Publications
Below are publications associated with the Southwest Biological Science Center's research.
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Filter Total Items: 1332
Drought resistance and resilience: The role of soil moisture–plant interactions and legacies in a dryland ecosystem
In many regions of the world, climate change is projected to reduce water availability through changes in the hydrological cycle, including more frequent and intense droughts, as well as seasonal shifts in precipitation. In water-limited ecosystems, such as drylands, lower soil water availability may exceed the adaptive capacity of many organisms, leading to cascading ecological effects during (co
Authors
Dave Hoover, Alix A. Pfennigwerth, Michael C. Duniway
USGS RAMPS (Restoration Assessment and Monitoring Program for the Southwest) newsletter – Summer 2021 edition
No abstract available.
Authors
Seth M. Munson, Molly L. McCormick
Integrating airborne and mobile lidar data with UAV photogrammetry for rapid assessment of changing forest snow depth and cover
Forest structure and topography can influence the ecohydrologic function and resiliency to drought and changing climate. It is, therefore, important to understand how forest restoration treatments alter snowpack distribution and design the treatments accordingly. We use a combination of aerial lidar, multi-temporal terrestrial mobile lidar, and UAV photogrammetry to estimate rapidly changing snow
Authors
Jonathon Donager, Temuulen Sankey, Andrew Sanchez-Meador, Joel B. Sankey, Abraham E. Springer
An eddy-resolving numerical model to study turbulent flow, sediment and bed evolution using detached eddy simulation in a lateral separation zone at the field-scale
Turbulence-resolving simulations elucidate key elements of fluid dynamics and sediment transport in fluvial environments. This research presents a feasible strategy for applying state-of-the-art computational fluid mechanics to the study of sediment transport and morphodynamic processes in lateral separation zones, which are common features in canyon rivers where massive lateral flow separation ca
Authors
Laura V. Alvarez, Paul Grams
Analysis of Escherichia coli, total recoverable iron, and dissolved selenium concentrations, loading, and identifying data gaps for selected 303(d) listed streams, Grand Valley, western Colorado, 1980–2018
Tributaries to the Colorado River in the Grand Valley in western Colorado (segment COLCLC13b) have been placed on the State of Colorado 303(d) list as impaired for Escherichia coli (E. coli), total recoverable iron, and dissolved selenium. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Water Quality Control Division is required to develop total maximum daily loads for these constituents
Authors
Lisa D. Miller, Rachel G. Gidley, Natalie K. Day, Judith C. Thomas
The application of metacommunity theory to the management of riverine ecosystems
River managers strive to use the best available science to sustain biodiversity and ecosystem function. To achieve this goal requires consideration of processes at different scales. Metacommunity theory describes how multiple species from different communities potentially interact with local-scale environmental drivers to influence population dynamics and community structure. However, this body of
Authors
Christopher J. Patrick, Kurt E. Anderson, Brown L. Brown, Charles P. Hawkins, Anya N. Metcalfe, Parsa Saffarinia, Tadeu Siqueira, Christopher M. Swan, Jonathan D. Tonkin, Lester L. Yuan
How to increase the supply of native seed to improve restoration success: The US native seed development process
With the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, restoration of damaged ecosystems is turning into a global movement. Restoration actions that are not based on science and an understanding of ecosystem function can thwart desired restoration outcomes at best and cause further damage to ecosystems at worst. Restoration often includes revegetation using seed. Where we source seed for restora
Authors
Molly Lutisha Mccormick, Amanda N. Carr, Robert Massatti, Daniel E. Winkler, Patricia De Angelis, Peggy Olwell
Demographic modeling informs functional connectivity and management interventions in Graham’s beardtongue
Functional connectivity (i.e., the movement of individuals across a landscape) is essential for the maintenance of genetic variation and persistence of rare species. However, illuminating the processes influencing functional connectivity and ultimately translating this knowledge into management practice remains a fundamental challenge. Here, we combine various population structure analyses with pa
Authors
Matthew Richard Jones, Daniel E. Winkler, Robert Massatti
Labeling poststorm coastal imagery for machine learning: Measurement of interrater agreement
Classifying images using supervised machine learning (ML) relies on labeled training data—classes or text descriptions, for example, associated with each image. Data-driven models are only as good as the data used for training, and this points to the importance of high-quality labeled data for developing a ML model that has predictive skill. Labeling data is typically a time-consuming, manual proc
Authors
Evan B. Goldstein, Daniel D. Buscombe, Eli D. Lazarus, Somya Mohanty, Shah N. Rafique, K A Anarde, Andrew D Ashton, Tomas Beuzen, Katherine A. Castagno, Nicholas Cohn, Matthew P. Conlin, Ashley Ellenson, Megan Gillen, Paige A. Hovenga, Jin-Si R. Over, Rose V. Palermo, Katherine Ratlif, Ian R Reeves, Lily H. Sanborn, Jessamin A. Straub, Luke A. Taylor, Elizabeth J. Wallace, Jonathan Warrick, Phillipe Alan Wernette, Hannah E Williams
By
Experimental warming and its legacy effects on root dynamics following two hurricane disturbances in a wet tropical forest
Tropical forests are expected to experience unprecedented warming and increases in hurricane disturbances in the coming decades; yet, our understanding of how these productive systems, especially their belowground component, will respond to the combined effects of varied environmental changes remains empirically limited. Here we evaluated the responses of root dynamics (production, mortality, and
Authors
Daniela Yaffar, Tana E. Wood, Sasha C. Reed, Benjamin L. Branoff, Molly A. Cavaleri, Richard J. Norby
A river of change—The Rio Grande in the Big Bend region
The Big Bend region is located within the heart of the Chihuahan Desert of North America. Within this region, the Rio Grande, referred to as the Rio Bravo in Mexico, is the international border between the United States and Mexico. The area known as the Big Bend is named after the large northerly bend that the river makes before flowing southeast to the Gulf of Mexico. This region is environmental
Authors
David Dean
Hydrologic and geomorphic effects on riparian plant species occurrence and encroachment: Remote sensing of 360 km of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon
A common impact on riparian ecosystem function following river regulation is the expansion and encroachment of riparian plant species in the active river channels and floodplain, which reduces flow of water and suspended sediment between the river, riparian area, and upland ecosystems. We characterized riparian plant species occurrence and quantified encroachment within the dam-regulated Colorado
Authors
Laura E. Durning, Joel B. Sankey, Charles Yackulic, Paul Grams, Bradley J. Butterfield, Temuulen T. Sankey