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: 1220
Effects of persistent energy-related brine contamination on amphibian abundance in national wildlife refuge wetlands
To inform sustainable energy development, it is important to understand the ecological effects of historical and current production practices and the persistence of those effects. The Williston Basin is one of North America's largest oil production areas and overlaps the Prairie Pothole Region, an area densely populated with wetlands that provide important wildlife habitat. Although historical dis
Authors
Blake R. Hossack, Kelly L. Smalling, Chauncey W. Anderson, Todd M. Preston, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli, R. Ken Honeycutt
History and dynamics of the Greater Yellowstone Glacial System during the last two glaciations
The Greater Yellowstone Glacial System (GYGS) covered about 20,000 km2 at its maximum Pleistocene extent. The initiation, culmination, and ultimate decay of the GYGS involved complex interactions between several coalescent ice masses flowing from glacial source areas adjoining and including the Yellowstone Plateau. Here, we present an updated review of the history and dynamics of the GYGS during t
Authors
Joseph M. Licciardi, Kenneth L. Pierce
Identifying major avalanche years from a regional tree-ring based avalanche chronology for the U.S. Northern Rocky Mountains
Avalanches not only pose a major hazard to people and infrastructure, but also act as an important ecological disturbance. In many mountainous regions in North America, including areas with existing transportation corridors, reliable and consistent avalanche records are sparse or non-existent. Thus, inferring long-term avalanche patterns and associated contributory climate and weather factors re
Authors
Erich H. Peitzsch, Daniel B. Fagre, Gregory T. Pederson, Jordy Hendrikx, Karl W. Birkeland, Daniel Stahle
Impacts of temporal revisit designs on the power to detect trend with a linear mixed model: An application to long-term monitoring of Sierra Nevada lakes
Long-term ecological monitoring programs often use linear mixed models to estimate trend in an ecological indicator sampled across large landscapes. A linear mixed model is versatile for estimating a linear trend in time as well as components of spatial and temporal variationin the case of unbalanced data structures, which are common in complex monitoring designs where limited sampling effort must
Authors
Leigh Ann H. Starcevich, Kathryn M. Irvine, Andrea M. Heard
Genetic diversity, effective population size, and structure among black bear populations in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, USA
Multiple small populations of American black bears Ursus americanus, including the recently delisted Louisiana black bear subspecies U. a. luteolus, occupy a fragmented landscape in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, USA (LMAV). Populations include bears native to the LMAV, bears translocated from Minnesota during the 1960s, and recently reintroduced and colonizing populations sourced from wit
Authors
Sean M. Murphy, Jared S. Laufenberg, Joseph D. Clark, Maria M. Davidson, Jerrold L. Belant, David L. Garshelis
Occupancy modeling species–environment relationships with non‐ignorable survey designs
Statistical models supporting inferences about species occurrence patterns in relation to environmental gradients are fundamental to ecology and conservation biology. A common implicit assumption is that the sampling design is ignorable and does not need to be formally accounted for in analyses. The analyst assumes data are representative of the desired population and statistical modeling proceeds
Authors
Kathryn M. Irvine, Thomas J. Rodhouse, Wilson J. Wright, Anthony R. Olsen
Quantifying climate sensitivity and climate-driven change in North American amphibian communities
Changing climate will impact species’ ranges only when environmental variability directly impacts the demography of local populations. However, measurement of demographic responses to climate change has largely been limited to single species and locations. Here we show that amphibian communities are responsive to climatic variability, using >500,000 time-series observations for 81 species across 8
Authors
David A.W. Miller, Evan H. Campbell Grant, Erin L. Muths, Staci M. Amburgey, M. J. Adams, Maxwell B. Joseph, J. Hardin Waddle, Pieter T.J. Johnson, Maureen E. Ryan, Benedikt R. Schmidt, Daniel L. Calhoun, Courtney L. Davis, Robert N. Fisher, David M. Green, Blake R. Hossack, Tracy A.G. Rittenhouse, Susan C. Walls, Larissa L. Bailey, Sam S. Cruickshank, Gary M. Fellers, Thomas A. Gorman, Carola A. Haas, Ward Hughson, David S. Pilliod, Steven J. Price, Andrew M. Ray, Walter Sadinski, Daniel Saenz, William J. Barichivich, Adrianne B. Brand, Cheryl S. Brehme, Rosi Dagit, Katy S. Delaney, Brad M. Glorioso, Lee B. Kats, Patrick M. Kleeman, Christopher Pearl, Carlton J. Rochester, Seth P. D. Riley, Mark F. Roth, Brent Sigafus
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Species Management Research Program, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Fort Collins Science Center, John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, South Atlantic Water Science Center (SAWSC), Southwest Biological Science Center, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, Western Ecological Research Center (WERC), Wetland and Aquatic Research Center
The ecology of movement and behaviour: a saturated tripartite network for describing animal contacts
Ecologists regularly use animal contact networks to describe interactions underlying pathogen transmission, gene flow, and information transfer. However, empirical descriptions of contact often overlook some features of individual movement, and decisions about what kind of network to use in a particular setting are commonly ad hoc. Here, we relate individual movement trajectories to contact networ
Authors
Kezia R. Manlove, Christina M. Aiello, Pratha Sah, Bree Cummins, Peter J. Hudson, Paul C. Cross
Tradeoffs of a portable, field-based environmental DNA platform for detecting invasive northern pike (Esox lucius) in Alaska
Environmental DNA (eDNA) has improved detection probabilities of aquatic invasive species but lab-based analyticalplatforms for eDNA analyses slow opportunities for rapid response. Effective approaches that address this analyticalbottleneck and improve capacity for rapid response are urgently needed. We tested the sensitivity of a portable, field-basedeDNA platform relative to widely used lab-base
Authors
Adam J. Sepulveda, Patrick R. Hutchins, Robert L. Massengill, Kristine J. Dunker
Estimating distemper virus dynamics among wolves and grizzly bears using serology and Bayesian state‐space models
Many parasites infect multiple hosts, but estimating the transmission across host species remains a key challenge in disease ecology. We investigated the within and across host species dynamics of canine distemper virus (CDV) in grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) and wolves (Canis lupus) of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). We hypothesized that grizzly bears may be more likely to be exposed to CD
Authors
Paul C. Cross, Frank T. van Manen, Mafalda Viana, Emily S. Almberg, Daniel Bachen, Ellen E. Brandell, Mark A. Haroldson, Peter J. Hudson, Daniel R. Stahler, Douglas W. Smith
Using automated radio telemetry to quantify activity patterns of songbirds during stopover
During migration, birds require stopover habitat to rest and refuel before resuming flight. While long-distance migratory flights represent a large energy investment, stopover accounts for roughly two-thirds of a bird's total energy expenditure during migration. Therefore, birds should minimize energy expenditure while also minimizing time and predation risk during stopover. To understand activity
Authors
Lynn N. Schofield, Jill L. Deppe, Theodore J. Zenzal, Michael P. Ward, Robert H. Diehl, Rachel T. Bolus, Frank R. Moore
International meeting on sarcoptic mange in wildlife, June 2018, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
Sarcoptic mange is a globally distributed disease caused by the burrowing mite Sarcoptes scabiei, which also causes scabies in humans. A wide and increasing number of wild mammal species are reported to be susceptible to mange; however, the impacts of the disease in wildlife populations, mechanisms involved in its eco-epidemiological dynamics, and risks to public and ecosystem health are still unc
Authors
Francisca Astorga, Scott Carver, Emily S. Almberg, Giovane R. Sousa, Kimberly Wingfield, Kevin D. Niedringhaus, Peach Van Wick, Luca Rossi, Yue Xie, Paul C. Cross, Samer Angelone, Christian Gortázar, Luis E. Escobar