Earth Sciences Commons^™

Effects Of Initial Aquifer Conditions On Economic Benefits From Groundwater Conservation, T. Foster, N. Brozovic, A. P. Butler

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Worldwide, there is growing recognition of the need to reduce agricultural groundwater use in response to rapid rates of aquifer depletion. To date, however, few studies have evaluated how benefits of conservation vary along an aquifer’s depletion pathway. To address this question, we develop an integrated modeling framework that couples an agro-economic model of farmers’ field-level irrigation decisionmaking with a borehole-scale groundwater flow model. Unique to this framework is the explicit consideration of the dynamic reductions in well yields that occur as an aquifer is depleted, and how these changes in intraseasonal groundwater supply affect farmers’ ability to manage production …

Effects Of Spatially Distributed Stream Power On Check Dam Function In Small Upland Watersheds: A Case Study Of The Upper Laja Watershed, Guanajuato, Mexico, Zachary Andrew Herzfeld

Dissertations and Theses

Watershed restoration comes in a variety of forms depending on which set of problems are sought to be remedied. Severe soil erosion, in the form of gullying and/or headcutting, can be mitigated through constructing check dams in well-selected locations. This practice has been used throughout the upland subwatersheds within the Upper Laja River watershed in Guanajuato, México. The present study employed Wolman pebble counts to systematically assess the effectiveness of 21 check dams located near the city of San Miguel de Allende. Particle size distributions taken directly downstream and upstream of each check dam were differentiated, aggregated and compared--with the …

Microbial Interactions In The Phyllosphere Increase Plant Performance Under Herbivore Biotic Stress, Muhammad Saleem, Nicole Meckes, Zahida H. Pervaiz, Milton B. Traw

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

The phyllosphere supports a tremendous diversity of microbes and other organisms. However, little is known about the colonization and survival of pathogenic and beneficial bacteria alone or together in the phyllosphere across the whole plant life-cycle under herbivory, which hinders our ability to understand the role of phyllosphere bacteria on plant performance. We addressed these questions in experiments using four genetically and biogeographically diverse accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana, three ecologically important bacterial strains (Pseudomonas syringae DC3000, Xanthomonas campestris, both pathogens, and Bacillus cereus, plant beneficial) under common garden conditions that included fungus gnats (Bradysia spp.). …

Moderator Biographies, Heart Of America Grazing Conference

Kentucky Grazing Conference

No abstract provided.

Grazing Panel, Jeff Beasley, Trevor Toland, Ted Krauskopf

Kentucky Grazing Conference

No abstract provided.

Cover Crops/Annuals And Grazing, Roger Staff

Kentucky Grazing Conference

The use of annual forages (cover crops), both summer and winter, have been utilized for several years. When cover crops first were used to extend the grazing season, it began with one to three species in a mixture. That was before the soil health benefits were being observed and discussed as they are now. There have been a wide variety of planting methods used: airplanes, helicopters, conventional and No-till drills. Some seeding methods is simply broadcast on the soils surface and lightly tilled in or just rained in depending upon the weather. Then we discovered the herbicides and amounts used …

Mitigating The Challenges Of Grazing Lush, Spring Forages, W. Travis Meteer

Kentucky Grazing Conference

During the winter season most cattle are supplemented with dry forages, grains, and co-products. This ration is balanced and delivered to cattle. Then spring comes along and cattle are put out to grass. While green grass solves a lot of problems associated with winter feeding (manure, pen maintenance, calf health, and labor demands), it can pose nutritional challenges. Lush, spring forage has three major challenges when it comes to meeting cattle nutrition requirements.

Seedhead Suppression In Tall Fescue With Chaparral Herbicide, E. S. Flynn, P. B. Burch

Kentucky Grazing Conference

Tall Fescue (Lolium arundinaceum (Schreb.)) is cool-season perennial grass found in pastures throughout the Eastern US, most commonly in the transition zone. It’s tolerance to extreme temperatures, drought, poor soil fertility, heavy grazing, and pests have made it a reliable forage base for livestock pastures. Released in 1943, ‘KY-31’ tall fescue was quickly adopted by cattle producers and now inhabits an estimated 40 million acres in the US.

Soon after its adoption, cattle producers began to notice a reduction in animal performance and signs that animals were heat stressed following tall fescue consumption. These symptoms were an indication of an …

Fescue Tolerance Testing, Monty Kerley

Kentucky Grazing Conference

Fescue toxicosis is characterized by clinical symptoms such as vasoconstriction, immunosuppression, and poor thermoregulation. Fescue toxins bind to membrane receptors of cells that control constriction of blood through capillaries responsible for heat dissipation. When cattle consume toxic tall fescue, they lose ability to move blood to their skin where heat can be lost to the environment. As they lose this ability they become more prone to heat stress. In the winter, this lack of blood flow leads to other clinical symptoms, such as fescue foot and loss of tail switch, that occur from restricted blood flow.

Research Update: Beef Cattle Management Considerations For Grazing Tall Fescue, Frank Ireland

Kentucky Grazing Conference

It has been reported that 8 million beef cattle graze an estimated 35 million acres of endophyte-infected tall fescue in the United States with the majority of tall fescue being produced in the Midwest and southeastern regions of the United States. In the presence of the endophytic fungus, ergot alkaloids are present that when consumed by beef cattle results in decreased animal performance as measured in reduced weight gains, lower body condition scores, decreased conception rates, rough hair coats and the inability to regulate body temperatures. It has been estimated that this loss in animal performance accounts for a $600 …

In Defense Of Soil Health, Allen R. Williams

Kentucky Grazing Conference

Soil health is a hot topic today in sustainable agriculture circles and is even becoming more popular in conventional agriculture. However, the term is often thrown around loosely, and sometimes the meaning gets muddled.

Foreword And Conference Information [2017], Matt Bunger

Kentucky Grazing Conference

This is the front matter of the proceedings.

Closing The Water Budget In An Experimental Urban Watershed: A Comparative Assessment Of Methods For Measuring Evapotranspiration, Leana M. Weissberg, Gaboury Benoit

Yale Day of Data

No abstract provided.

Nanoscale Measurement Of Trace Element Distributions In Spartina Alterniflora Root Tissue During Dormancy, Huan Feng, Yu Qian, J. Kirk Cochran, Qingzhi Zhu, Wen Hu, Hanfei Yan, Li Li, Xiaojing Huang, Yong S. Chu, Houjun Liu, Shinjae Yoo, Chang Jun Liu

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper reports a nanometer-scale investigation of trace element (As, Ca, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, S and Zn) distributions in the root system Spartina alterniflora during dormancy. The sample was collected on a salt marsh island in Jamaica Bay, New York, in April 2015 and the root was cross-sectioned with 10 μm resolution. Synchrotron X-ray nanofluorescence was applied to map the trace element distributions in selected areas of the root epidermis and endodermis. The sampling resolution was 60 nm to increase the measurement accuracy and reduce the uncertainty. The results indicate that the elemental concentrations in the epidermis, outer …

U.S. Drought Monitor, January 17, 2017, Richard Tinker

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for January 17, 2017 (1/17/17) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

User Guide For Luminescence Sampling In Archaeological And Geological Context, Michelle C. Summa-Nelson, Harrison J. Gray, Jack A. Johnson, Tammy M. Rittenour, James K. Feathers, Shannon A. Mahan

Geosciences Faculty Publications

Luminescence dating provides a direct age estimate of the time of last exposure of quartz or feldspar minerals to light or heat and has been successfully applied to deposits, rock surfaces, and fired materials in a number of archaeological and geological settings. Sampling strategies are diverse and can be customized depending on local circumstances, although all sediment samples need to include a light-safe sample and material for dose-rate determination. The accuracy and precision of luminescence dating results are directly related to the type and quality of the material sampled and sample collection methods in the field. Selection of target material …

Evolution Of Floral Zygomorphy In Androecium And Corolla In Solanaceae, Jingbo Zhang, Peter Stevens, Wenheng Zhang

Biology Department Faculty Works

In Solanaceae, a group dominated by actinomorphic‐flowered species, floral zygomorphy is frequently observed among the early‐branching clades. Morphological studies indicated that a zygomorphic androecium is much more common than a zygomorphic corolla in the family. Ontogenic studies suggested the evolution of floral zygomorphy in these two whorls is independent. Here, we have examined the evolution of floral symmetry in the androecium and corolla in Solanaceae. The character states of floral symmetry were assembled for androecium and corolla separately, and ancestral state reconstructions were carried out at both the genus and species levels for Solanaceae and its outgroups. Correlation tests were …

Petrographical And Geochemical Changes In Bosnian Stalagmites And Their Palaeo-Environmental Significance, Veronica Chiarini, Isabelle Couchoud, Russell Drysdale, Petra Bajo, Simone Milanolo, Silvia Frisia, Alan Greig, John Hellstrom, Jo De Waele

International Journal of Speleology

Detailed petrographic observations have been coupled with trace element and δ¹³C - δ¹⁸O analyses in order to investigate their dynamics in two Holocene Bosnian speleothems. The potential of this multiproxy approach in providing a means to extract palaeo-environmental information from stalagmites whose stable isotope signals are noisy and without obvious trends has been tested. The studied stalagmites are mostly characterized by columnar microcrystalline fabric. At the sub-millimetre scale of lamination, different microcrystalline columnar sub-types (open and closed) have been detected and classified on the basis of the observed porosity and the crystallite size. The presence of …

U.S. Drought Monitor, January 10, 2017, David Miskus

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for January 10, 2017 (1/10/17) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

Phylogenetic Patterns Of Rarity In A Regional Species Pool Of Tropical Woody Plants, M. Loza, Iván Jiménez, Peter Jørgensen, Gabriel Arellano, Manuel Macía, Vania Torrez, Robert Ricklefs

Biology Department Faculty Works

AimRarity, which is believed to influence extinction risk, can be defined in terms of local abundance, geographical range size and habitat breadth. Phylogenetic patterns in these attributes provide insight into the extent to which rarity and extinction risk are conserved during evolution and the potential for species‐level heritability. We evaluated phylogenetic signal (i.e., related species resembling each other more than species drawn at random) and evolutionary conservatism (similarity among related species exceeding that expected from a Brownian model of evolution) in three axes of rarity (local abundance, geographical range size and habitat breadth) among species in a regional pool of …

Implications Of Sea Ice On Southern Ocean Microseisms Detected By A Seismic Array In West Antarctica, Martin J. Pratt, Douglas A. Wiens, J. Paul Winberry, Sridhar Anandakrishnan, Garrett G. Euler

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

The proximity of Southern Ocean storms coupled with seasonal variation in sea ice make Antarctica ideal for the study of microseism sources. We explore frequency-dependent beamforming results using a short-duration, 60 km aperture, broad-band seismic array located on the Whillans Ice Stream, West Antarctica. Locations of single-frequency microseism (13–16 s period) generation are in regions where the continental shelf is ice-free, consistent with previous studies, and show Rayleigh wave sources remaining at consistent backazimuths throughout the duration of the array. Beamforming analysis of daily noise correlations shows that long-period double-frequency microseisms (9–11 s) consist predominantly of Rayleigh waves excited by …

Toxicity Of Fluorescent Tracers And Their Degradation Byproducts, Philippe Gombert, Hugues Biaudet, René De Sèze, Pascal Pandard, Jean Carré

International Journal of Speleology

Tracer tests are frequently used to delineate catchment area of water supply springs in karstic zones. In the karstic chalk of Normandy, the main tracers used are fluorescent: uranine, sulforhodamine B, naphtionate, and Tinopal®. In this area, a statistical analysis shows that less than half of the injected tracers joins the monitored restitution points and enters the drinking water system where they undergo chlorination. Most of the injected tracers is absorbed in the rock matrix or is thrown out of the aquifer via karstic springs: then it can join superficial waters where it is degraded due to the sun and …

Empirical And Modeling Analyses Of The Circulation Influences On California Precipitation Deficits, Yen-Heng Lin, Lawrence E. Hipps, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Jin-Ho Yoon

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

Amplified and persistent ridges in western North America are recurring features associated with drought conditions in California. The recent drought event (2012–2016) lasted through both La Niña and El Niño episodes, suggesting additional climate drivers are important in addition to the commonly perceived El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Diagnostic analyses presented here suggest that, while the Pacific North American (PNA) and North Pacific Oscillation (NPO) do not directly cause drought in California, the relationships between them and with the upper air circulation pattern do modulate the spatial drought pattern. The positive PNA relative circulation leads drier northern California, and (-NPO) relative circulation …

A Twenty-Year Look At “Computational Geology,” An Evolving, In-Discipline Course In Quantitative Literacy At The University Of South Florida, Victor J. Ricchezza, H. L. Vacher

Numeracy

Since 1996, the Geology (GLY) program at the USF has offered “Computational Geology” as part of its commitment to prepare undergraduate majors for the quantitative aspects of their field. The course focuses on geological-mathematical problem solving. Over its twenty years, the course has evolved from a GATC (geometry-algebra-trigonometry-calculus) in-discipline capstone to a quantitative literacy (QL) course taught within a natural science major. With the formation of the new School of Geosciences in 2013, the merging departments re-examined their various curricular programs. An online survey of the Geology Alumni Society found that “express quantitative evidence in support of an argument” was …

U.S. Drought Monitor, January 3, 2017, David Miskus

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for January 3, 2017 (1/3/17) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

Rain Or Snow: Hydrologic Processes, Observations, Prediction, And Research Needs, James P. Mcnamara

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The phase of precipitation when it reaches the ground is a first-order driver of hydrologic processes in a watershed. The presence of snow, rain, or mixed-phase precipitation affects the initial and boundary conditions that drive hydrological models. Despite their foundational importance to terrestrial hydrology, typical phase partitioning methods (PPMs) specify the phase based on near-surface air temperature only. Our review conveys the diversity of tools available for PPMs in hydrological modeling and the advancements needed to improve predictions in complex terrain with large spatiotemporal variations in precipitation phase. Initially, we review the processes and physics that control precipitation phase as …

Reconciling Opposing Soil Processes In Row-Crop Agroecosystems Via Soil Functional Zone Management, Alwyn Williams, Adam S. Davis, Andrea Jilling, A. Stuart Grandy, Roger T. Koide, David A. Mortensen, Richard G. Smith, Sieglinde S. Snapp, Kurt A. Spokas, Anthony C. Yannarell, Nicholas R. Jordan

Faculty Publications

Sustaining soil productivity in agricultural systems presents a fundamental agroecological challenge: nutrient provisioning depends upon aggregate turnover and microbial decomposition of organic matter (SOM); yet to prevent soil depletion these processes must be balanced by those that restore nutrients and SOM (soil building processes). These nutrient provisioning and soil building processes are inherently in conflict; management practices that create spatial separation between them may enable each to occur effectively within a single growing season, thereby supporting high crop yield while avoiding soil depletion. Soil functional zone management (SFZM), an understudied but increasingly adopted strategy for annual row-crop production, may help …

Discovery And Geology Of The Guinness World Record Lake Copper, Lake Superior, Michigan, Theodore J. Bornhorst, Robert Barron

A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum Publications

No abstract provided.

Spatially Distributed Pothole Depth Data, Xuefeng Michael Chu Ph.D, Kendall Grimm, Mohsen Tahmasebi Nasab, Ning Wang, Mohammad Hadi Bazrkar, Lan Zeng, Matt Lee, Jamal Ghauri, Dillon Ekholm, Jackie Arntson, Libby Kruse, Jared Swanberg

Datasets

The locations of our surveyed potholes are located in the Cottonwood Lake Study Area (CLSA) of the USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center (NPWRC). RiverSurveyor M9 by SonTec (RiverSurveyor M9) was utilized to obtain spatially distributed pothole depth data. This way a modified DEM was created which reflected the pothole bathymetry rather than the water surface elevations. The M9 records water depths using multi-band multiple acoustic frequencies from the vertical beam which “pings” the pothole bed while simultaneously collecting the GPS coordinates of each “ping”. High ping rates ensure robust data collection and high resolution. The vertical beam can measure …

Temporal Pothole Depth Data, Xuefeng Michael Chu Ph.D, Kendall Grimm, Mohsen Tahmasebi Nasab, Ning Wang, Mohammad Hadi Bazrkar, Lan Zeng, Matt Lee, Jamal Ghauri, Dillon Ekholm, Jackie Arntson, Libby Kruse, Jared Swanberg

Datasets

The locations of our surveyed potholes are located in the Cottonwood Lake Study Area (CLSA) of the USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center (NPWRC).The HOBO pressure transducers (HOBO Pressure Transducer) used in this hydrologic monitoring study are wireless water level loggers with Bluetooth capabilities for data download. These sensors have a 3-point NIST-traceable calibration certificate from ONSET. They were self-calibrated/lab tested by our NDSU hydrologic modeling group. The measured water level accuracy is ± 0.05 – 0.1%. The sensors were installed in the summers of 2016 and 2017 and removed in late September or early October of each year, respectively. …