Publications
Below are publications associated with the Southwest Biological Science Center's research.
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Filter Total Items: 1332
Landscape-scale processes influence riparian plant composition along a regulated river
Hierarchical frameworks are useful constructs when exploring landscape- and local-scale factors affecting patterns of vegetation in riparian areas. In drylands, which have steep environmental gradients and high habitat heterogeneity, landscape-scale variables, such as climate, can change rapidly along a river's course, affecting the relative influence of environmental variables at different scales
Authors
Emily C. Palmquist, Barbara Ralston, David M. Merritt, Patrick B. Shafroth
A coupled metabolic-hydraulic model and calibration scheme for estimating of whole-river metabolism during dynamic flow conditions
Conventional methods for estimating whole-stream metabolic rates from measured dissolved oxygen dynamics do not account for the variation in solute transport times created by dynamic flow conditions. Changes in flow at hourly time scales are common downstream of hydroelectric dams (i.e. hydropeaking), and hydrologic limitations of conventional metabolic models have resulted in a poor understandin
Authors
Robert A. Payn, Robert O Jr. Hall, Theodore A. Kennedy, Geoff C Poole, Lucy A. Marshall
Building capacity in biodiversity monitoring at the global scale
Human-driven global change is causing ongoing declines in biodiversity worldwide. In order to address these declines, decision-makers need accurate assessments of the status of and pressures on biodiversity. However, these are heavily constrained by incomplete and uneven spatial, temporal and taxonomic coverage. For instance, data from regions such as Europe and North America are currently used ov
Authors
Dirk S. Schmeller, Monika Böhm, Christos Arvanitidis, Shannon Barber-Meyer, Neil Brummitt, Mark Chandler, Eva Chatzinikolaou, Mark John Costello, Hui Ding, Jaime García-Moreno, Michael J. Gill, Peter Haase, Miranda Jones, Romain Juillard, William E. Magnusson, Corinne S. Martin, Melodie A. McGeoch, Jean-Baptiste Mihoub, Nathalie Pettorelli, Vânia Proença, Cui Peng, Eugenie Regan, Ute Schmiedel, John P. Simsika, Lauren Weatherdon, Carly Waterman, Haigen Xu, Jayne Belnap
Short-term and long-term evapotranspiration rates at ecological restoration sites along a large river receiving rare flow events
Many large rivers around the world no longer flow to their deltas, due to ever greater water withdrawals and diversions for human needs. However, the importance of riparian ecosystems is drawing increasing recognition, leading to the allocation of environmental flows to restore river processes. Accurate estimates of riparian plant evapotranspiration (ET) are needed to understand how the riverine s
Authors
Margaret Shanafield, Hugo Gutierrez Jurado, Jesús Eliana Rodríguez Burgueño, Jorge Ramírez Hernández, Christopher Jarchow, Pamela L. Nagler
The concurrent use of novel soil surface microclimate measurements to evaluate CO2 pulses in biocrusted interspaces in a cool desert ecosystem
Carbon cycling associated with biological soil crusts, which occupy interspaces between vascular plants in drylands globally, may be an important part of the coupled climate-carbon cycle of the Earth system. A major challenge to understanding CO2 fluxes in these systems is that much of the biotic and biogeochemical activity occurs in the upper few mm of the soil surface layer (i.e., the ‘mantle of
Authors
Colin Tucker, Theresa A. McHugh, Armin J. Howell, Richard Gill, Bettina Weber, Jayne Belnap, Edmund E. Grote, Sasha C. Reed
Taxonomic and compositional differences of ground-dwelling arthropods in riparian habitats in Glen Canyon, Arizona, USA
The disturbance history, plant species composition, productivity, and structural complexity of a site can exert bottom-up controls on arthropod diversity, abundance, and trophic structure. Regulation alters the hydrology and disturbance regimes of rivers and affects riparian habitats by changing plant quality parameters. Fifty years of regulation along the Colorado River downstream of Glen Canyon
Authors
Barbara Ralston, Neil S. Cobb, Sandra L. Brantley, Jacob Higgins, Charles B. Yackulic
Durable terrestrial bedrock predicts submarine canyon formation
Though submarine canyons are first-order topographic features of Earth, the processes responsible for their occurrence remain poorly understood. Potentially analogous studies of terrestrial rivers show that the flux and caliber of transported bedload are significant controls on bedrock incision. Here we hypothesize that coarse sediment load could exert a similar role in the formation of submarine
Authors
Elliot Smith, Noah J. Finnegan, Erich R. Mueller, Rebecca J. Best
Compositional signatures in acoustic backscatter over vegetated and unvegetated mixed sand-gravel riverbeds
Multibeam acoustic backscatter has considerable utility for remote characterization of spatially heterogeneous bed sediment composition over vegetated and unvegetated riverbeds of mixed sand and gravel. However, the use of high-frequency, decimeter-resolution acoustic backscatter for sediment classification in shallow water is hampered by significant topographic contamination of the signal. In mix
Authors
Daniel Buscombe, Paul E. Grams, Matthew A. Kaplinski
Improving predictions of tropical forest response to climate change through integration of field studies and ecosystem modeling
Tropical forests play a critical role in carbon and water cycles at a global scale. Rapid climate change is anticipated in tropical regions over the coming decades and, under a warmer and drier climate, tropical forests are likely to be net sources of carbon rather than sinks. However, our understanding of tropical forest response and feedback to climate change is very limited. Efforts to model cl
Authors
Xiaohui Feng, María Uriarte, Grizelle González, Sasha C. Reed, Jill Thompson, Jess K. Zimmerman, Lora Murphy
Maximizing establishment and survivorship of field-collected and greenhouse-cultivated biocrusts in a semi-cold desert
AimsBiological soil crusts (biocrusts) are soil-surface communities in drylands, dominated by cyanobacteria, mosses, and lichens. They provide key ecosystem functions by increasing soil stability and influencing soil hydrologic, nutrient, and carbon cycles. Because of this, methods to reestablish biocrusts in damaged drylands are needed. Here we test the reintroduction of field-collected vs. green
Authors
Anita Antoninka, Matthew A. Bowker, Peter Chuckran, Nicole N. Barger, Sasha C. Reed, Jayne Belnap
Fine-resolution repeat topographic surveying of dryland landscapes using UAS-based structure-from-motion photogrammetry: Assessing accuracy and precision against traditional ground-based erosion measurements
Structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry from unmanned aerial system (UAS) imagery is an emerging tool for repeat topographic surveying of dryland erosion. These methods are particularly appealing due to the ability to cover large landscapes compared to field methods and at reduced costs and finer spatial resolution compared to airborne laser scanning. Accuracy and precision of high-resolution d
Authors
Jeffrey K. Gillian, Jason W. Karl, Ahmed Elaksher, Michael C. Duniway
Importance of measuring discharge and sediment transport in lesser tributaries when closing sediment budgets
Sediment budgets are an important tool for understanding how riverine ecosystems respond to perturbations. Changes in the quantity and grain size distribution of sediment within river systems affect the channel morphology and related habitat resources. It is therefore important for resource managers to know if a river reach is in a state of sediment accumulation, deficit or stasis. Many sediment-b
Authors
Ronald E. Griffiths, David Topping