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Publications

Below is a list of available NOROCK peer reviewed and published science. If you are in search of a specific publication and cannot find it below or through a search, please contact twojtowicz@usgs.gov.

Filter Total Items: 1211

Headwaters fed by subterranean ice: Potential climate refugia for alpine stream communities?

Near-term extirpations of macroinvertebrates are predicted for mountain streams worldwide as a warming climate drives the recession of high-elevation ice and snow. However, hydrological sources likely vary in their resistance to climate change, and thus streams fed by more resistant sources could persist as climate refugia for imperiled biota. In 2015–2016, we measured habitat characteristics and
Authors
Lusha M. Tronstad, Scott Hotaling, J. Joseph Giersch, Oliver J. Wilmot, Debra S. Finn

Whitebark pine cone production - 2020

No abstract available.
Authors
Mark A. Haroldson, Frank T. van Manen

Annotated bibliography of scientific research on greater sage-grouse published from 2015 to 2019

The greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter GRSG) has been a focus of scientific investigation and management action for the past two decades. The 2015 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listing determination of “not warranted” was in part due to a large-scale collaborative effort to develop strategies to conserve GRSG populations and their habitat and to reduce threats to both. New
Authors
Sarah K. Carter, Robert S. Arkle, Heidi L. Bencin, Benjamin R. Harms, Daniel J. Manier, Aaron N. Johnston, Susan L. Phillips, Steven E. Hanser, Zachary H. Bowen

Relative toxicity and sublethal effects of NaCl and energy-related saline wastewaters on prairie amphibians

Increasing salinity in freshwater environments is a growing problem due both to the negative influences of salts on ecosystems and their accumulation and persistence in environments. Two major sources of increased salinity from sodium chloride salts (NaCl) are saline wastewaters co-produced during energy production (herein, wastewaters) and road salts. Effects of road salts have received more atte
Authors
Brian J. Tornabene, Creagh W Breuner, Blake R. Hossack

Detecting population declines via monitoring the effective number of breeders (Nb)

Estimating the effective population size and effective number of breeders per year (Nb) can facilitate early detection of population declines. We used computer simulations to quantify bias and precision of the one-sample LDNe estimator of Nb in age-structured populations using a range of published species life history types, sample sizes, and DNA markers. Nb estimates were biased by ~5%–10% when u
Authors
Gordon Luikart, Tiago Antao, Brian K. Hand, Clint C. Muhlfeld, Matthew C. Boyer, Ted Corsart, Brian Trethewey, Robert K. Al-Chokhachy, Robin S. Waples

Persist in place or shift in space? Evaluating the adaptive capacity of species to climate change

Assessing the vulnerability of species to climate change serves as the basis for climate‐adaptation planning and climate‐smart conservation, and typically involves an evaluation of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity (AC). AC is a species’ ability to cope with or adjust to changing climatic conditions, and is the least understood and most inconsistently applied of these three factors. We
Authors
Lindsey L. Thurman, Bruce Stein, Erik A. Beever, Wendy Foden, Sonya Geange, Nancy Green, John E. Gross, David J Lawrence, Olivia E. LeDee, Julian D. Olden, Laura Thompson, Bruce Young

Does signal-free detrending increase chronology coherence in large tree-ring networks?

Over the past decade, dendrochronologists have increasingly adopted the signal-free detrending (SFD) method to remove age-size trends in tree-ring measurement series, amplify the common stand-wide signal in composite chronologies, and recover medium- to low-frequency patterns that may be inadvertently removed by other detrending approaches. However, since its introduction in 2008, no systematic ev
Authors
M.Y. McPartland, Scott St. George, Gregory T. Pederson, K.J. Anchukaitis

Robotic environmental DNA bio-surveillance of freshwater health

Autonomous water sampling technologies may help to overcome the human resource challenges of monitoring biological threats to rivers over long time periods and large geographic areas. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute has pioneered a robotic Environmental Sample Processor (ESP) that overcomes some of the constraints associated with traditional sampling since it can automate water sample
Authors
Adam J. Sepulveda, Jim M. Birch, Elliott Barnhart, Christopher M. Merkes, Kevan Yamahara, Roman III Marin, Stacy Kinsey, Peter R. Wright, Christian Schmidt

Effects of experimental warming and nutrient enrichment on wetland communities at the Arctic’s edge

Global warming-related changes to freshwater ecosystems in Arctic and Subarctic regions have been magnified by nutrient input from increasing waterfowl populations. To gain insight into how these changes might affect ecosystem function, we conducted a mesocosm experiment in the Subarctic by enriching N and P (1 ×, 10 ×, and 20 × treatments) and increasing mean water temperatures ≤ 3°C. We measured
Authors
Jon M. Davenport, LeeAnn Fishback, Blake R. Hossack

Spatial ecology and resource selection of eastern box turtles

Eastern box turtles (Terrapene carolina carolina) are widely distributed throughout the eastern United States. Although once common throughout much of its distribution, the species has experienced declines in local populations. Understanding resource selection is important for the conservation of this species; however, few data exist on resource selection for eastern box turtles in the southeaster
Authors
Katie A Harris, Joseph D. Clark, R. Dwayne Elmore, Craig A. Harper

2,200-Year tree-ring and lake-sediment based snowpack reconstruction for the northern Rocky Mountains highlights the historic magnitude of recent snow drought

In recent decades, Rocky Mountain accumulated snowpack levels have experienced rapid declines, yet long-term records of snowpack prior to the installation of snowpack observation stations in the early and mid 20th century are limited. To date, a small number of tree-ring based reconstructions of April 1 Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) in the northern Rocky Mountains have extended modern records of sno
Authors
Spruce W. Schoenemann, Justin Martin, Gregory T. Pederson, David B. McWethy