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
Case study: 2016 Natural glide and wet slab avalanche cycle, Going-to-the-Sun Road, Glacier National Park, Montana, USA
The Going-to-the-Sun Road (GTSR) is the premier tourist attraction in Glacier
National Park, Montana. The GTSR also traverses through and under 40 avalanche paths which
pose a hazard to National Park Service (NPS) road crews during the annual spring snow plowing
operation. Through a joint collaboration between the NPS and the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS), a forecasting program primarily dealing w
Authors
Jacob Hutchinson, Erich H. Peitzsch, Adam Clark
Using structure from motion photogrammetry to examine glide snow avalanches
Structure from Motion (SfM), a photogrammetric technique, has been used extensively
and successfully in many fields including geosciences over the past few years to create 3D models and
high resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) from aerial or oblique photographs. SfM has recently
been used in a limited capacity in snow avalanche research and shows promise as a tool for broader applications.
Authors
Erich H. Peitzsch, Jordy Hendrikx, Daniel B. Fagre
Effects of stream-adjacent logging in fishless headwaters on downstream coastal cutthroat trout
To investigate effects of headwater logging on downstream coastal cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii) populations, we monitored stream habitat and biotic indicators including biomass, abundance, growth, movement, and survival over 8 years using a paired-watershed approach. Reference and logged catchments were located on private industrial forestland on ∼60-year harvest rotation. Five cl
Authors
Douglas S. Bateman, Matthew R. Sloat, Robert E. Gresswell, Aaron M. Berger, David Hockman-Wert, David W. Leer, Arne E. Skaugset
Topographic and fire weather controls of fire refugia in forested ecosystems of northwestern North America
Fire refugia, sometimes referred to as fire islands, shadows, skips, residuals, or fire remnants, are an important element of the burn mosaic, but we lack a quantitative framework that links observations of fire refugia from different environmental contexts. Here, we develop and test a conceptual model for how predictability of fire refugia varies according to topographic complexity and fire weath
Authors
Meg A. Krawchuk, Sandra L. Haire, Jonathan D. Coop, Marc-André Parisien, Ellen Whitman, Geneva W. Chong, Carol Miller
Trade-offs and efficiencies in optimal budget-constrained multispecies corridor networks
Conservation biologists recognize that a system of isolated protected areas will be necessary but insufficient to meet biodiversity objectives. Current approaches to connecting core conservation areas through corridors consider optimal corridor placement based on a single optimization goal: commonly, maximizing the movement for a target species across a network of protected areas. We show that des
Authors
Bistra Dilkina, Rachel Houtman, Carla P. Gomes, Claire A. Montgomery, Kevin McKelvey, Katherine Kendall, Tabitha A. Graves, Richard Bernstein, Michael K. Schwartz
Vive la résistance: genome-wide selection against introduced alleles in invasive hybrid zones
Evolutionary and ecological consequences of hybridization between native and invasive species are notoriously complicated because patterns of selection acting on non-native alleles can vary throughout the genome and across environments. Rapid advances in genomics now make it feasible to assess locus-specific and genome-wide patterns of natural selection acting on invasive introgression within and
Authors
Ryan P. Kovach, Brian K. Hand, Paul A. Hohenlohe, Ted F. Cosart, Matthew C. Boyer, Helen H. Neville, Clint C. Muhlfeld, Stephen J. Amish, Kellie Carim, Shawn R. Narum, Winsor H. Lowe, Fred W. Allendorf, Gordon Luikart
Climate-induced glacier and snow loss imperils alpine stream insects
Climate warming is causing rapid loss of glaciers and snowpack in mountainous regions worldwide. These changes are predicted to negatively impact the habitats of many range-restricted species, particularly endemic, mountaintop species dependent on the unique thermal and hydrologic conditions found only in glacier-fed and snowmelt-driven alpine streams. Though progress has been made, existing under
Authors
J. Joseph Giersch, Scott Hotaling, Ryan Kovach, Leslie A. Jones, Clint C. Muhlfeld
Climate, invasive species and land use drive population dynamics of a cold-water specialist
Climate change is an additional stressor in a complex suite of threats facing freshwater biodiversity, particularly for cold-water fishes. Research addressing the consequences of climate change on cold-water fish has generally focused on temperature limits defining spatial distributions, largely ignoring how climatic variation influences population dynamics in the context of other existing stresso
Authors
Ryan P. Kovach, Robert K. Al-Chokhachy, Diane C. Whited, David A. Schmetterling, Andrew M. Dux, Clint C. Muhlfeld
Assessments of species' vulnerability to climate change: From pseudo to science
Climate change vulnerability assessments (CCVAs) are important tools to plan for and mitigate potential impacts of climate change. However, CCVAs often lack scientific rigor, which can ultimately lead to poor conservation prioritization and associated ecological and economic costs. We discuss the need to improve comparability and consistency of CCVAs and either validate their findings or improve a
Authors
Alisa A. Wade, Brian K. Hand, Ryan Kovach, Clint C. Muhlfeld, Robin S. Waples, Gordon Luikart
Extending ordinal regression with a latent zero-augmented beta distribution
Ecological abundance data are often recorded on an ordinal scale in which the lowest
category represents species absence. One common example is when plant species cover
is visually assessedwithin bounded quadrats and then assigned to pre-defined cover class
categories.We present an ordinal beta hurdle model that directly models ordinal category
probabilitieswith a biologically realistic beta-distr
Authors
Kathryn M. Irvine, T.J. Rodhouse, Ilai. N. Keren
Effects of energy development on wetland plants and macroinvertebrate communities in Prairie Pothole Region wetlands
Energy production in the Williston Basin, USA, results in the coproduction of highly saline, sodium chloride-dominated water (brine). The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) overlies the northeastern portion of the Williston Basin. Although PPR wetlands span a range of salinity, the dominant salt is sodium sulfate, and salinities are much lower than brine. Introduction of brine to wetlands can result in
Authors
Todd M. Preston, Andrew M. Ray
Demographic mechanisms underpinning genetic assimilation of remnant groups of a large carnivore
Current range expansions of large terrestrial carnivores are occurring following human-induced range contraction. Contractions are often incomplete, leaving small remnant groups in refugia throughout the former range. Little is known about the underlying ecological and evolutionary processes that influence how remnant groups are affected during range expansion. We used data from a spatially explic
Authors
Nathaniel Mikle, Tabitha A. Graves, Ryan P. Kovach, Katherine C. Kendall, Amy C. Macleod