, isostatic adjustment, and...
Detecting and inferring cause of change in an Alaska nearshore marine ecosystem
H. A. Coletti, James L. Bodkin, Daniel Monson, Brenda E. Ballachey, T. A. Dean
2016, Ecosphere (7)
Community composition, species abundance, and species distribution are expected to change while monitoring ecosystems over time, and effective management of natural resources requires understanding mechanisms contributing to change. Marine ecosystems in particular can be difficult to monitor, in part due to large, multidimensional spatial scales and complex...
Viability of the Alaskan breeding population of Steller’s eiders
Kylee Dunham, J. Barry Grand
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1084
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is tasked with setting objective and measurable criteria for delisting species or populations listed under the Endangered Species Act. Determining the acceptable threshold for extinction risk for any species or population is a challenging task, particularly when facing marked uncertainty. The Alaskan breeding population...
Evaluating models of population process in a threatened population of Steller’s eiders: A retrospective approach
Kylee Dunham, J. Barry Grand
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1062
The Alaskan breeding population of Steller’s eiders (Polysticta stelleri) was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1997 in response to perceived declines in abundance throughout their breeding and nesting range. Aerial surveys suggest the breeding population is small and highly variable in number, with zero birds counted...
Helminth community structure in two species of arctic-breeding waterfowl
Courtney L. Amundson, N.J. Traub, A.J. Smith-Herron, Paul L. Flint
2016, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife (5) 263-272
Climate change is occurring rapidly at high latitudes, and subsequent changes in parasite communities may have implications for hosts including wildlife and humans. Waterfowl, in particular, harbor numerous parasites and may facilitate parasite movement across broad geographic areas due to migratory movements. However, little is known about helminth community structure...
