Other Earth Sciences Commons^™

Extending The Habitat Concept To The Airspace, Robert H. Diehl, Anna C. Peterson, Rachel T. Bolus, Douglas Johnson

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Habitat is one of the most familiar and fundamental concepts in the fields of ecology, animal behavior, and wildlife conservation and management. Humans interact with habitats through their senses and experiences and education to such a degree that their perceptions of habitat have become second nature. For this reason, it may be difficult at first to accept the airspace as habitat, an area that is invisible, untouchable, highly dynamic, and its occupants difficult to see. Nonetheless, the habitat concept, by definition and in practice, applies readily to the airspace. Some ecological and behavioral processes including habitat selection, foraging, and reproduction …

Linking Animals Aloft With The Terrestrial Landscape, Jeffrey J. Buler, Wylie C. Barrow Jr., Matthew E. Boone, Deanna K. Dawson, Robert H. Diehl, Frank R. Moore, Lori A. Randall, Timothy D. Schreckengost, Jaclyn A. Smolinsky

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Despite using the aerosphere for many facets of their life, most flying animals (i.e., birds, bats, some insects) are still bound to terrestrial habitats for resting, feeding, and reproduction. Comprehensive broad-scale observations by weather surveillance radars of animals as they leave terrestrial habitats for migration or feeding flights can be used to map their terrestrial distributions either as point locations (e.g., communal roosts) or as continuous surface layers (e.g., animal densities in habitats across a landscape). We discuss some of the technical challenges to reducing measurement biases related to how radars sample the aerosphere and the flight behavior of animals. …

Extending The Habitat Concept To The Airspace, Robert H. Diehl, Anna C. Peterson, Rachel T. Bolus, Douglas Johnson

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Habitat is one of the most familiar and fundamental concepts in the fields of ecology, animal behavior, and wildlife conservation and management. Humans interact with habitats through their senses and experiences and education to such a degree that their perceptions of habitat have become second nature. For this reason, it may be difficult at first to accept the airspace as habitat, an area that is invisible, untouchable, highly dynamic, and its occupants difficult to see. Nonetheless, the habitat concept, by definition and in practice, applies readily to the airspace. Some ecological and behavioral processes including habitat selection, foraging, and reproduction …

Water-Level And Recoverable Water In Storage Changes, High Plains Aquifer, Predevelopment To 2015 And 2013–15, Virginia L. Mcguire

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The High Plains aquifer underlies 111.8 million acres (about 175,000 square miles) in parts of eight States—Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. Water-level declines began in parts of the High Plains aquifer soon after the beginning of substantial irrigation with groundwater in the aquifer area (about 1950). This report presents water-level changes and change in recoverable water in storage in the High Plains aquifer from predevelopment (about 1950) to 2015 and from 2013 to 2015.

The methods to calculate area-weighted, average water-level changes; change in recoverable water in storage; and total recoverable water in storage …

Key Differences Between Lakes And Reservoirs Modify Climate Signals: A Case For A New Conceptual Model, Nicole M. Hayes, Bridget R. Deemer, Jessica R. Corman, N. Roxanna Razavi, Kristin E. Strock

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Lakes and reservoirs are recognized as important sentinels of climate change, integrating catchment and atmospheric climate change drivers. Climate change conceptual models generally consider lakes and reservoirs together despite the possibility that these systems respond differently to climate-related drivers. Here, we synthesize differences between lake and reservoir characteristics that are likely important for predicting waterbody response to climate change. To better articulate these differences, we revised the energy mass flux framework, a conceptual model for the effects of climate change on lentic ecosystems, to explicitly consider the differential responses of lake versus reservoir ecosystems. The model predicts that catchment and …

Modeling The Effects Of Tile Drain Placement On The Hydrologic Function Of Farmed Prairie Wetlands1, Brett Werner, John Tracy, W. Carter Johnson, Richard A. Voldseth, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Bruce Millett

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The early 2000s saw large increases in agricultural tile drainage in the eastern Dakotas of North America. Agricultural practices that drain wetlands directly are sometimes limited by wetland protection programs. Little is known about the impacts of tile drainage beyond the delineated boundaries of wetlands in upland catchments that may be in agricultural production. A series of experiments were conducted using the well-published model WETLANDSCAPE that revealed the potential for wetlands to have significantly shortened surface water inundation periods and lower mean depths when tile is placed in certain locations beyond the wetland boundary. Under the soil conditions found in …

Groundwater Declines Are Linked To Changes In Great Plains Stream Fish Assemblages, Joshuah S. Perkin, Keith B. Gido, Jeffrey A. Falke, Kurt D. Fausch, Harry Crockett, Eric R. Johnson, John Sanderson

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Groundwater pumping for agriculture is a major driver causing declines of global freshwater ecosystems, yet the ecological consequences for stream fish assemblages are rarely quantified. We combined retrospective (1950–2010) and prospective (2011–2060) modeling approaches within a multiscale framework to predict change in Great Plains stream fish assemblages associated with groundwater pumping from the United States High Plains Aquifer. We modeled the relationship between the length of stream receiving water from the High Plains Aquifer and the occurrence of fishes characteristic of small and large streams in the western Great Plains at a regional scale and for six subwatersheds nested within …

Predicting Post-Fire Change In West Virginia, Usa From Remotely-Sensed Data, Michael Strager P. Strager, Melissa Thomas-Van Gundy, Aaron E. Maxwell

Journal of Geospatial Applications in Natural Resources

Prescribed burning is used in West Virginia, USA to return the important disturbance process of fire to oak and oak-pine forests. Species composition and structure are often the main goals for re-establishing fire with less emphasis on fuel reduction or reducing catastrophic wildfire. In planning prescribed fires land managers could benefit from the ability to predict mortality to overstory trees. In this study, wildfires and prescribed fires in West Virginia were examined to determine if specific landscape and terrain characteristics were associated with patches of high/moderate post-fire change. Using the ensemble machine learning approach of Random Forest, we determined that …

Germination And Growth Of Native And Invasive Plants On Soil Associated With Biological Control Of Tamarisk (Tamarix Spp.), Rebecca A. Sherry, Patrick B. Shafroth, Jayne Belnap, Steven Ostoja, Sasha C. Reed

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Introductions of biocontrol beetles (tamarisk beetles) are causing dieback of exotic tamarisk in riparian zones across the western United States, yet factors that determine plant communities that follow tamarisk dieback are poorly understood. Tamarisk-dominated soils are generally higher in nutrients, organic matter, and salts than nearby soils, and these soil attributes might influence the trajectory of community change. To assess physical and chemical drivers of plant colonization after beetle-induced tamarisk dieback, we conducted separate germination and growth experiments using soil and litter collected beneath defoliated tamarisk trees. Focal species were two common native (red threeawn, sand dropseed) and two common …

A Complex Origin For The Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve, California, Usa: A Case Study Using A Simple Geochemical Method With Global Applications, Daniel R. Muhs, Nicholas Lancaster, Gary L. Skipp

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The Kelso Dune field in southern California is intriguing because although it is of limited areal extent (~100 km2), it has a wide variety of dune forms and contains many active dunes (~40 km2), which is unusual in the Mojave Desert. Studies over the past eight decades have concluded that the dunes are derived primarily from a single source, Mojave River alluvium, under a dominant, westerly-to-northwesterly wind regime. The majority of these studies did not, however, present data to support the Mojave River as the only source.We conducted mineralogical and geochemical studies ofmost of the 14 geomorphically defined dune groups …

Droughtscape, Fall 2016, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Contents

NDMC welcome two to team

Third quarter drought summary: Drought still spreading

Third quarter drought impacts: It was a hot, dry summer

Drought management framework for Africa approved

MENA region update

US Virgin Islands one step closer to its own drought monitor

Montana looks to improve watershed resilience

Tournament tackles hazards

Web tool will help officials make drought-related decisions

Dry Horizons launches

Status Of Scientific Knowledge, Recovery Progress, And Future Research Directions For The Gulf Sturgeon, Acipenser Oxyrinchus Desotoi Vladykov, 1955, K.J. Sulak, F. Parauka, W. T. Slack, R. T. Ruth, M. T. Randall, K. Luke, M. E. Price

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The Gulf Sturgeon, Acipenser oxyrinchus desotoi, is an anadromous species of Acipenseridae and native to North America. It currently inhabits and spawns in the upper reaches of seven natal rivers along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico from the Suwannee River, Florida, to the Pearl River, Louisiana, during spring to autumn. Next to the Alligator Gar (Atractosteus spatula), the Gulf Sturgeon is currently the largest fish species occurring in U.S. Gulf Coast rivers, attaining a length of 2.35 m and weights exceeding 135 kg, but historically attained a substantially larger size. Historically, the spawning populations existed in additional …

On The Importance Of Stratigraphic Control For Vertebrate Fossil Sites In Channel Islands National Park, California, Usa: Examples From New Mammuthus Finds On San Miguel Island, Jeffrey S. Pigati, Daniel R. Muhs, John P. Mcgeehin

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Quaternary vertebrate fossils, most notably mammoth remains, are relatively common on the northern Channel Islands of California. Well-preserved cranial, dental, and appendicular elements of Mammuthus exilis (pygmy mammoth) and Mammuthus columbi (Columbian mammoth) have been recovered from hundreds of localities on the islands during the past half-century or more. Despite this paleontological wealth, the geologic context of the fossils is described in the published literature only briefly or not at all, which has hampered the interpretation of associated 14C ages and reconstruction of past environmental conditions. We recently discovered a partial tusk, several large bones, and a tooth enamel plate …

Analysis And Detection Of Hfo-1234ze, Alberni V. Ruiz, Ben R. Miller

STAR Program Research Presentations

Alberni Ruiz

Abstract

Refrigerants have been one of the causes of ozone depletion and the buildup of greenhouse gases in past decades. When the international agreements the Montreal Protocol, which has the goal of eliminating ozone depleting compounds, and the Kyoto protocol which has the goal of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions, where implemented they paved the way to replace past and current refrigerants with alternate compounds that are less detrimental to the atmosphere. New compounds that where green-lit by the EPA for use as refrigerants in 2011 where HFO-1234ze and HFO-1234yf, both of these compounds have a very low Global …

Drougthscape, Summer 2016, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Contents

NDMC adds two employees

Second quarter drought summary: Drought slowly spreading

Second quarter drought impacts: Drought intensifies across US

First comprehensive drought

indices guidebook released

Drought Impact Reporter updates increase usability

Create a custom DIR view

Drought center co-leads MENA region project

McCook, Nebraska, tackles drought resilience

Arizona groups improve public lands drought planning

NDMC founder Don Wilhite retires

An Association Between A Cusk Eel (Bassozetus Sp.) And A Black Coral (Schizopathes Sp.) In The Deep Western Indian Ocean, Andrew R. Gates, Kirsty J. Morris, Daniel O. Jones, Kenneth J. Sulak

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Detailed observations in the deep sea can reveal previously unknown behaviour, species interactions and fine-scale habitat heterogeneity. Here, the first in situ images of the black coral Schizopathes sp. (Anthozoa: Antipatharia) in the deep western Indian Ocean have been obtained from remotely operated vehicle video footage and time-lapse photography. In these images, there appears to be an association with the cusk eel Bassozetus (Family: Ophidiidae). In the primary observation, chance encounters revealed the fish interacted with the anitpatharian on multiple occasions over several days. Subsequent time-lapse camera footage showed the fish remained almost exclusively underneath the antipatharian for the duration …

A Spatio-Temporal Comparison Of Avian Migration Phenology Using Citizen Science Data, Ali Arab, Jason R. Courter, Jessica Zelt

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The effects of climate change have wide-ranging impacts on wildlife species and recent studies indicate that birds’ spring arrival dates are advancing in response to changes in global climates. In this paper, we propose a spatio-temporal approach for comparing avian first arrival data for multiple species. As an example, we analyze spring arrival data for two long-distance migrants (Rubythroated Hummingbird Archilochus colubris; and Purple Martin Progne subis) in eastern North America from 2001–2010 using Citizen Science data. The proposed approach provides researchers with a tool to compare mean arrival dates while accounting for spatial and temporal variability. Our results show …

Concentration Trends For Lead And Calcium-Normalized Lead In Fish Fillets From The Big River, A Mining-Contaminated Stream In Southeastern Missouri Usa, Christopher J. Schmitt, Michael J. Mckee

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Lead (Pb) and calcium (Ca) concentrations were measured in fillet samples of longear sunfish (Lepomis megalotis) and redhorse suckers (Moxostoma spp.) collected in 2005–2012 from the Big River, which drains a historical mining area in southeastern Missouri and where a consumption advisory is in effect due to elevated Pb concentrations in fish. Lead tends to accumulated in Ca-rich tissues such as bone and scale. Concentrations of Pb in fish muscle are typically low, but can become elevated in fillets from Pb-contaminated sites depending in part on how much bone, scale, and skin is included in the sample. We used analysis-of-covariance …

In-Air Hearing Of A Diving Duck: A Comparison Of Psychoacoustic And Auditory Brainstem Response Thresholds, Sara E. Crowell, Alicia M. Wells-Berlin, Ronald E. Therrien, Sally E. Yannuzzi, Catherine E. Carr

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Auditory sensitivity was measured in a species of diving duck that is not often kept in captivity, the lesser scaup. Behavioral (psychoacoustics) and electrophysiological [the auditory brainstem response (ABR)] methods were used to measure in-air auditory sensitivity, and the resulting audiograms were compared. Both approaches yielded audiograms with similar U-shapes and regions of greatest sensitivity (2000-3000 Hz). However, ABR thresholds were higher than psychoacoustic thresholds at all frequencies. This difference was least at the highest frequency tested using both methods (5700 Hz) and greatest at 1000 Hz, where the ABR threshold was 26.8 dB higher than the behavioral measure of …

Droughtscape, Spring 2016, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Contents

Director’s report

First quarter drought summary

First quarter drought impacts

Drought Risk Management Research Center

Kenyan official visits

DrIVER eyes forecasting

Drought scenario exercise

Student projects

Drought tournament

Response and recovery guide

Drought Portal

Network of drought observers

Caribbean “writeshops”

Communications staff grows

Spatial Analysis Of Forest Crimes In Mark Twain National Forest, Missouri, Karun Pandit, Eddie Bevilacqua, Giorgos Mountrakis, Robert W. Malmsheimer

Journal of Geospatial Applications in Natural Resources

Forest crime mitigation has been identified as a challenging issue in forest management in the United States. Knowledge of the spatial pattern of forest crimes would help in wisely allocating limited enforcement resources to curb forest crimes. This study explores the spatial pattern of three different types of forest crimes: fire crime, illegal timber logging crime, and occupancy use crime in the Salem-Patosi Ranger District of Mark Twain National Forest. Univariate and bivariate Ripley’s K-functions were applied to explore the spatial patterns in crime events, like clustering and attraction among forest crime types. Results reveal significant clustering for each forest …

Comparison Of Terrain Indices And Landform Classification Procedures In Low-Relief Agricultural Fields, Derek A. Evans, Karl W. J. Williard, Jon E. Schoonover

Journal of Geospatial Applications in Natural Resources

Landforms control the spatial distribution of numerous factors associated with agronomy and water quality. Although curvature and slope are the fundamental surface derivatives used in landform classification procedures, methodologies for landform classifications have been performed with other terrain indices including the topographic position index (TPI) and the convergence index (CI). The objectives of this study are to compare plan curvature, the convergence index, profile curvature, and the topographic position index at various scales to determine which better identifies the spatial variability of soil phosphorus (P) within three low relief agricultural fields in central Illinois and to compare how two methods …

Discordant Data And Interpretation Of Results From Wildlife Habitat Models, Anita T. Morzillo, Michael G. Wing, Justin Long

Journal of Geospatial Applications in Natural Resources

Wildlife habitat management is an important part of natural resource management. As a result, there are a large number of models and tools for wildlife habitat assessment. A consequence of the many assessment tools is inconsistency when comparing results between tools, which may lead to potential confusion management decisions. Our objective was to compare results from two wildlife habitat models – one being relatively coarse (HUC5) scale and not spatially dynamic and the other being finer scale spatial data based on a 30 m spatial resolution –for habitat assessment of three species across the West Cascades of Oregon: Northern spotted …

In-Air Hearing Of A Diving Duck: A Comparison Of Psychoacoustic And Auditory Brainstem Response Thresholds, Sara E. Crowell, Alicia M. Wells-Berlin, Ronald E. Therrien, Sally E. Yannuzzi, Catherine E. Carr

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Auditory sensitivity was measured in a species of diving duck that is not often kept in captivity, the lesser scaup. Behavioral (psychoacoustics) and electrophysiological [the auditory brainstem response (ABR)] methods were used to measure in-air auditory sensitivity, and the resulting audiograms were compared. Both approaches yielded audiograms with similar U-shapes and regions of greatest sensitivity (2000-3000 Hz). However, ABR thresholds were higher than psychoacoustic thresholds at all frequencies. This difference was least at the highest frequency tested using both methods (5700 Hz) and greatest at 1000 Hz, where the ABR threshold was 26.8 dB higher than the behavioral measure of …

Urban Sprawl As A Risk Factor In Motor Vehicle Crashes, Reid Ewing, Shima Hamidi, James B. Grace

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

A decade ago, compactness/sprawl indices were developed for metropolitan areas and counties which have been widely used in health and other research. In this study, we first update the original county index to 2010, then develop a refined index that accounts for more relevant factors, and finally seek to test the relationship between sprawl and traffic crash rates using structural equation modelling. Controlling for covariates, we find that sprawl is associated with significantly higher direct and indirect effects on fatal crash rates. The direct effect is likely due to the higher traffic speeds in sprawling areas, and the indirect effect …

Polaris: A 30-Meter Probabilistic Soil Series Map Of The Contiguous United States, Nathaniel W. Chaney, Eric F. Wood, Alexander B. Mcbratney, Jonathan W. Hempel, Travis W. Nauman, Colby W. Brungard, Nathan P. Odgers

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

A newcomplete map of soil series probabilities has been produced for the contiguous United States at a 30mspatial resolution. This innovative database, named POLARIS, is constructed using available high-resolution geospatial environmental data and a state-of-the-art machine learning algorithm (DSMART-HPC) to remap the Soil Survey Geographic (SSURGO) database. This 9 billion grid cell database is possible using available high performance computing resources. POLARIS provides a spatially continuous, internally consistent, quantitative prediction of soil series. It offers potential solutions to the primary weaknesses in SSURGO: 1) unmapped areas are gap-filled using survey data from the surrounding regions, 2) the artificial discontinuities at …

Paying The Pipers: Mitigating The Impact Of Anticoagulant Rodenticides On Predators And Scavengers, John E. Elliott, Barnett A. Rattner, Richard F. Shore, Nico W. Van Den Brink

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Anticoagulant rodenticides, mainly second-generation forms, or SGARs, dominate the global market for rodent control. Introduced in the 1970s to counter genetic resistance in rodent populations to first-generation compounds such as warfarin, SGARs are extremely toxic and highly effective killers. However, their tendency to persist and accumulate in the body has led to the widespread contamination of terrestrial predators and scavengers. Commercial chemicals that are classified by regulators as persistent, bio-accumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals and that are widely used with potential environmental release, such as dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), have been removed from commerce. However, despite consistently failing …

Chesapeake Bay Fish–Osprey (Pandion Haliaetus) Food Chain: Evaluation Of Contaminant Exposure And Genetic Damage, Rebecca S. Lazarus, Barnett A. Rattner, Peter C. Mcgowan, Robert C. Hale, Natalie K. Karouna-Renier, Richard A. Erickson, Mary Ann Ottinger

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

From 2011 to 2013, a large-scale ecotoxicological study was conducted in several Chesapeake Bay (USA) tributaries (Susquehanna River and flats, the Back, Baltimore Harbor/Patapsco Rivers, Anacostia/ middle Potomac, Elizabeth and James Rivers) and Poplar Island as a mid-Bay reference site. Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) diet and the transfer of contaminants from fish to osprey eggs were evaluated. The most bioaccumulative compounds (biomagnification factor>5) included p,p’-dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE), total polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), total polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and bromodiphenyl ether (BDE) congeners 47, 99, 100, and 154. This analysis suggested that alternative brominated flame retardants and other compounds (methoxytriclosan) are not appreciably …

Immunoglobulin Detection Inwild Birds: Effectiveness Of Three Secondary Anti-Avian Igy Antibodies In Direct Elisas In 41 Avian Species, Carol A. Fassbinder-Orth, Travis E. Wilcoxen, Tiffany Tran, Raoul K. Boughton, Jeanne M. Fair, Erik K. Hofmeister, Jennifer L. Grindstaff, Jen C. Owen

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

1.Immunological reagents for wild, non-model species are limited or often non-existent for many species.

2. In this study, we compare the reactivity of a newanti-passerine IgY secondary antibody with existing secondary antibodies developed for use with birds. Samples from 41 species from the following six avian orders were analysed: Anseriformes (1 family, 1 species), Columbiformes (1 family, 2 species), Galliformes (1 family, 1 species), Passeriformes (16 families, 34 species), Piciformes (1 family, 2 species) and Suliformes (1 family, 1 species). Direct ELISAs were performed to detect total IgY using goat anti-passerine IgY, goat anti-chicken IgY or goat anti-bird IgY secondary …

Elevation Dynamics In A Restored Versus A Submerging Salt Marsh In Long Island Sound, Shimon C. Anisfeld, Troy D. Hill, Daonald R. Cahoon

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Accelerated sea-level rise (SLR) poses the threat of salt marsh submergence, especially in marshes that are relatively low-lying. At the same time, restoration efforts are producing new low-lying marshes, many of which are thriving and avoiding submergence. To understand the causes of these different fates, we studied two Long Island Sound marshes: one that is experiencing submergence and mudflat expansion, and one that is undergoing successful restoration. We examined sedimentation using a variety of methods, each of which captures different time periods and different aspects of marsh elevation change: surface-elevation tables, marker horizons, sediment cores, and sediment traps. We also …