Other Environmental Sciences Commons^™

Sensitivity Of Planetary Boundary Layer Atmosphere To Historical And Future Changes Of Land Use/Land Cover, Vegetation Fraction, And Soil Moisture In Western Kentucky, Usa, Rezaul Mahmood

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Impacts Of Irrigation On Dry Season Precipitation In India, Rezaul Mahmood

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Soil Moisture: A Central And Unifying Theme In Physical Geography, Rezaul Mahmood

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Land Use/Land Cover Changes And Climate: Modeling Analysis And Observational Evidence, Roger A. Pielke Sr., Andy Pitman, Dev Niyogi, Rezaul Mahmood, Clive Mcalpine, Faisal Hossain, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Udaysankar S. Nair, Richard Betts, Souleymane Fall, Markus Reichstein, Pavel Kabat, Nathalie De Noblet

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

This article summarizes the changes in landscape structure because of human land management over the last several centuries, and using observed and modeled data, documents how these changes have altered biogeophysical and biogeochemical surface fluxes on the local, mesoscale, and regional scales. Remaining research issues are presented including whether these landscape changes alter large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns far from where the land use and land cover changes occur. We conclude that existing climate assessments have not yet adequately factored in this climate forcing. For those regions that have undergone intensive human landscape change, or would undergo intensive change in the …

Structured Decision-Making And Rapid Prototyping To Plan A Management Response To An Invasive Species, Sean M. Blomquist, Trisha D. Johnson, David R. Smith, Geoff P. Call, Brant N. Miller, W. Mark Thurman, Jamie E. Mcfadden, Mary J. Parkin, G. Scott Boomer

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

We developed components of a decision structure that could be used in an adaptive management framework for responding to invasion of hemlock woolly adelgid Adeleges tsugae on the Cumberland Plateau of northern Tennessee. Hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive forest pest, was first detected in this area in 2007. We used a structured decision-making process to identify and refine the management problem, objectives, and alternative management actions, and to assess consequences and tradeoffs among selected management alternatives. We identified four fundamental objectives: 1) conserve the aquatic and terrestrial riparian conservation targets, 2) protect and preserve hemlock, 3) develop and maintain adequate …

Winter Ecology Of Buggy Creek Virus (Togaviridae, Alphavirus) In The Central Great Plains, Charles R. Brown, Stephanie A. Strickler, Amy T. Moore, Sarah A. Knutie, Abinash Padhi, Mary Bomberger Brown, Ginger R. Young, Valerie A. O'Brien, Jerome E. Foster, Nicholas Komar

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

A largely unanswered question in the study of arboviruses is the extent to which virus can overwinter in adult vectors during the cold winter months and resume the transmission cycle in summer. Buggy Creek virus (BCRV; Togaviridae, Alphavirus) is an unusual arbovirus that is vectored primarily by the swallow bug (Hemiptera: Cimicidae: Oeciacus vicarius) and amplified by the ectoparasitic bug’s main avian hosts, the migratory cliff swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) and resident house sparrow (Passer domesticus). Bugs are sedentary and overwinter in the swallows’ mud nests. We evaluated the prevalence of BCRV and extent of …

A Model‐Data Intercomparison Of Co2 Exchange Across North America: Results From The North American Carbon Program Site Synthesis, Christopher R. Schwalm, Christopher A. Williams, Kevin Schaefer, Ryan S. Anderson, M. Altaf Arain, Ian Baker, Alan Barr, T. Andrew Black, Guangsheng Chen, Jing Ming Chen, Philippe Ciais, Kenneth J. Davis, Ankur R. Desai, Michael Dietze, Danilo Dragoni, Marc L. Fischer, Lawrence B. Flanagan, Robert Grant, Lianhong Gu, David Hollinger, R. Cesar Izaurralde, Chris Kucharik, Peter Lafleur, Beverly E. Law, Longhui Li, Zhengpeng Li, Shuguang Liu, Erandathie Lokupitiya, Yiqi Luo, Siyan Ma, Hank Margolis, Roser Matamala, Harry Mccaughey, Russell K. Monson, Walter C. Oechel, Changhui Peng, Benjamin Poulter, David T. Price, Dan M. Riciutto, William Riley, Alok Kumar Sahoo, Michael Sprintsin, Jianfeng Sun, Hanqin Tian, Christian Tonitto, Hans Verbeeck, Shashi B. Verma

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Our current understanding of terrestrial carbon processes is represented in various models used to integrate and scale measurements of CO₂ exchange from remote sensing and other spatiotemporal data. Yet assessments are rarely conducted to determine how well models simulate carbon processes across vegetation types and environmental conditions. Using standardized data from the North American Carbon Program we compare observed and simulated monthly CO₂ exchange from 44 eddy covariance flux towers in North America and 22 terrestrial biosphere models. The analysis period spans ~220 site‐years, 10 biomes, and includes two large‐scale drought events, providing a natural experiment to evaluate …

Translocation To A Fragmented Landscape: Survival, Movement, And Site Fidelity Of Northern Bobwhites, Theron M. Terhune, D. Clay Sisson, William E. Palmer, Brant C. Faircloth, H. Lee Stribling, John P. Carroll

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Habitat fragmentation, degradation, and loss have taxed early-successional species including the Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) and numerous grassland obligate birds. Translocation is often applied to counteract the consequences of habitat fragmentation through the creation, reestablishment, or augmentation of wild populations for the purposes of conservation, biodiversity maintenance. However, the implementation of these techniques is often conducted without valid experimental designs and therefore lacks robust, empirical data needed to evaluate and advance the knowledge and application of translocation. Despite the increasing amount of habitat management applied to patches among fragmented landscapes, a paucity of source populations often limits natural …

Upwelling Couples Chemical And Biological Dynamics Across The Littoral And Pelagic Zones Of Lake Tanganyika, East Africa, Jessica R. Corman, P. B. Mcintyre, B. Kuboja, W. Mbemba, D. Fink, C. W. Wheeler, C. Gans, E. Michel, A. S. Flecker

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

We studied the effects of upwelling on nutrient and phytoplankton dynamics in the pelagic and littoral zones of Lake Tanganyika near Kigoma, Tanzania. During the dry season of 2004, a rise in the thermocline and sudden drop in surface water temperatures indicated a substantial upwelling event. Increases in concentrations of nitrate, soluble reactive phosphorus, and silica in the surface waters occurred simultaneously after the temperature drop. Within days, chlorophyll a concentrations increased and remained elevated, while inorganic nutrient concentrations returned to preupwelling levels and organic nutrient concentrations peaked. We observed parallel temporal patterns of water temperature, nutrient concentrations, and phytoplankton …

Recursive Streamflow Forecasting: A State-Space Approach, Jozsef Szilagyi, Andras Szollosi-Nagy

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Testing The Intergenerational Differences In Mental Boundaries, John E. Barbuto Jr., Stephanie Bryant, Lisa Pennisi

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Locus Of Control, Sources Of Motivation, And Mental Boundaries As Antecedents Of Leader-Member Exchange Quality, John E. Barbuto Jr., Dayna Finch Weltmer, Lisa A. Pennisi

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Diurnal Fluctuations In Shallow Groundwater Levels And In Streamflow Rates And Their Interpretation: A Review, Zoltan Gribovszki, Jozsef Szilagyi, Peter Kalicz

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Complementary-Relationship-Based Evapotranspiration Mapping (Cremap) Technique For Hungary, Jozsef Szilagyi, Akos Kovacs

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The Basic Drivers Of Climate, Alison P. Stevens

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Climates on Earth vary from the warm, wet tropics to the cold, dry Arctic and Antarctic. What drives this variation?

Every day, we note the weather: temperature, rain, cloud cover, wind and humidity. Climate is the long-term prevailing weather in an area and is largely determined by temperature and precipitation. The climate in a desert is hot and dry. The climate in the tropics is warm and wet. The climate of a particular area is the largest determinant to the life found there. Climate is a key focus in ecology. Variations in climate include daily and seasonal cycles. Climatic variation …

Toward Regional Climate Services The Role Of Noaa’S Regional Climate Centers, Arthur T. Degaetano, Timothy J. Brown, Steven D. Hilberg, Kelly Redmond, Kevin Robbins, Peter Robinson, Martha Shulski, Marjorie Mcguirk

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

A comprehensive national climate services strategy requires the infrastructure, operational services, and applied research activities that have characterized the Regional Climate Center Program since its inception.

Finding The Smoothest Path To Success: Model Complexity And The Consideration Of Nonlinear Patterns In Nest-Survival Data Encontrando El Camino Mas Facil Hacia El Exito: Complejidad De Los Modelos Y Consideraci6n De Patrones No Lineales En Datos De Supervivencia De Nidos, Max Post Van Der Burg, Larkin A. Powell, Andrew J. Tyre

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Quantifying patterns of nest survival is a first step toward understanding why birds decide when and where to breed. Most studies of nest survival have relied on generalized linear models (GLM) to explore these patterns. However, GLMs require assumptions about the models' structure that might preclude finding nonlinear patterns in survival data. Generalized additive models (GAM) provide a flexible alternative to GLMs for estimating linear and nonlinear patterns in data. Here we present a comparison of GLMs and GAMs for explaining variation in nest-survival data. We used two different model-selection criteria, the Bayes (BIC) and Akaike (AIC) information criteria, to …

2010 Interior Least Tern And Piping Plover Monitoring, Research, Management, And Outreach Report For The Lower Platte River, Nebraska, Mary Bomberger Brown, Joel G. Jorgensen

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

This document reports on our monitoring, research, management, and outreach activities during the past 12 months (2010). We prepared it to inform our partners, cooperating agencies, funding sources, and other interested parties of our activities and to provide a preliminary summary of our results.

The Tern and Plover Conservation Partnership (TPCP), based at the University of Nebraska–School of Natural Resources, and the Nongame Bird Program (NBP), based at the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (NGPC) work cooperatively on Interior Least Tern and Piping Plover monitoring, research, management, and outreach activities. While the focus of our work is the Lower Platte, …

Coupling Of Carbon Dioxide And Water Vapor Exchanges Of Irrigated And Rainfed Maize–Soybean Cropping Systems And Water Productivity, Andrew E. Suyker, Shashi B. Verma

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Continuous measurements of CO₂ and water vapor exchanges made in three cropping systems (irrigated continuous maize, irrigated maize–soybean rotation, and rainfed maize–soybean rotation) in eastern Nebraska, USA during 6 years are discussed. Close coupling between seasonal distributions of gross primary production (GPP) and evapotranspiration (ET) were observed in each growing season. Mean growing season totals of GPP in irrigated maize and soybean were 1738 ± 114 and 996 ± 69 g C m⁻², respectively (±standard deviation). Corresponding mean values of growing season ET totals were 545 ± 27 and 454 ± 23 mm, respectively. Irrigation affected GPP …

Diagnosis Of Extended Cold-Season Temperature Anomalies In Alaska, Martha Shulski, John Walsh, Eric Stevens, Richard Thoman

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

During the early winter of 2002 and late winter of 2007, the Alaskan sector of the North Pacific Ocean region experienced record-breaking temperature anomalies. The duration of these episodes was unusually long, with each lasting more than 1 month: 55 days for the warm anomaly of October–December 2002 and 37 days for the cold anomaly of February–March 2007. Temperature departures over each respective period were the largest for the continental climate of interior Alaska (>10°C) and the smallest for the maritime regions of Alaska (

The Kentucky Mesonet: Perspectives On Data Access, Distribution, And Use For A Meso-Scale Surface Network, D. M. Grogan, S. Foster, Rezaul Mamood

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

New Insights On The Sequence Stratigraphic Architecture Of The Dakota Formation In Kansas-Nebraska-Iowa From A Decade Of Sponsored Research Activity, G. A. Ludvigson, B. J. Witzke, Robert Matthew Joeckel, R. L. Ravn, P. L. Phillips, L. A. Gonzalez, R. L. Brenner

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Impacts Of Land Use/Land Cover Change On Climate And Future Research Priorities, Rezaul Mahmood, Roger A. Pielke Sr., Kenneth G. Hubbard, Dev Niyogi, Gordon Bonan, Peter Lawrence, Richard Mcnider, Clive Mcalpine, Andres Etter, Samuel Gameda, Budong Qian, Andrew Carleton, Adriana Beltran-Przekurat, Thomas Chase, Arturo I. Quintanar, Jimmy O. Adegoke, Sajith Vezhapparambu, Glen Connor, Salvi Asefi, Elif Sertel, David R. Legates, Yuling Wu, Robert Hale, Oliver W. Frauenfeld, Anthony Watts, Marshall Shepherd, Chandana Mitra, Valentine G. Anantharaj, Souleymane Fall, Robert Lund, Anna Treviño, Peter D. Blanken, Jinyang Du, Hsin-I Chang, Ronnie Leeper, Udaysankar S. Nair, Scott Dobler, Ravinesh Deo, Jozef Syktus

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Human activities have modified the environment for thousands of years. Significant population increase, migration, and accelerated socioeconomic activities have intensified these environmental changes over the last several centuries. The climate impacts of these changes have been found in local, regional, and global trends in modern atmospheric temperature records and other relevant climatic indicators.

An important human influence on atmospheric temperature trends is extensive land use/land cover change (LULCC) and its climate forcing. Studies using both modeled and observed data have documented these impacts (e.g., Chase et al. 2000; Kalnay and Cai 2003; Cai and Kalnay 2004; Trenberth 2004; Vose et …

Improving Farmers’ Perception And Use Of Climate Predictions In Farming Decisions: A Transition Model, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Qi Hu, Kenneth G. Hubbard, Gary D. Lynne, Roger H. Bruning

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Despite tremendous efforts to improve weather and climate predictions and to inform farmers about the use of such weather products, farmers’ attitudes toward forecast use remain poor and farmer use of forecasts has not increased. This paper describes features of a new conceptual model for facilitating farmers’ use of weather products and offers preliminary evidence for its effectiveness based on a test-of-concept prototype. The prototype system provides farmers with contextualized information, the opportunity to use that information in relevant farming contexts, and collaborative interaction with other users. In addition, scaffolding and feedback are incorporated in the model to enhance learning …

Phylogeography Of The Rufous-Naped Wren (Campylorhynchus Rufinucha): Speciation And Hybridization In Mesoamerica, Hernan Vazquez-Miranda, Adolfo G. Navarro-Siguenza, Kevin E. Omland

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The Rufous-naped Wren (Campylorhynchus rufinucha) is a sedentary, morphologically variable species distributed in the dry forests of Mesoamerica. It ranges from Colima, Mexico, south to Costa Rica along the Pacific slope, with a disjunct population in central Veracruz. Populations of two forms on the Pacific slope intergrade in Chiapas, Mexico, apparently as a result of secondary contact. We sequenced a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) gene to explore phylogeographic patterns and hybridization. We found three divergent lineages, two geographically spanning the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and a disjunct Veracruz population. Analyses of molecular variation and statistics are consistent with genetically distinct …

Development Of A Healthy Farm Index To Assess Ecological, Economic, And Social Function On Organic And Sustainable Farms In Nebraska's Four Agroecoregions., James R. Brandle

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

An Evaporation Estimation Method Based On The Coupled 2-D Turbulent Heat And Vapor Transport Equations, Jozsef Szilagyi, Janos Jozsa

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The analytical solution of the coupled turbulent diffusion equations of heat and vapor transport across a moisture discontinuity under near-neutral atmospheric conditions and constant energy available at the evaporating surface yields a simple equation (i.e., the wet-surface equation [WSE]) that relates the change in surface temperature to the change in the land surface moisture content as the environment dries. With the help of percent possible sunshine, air temperature, and humidity measurements at selected weather stations as well as land surface temperature values from MODIS data, monthly, warm-season evaporation rates were estimated for five rectangular regions across the contiguous U.S. employing …

Complementary Relationship Of Evaporation And The Mean Annual Water-Energy Balance, Jozsef Szilagyi, Janos Jozsa

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

By combining the complementary relationship of evaporation with the coupled long-term water-energy balance of Porporato et al. (2004) in a Budyko-type framework, one can, from atmospheric measurements alone, derive important ecosystem characteristics, such as the mean effective relative soil moisture and the maximum soil water storage, as well as predict changes in the rooting depth of vegetation as a response to climate variations.

Comment On ‘‘Power Law Catchment-Scale Recessions Arising From Heterogeneous Linear Small-Scale Dynamics’’ By C. J. Harman, M. Sivapalan, And P. Kumar, Jozsef Szilagyi

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

It is demonstrated that a near-linear subsurface runoff response from a short and relatively steep slope segment and a nonlinear response at the watershed scale may primarily arise from geometry rather than from an assumed linear nature of the subsurface runoff response from the hillslope, as Harman et al. [2009] employed for the Panola Mountain Research (PMR) catchment in Georgia. The authors caution in their paper that hydraulic theory (exemplified by the study of Brutsaert and Nieber [1977]) cannot generally account for the heterogeneity in the watershed scale and therefore should be used with certain reservation when employing it for …

Movements, Distribution, And Abundance Of Great Argus Pheasants (Argusianus Argus) In A Sumatran Rainforest, Nurul L. Winarni, Timothy G. O'Brien, John P. Carroll, Margaret F. Kinnaird

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

We used radiotelemetry, habitat sampling, camera trapping, and line-transect surveys to explore movement patterns, distribution, and abundance of Great Argus Pheasants (Argusianus argus) in Sumatra, Indonesia. We radiotracked six adult and one subadult males. Territories averaged 14.5 ± 8.5 ha, and home-range size did not vary by month or by relative abundance of selected plant foods. Daily travel distance (849 ± 211 m) varied significantly between months but did not reflect changes in plant foods. Territories were used almost exclusively by resident males. Males preferentially used undisturbed forest (habitat I). Vegetation structure at male display sites and random points indicated …