Publications
Below is a list of WERC's peer-reviewed publications. If you are searching for a specific publication and cannot find it in this list, please contact werc_web@usgs.gov
Filter Total Items: 3617
Niche overlap, threshold food densities, and limits to prey depletion for a diving duck assemblage in an estuarine bay
Planning for marine conservation often requires estimates of the amount of habitat needed to support assemblages of interacting species. During winter in subtidal San Pablo Bay, California, the 3 main diving duck species are lesser scaup Aythya affinis (LESC), greater scaup A. marila (GRSC), and surf scoter Melanitta perspicillata (SUSC), which all feed almost entirely on the bivalve Corbula amure
Authors
James R. Lovvorn, Susan De La Cruz, John Y. Takekawa, Laura E. Shaskey, Samantha E. Richman
Ocean climate indicators: A monitoring inventory and plan for tracking climate change in the north-central California coast and ocean region
The impacts of climate change, defined as increasing atmospheric and oceanic carbon dioxide and associated increases in average global temperature and oceanic acidity, have been observed both globally and on regional scales, such as in the North-central California coast and ocean, a region that extends from Point Arena to Point Año Nuevo and includes the Pacific coastline of the San Francisco Bay
Authors
Benet Duncan, Kelley Higgason, Tom Suchanek, John Largier, Jay Stachowicz, Sarah Allen, Steven Bograd, R. Breen, Holly Gellerman, Tessa Hill, Jaime Jahncke, Rebecca L. Johnson, Steve I. Lonhart, Steven Morgan, Frances Wilkerson, Jan Roletto
Storm surges and climate change implications for tidal marshes: Insight from the San Francisco Bay Estuary, California, USA
Tidal marshes are dynamic ecosystems, which are influenced by oceanic and freshwater processes and daily changes in sea level. Projected sea-level rise and changes in storm frequency and intensity will affect tidal marshes by altering suspended sediment supply, plant communities, and the inundation duration and depth of the marsh platform. The objective of this research was to evaluate if regional
Authors
Karen M. Thorne, Kevin J. Buffington, Kathleen Swanson, John Y. Takekawa
Curren fire regimes, impacts annd the likely changes: Temperate-Mediterranean North America
No abstract available.
Authors
Max A. Moritz, Meg A. Krawchuk, Jon E. Keeley
Introduction
The Mohave ground squirrel (Xerospermophilus mohavensis), named just over a century ago (Merriam 1889), is precinctive to the western Mojave Desert in California, USA, and occupies portions of Kern, Los Angeles, Inyo and San Bernardino counties (Best 1995). Early estimates of the geographic range of the squirrel are just 20,000 km2 in area (Hall 1981, Zeiner et al. 1988‐ 1990), one of the smallest
Authors
Todd C. Esque, Kenneth E. Nussear, Richard D. Inman, Marjorie D. Matocq, Peter J. Weisberg, Thomas E. Dilts, Philip Leitner
Summary, synthesis, and significance
The initial habitat suitability model estimates pre‐European suitable habitat of the Mohave ground squirrel (MGS, Xerospermophilus mohavensis) covering 19,023 km2. Impact scenarios predicted that between 10 percent and 16 percent of suitable habitat has been lost to historical human disturbances, and up to an additional 10 percent may be affected by renewable energy development in the near future.
Authors
Todd C. Esque, Kenneth E. Nussear, Richard D. Inman, Marjorie D. Matocq, Peter J. Weisberg, Thomas E. Dilts, Phillip Leitner
Temporal and spatial variation in bird and human use of beaches in southern California
Southern California’s beaches can support a remarkable diversity of birds along the Pacific Flyway. We asked whether seasonal, annual, and spatial factors affect bird richness and abundance on public beaches. To do so, we conducted three years of monthly bird surveys on 12 sandy beaches in Ventura California. Across all surveys, we counted 22 shorebird species, 8 gull species, 24 other water bird
Authors
Kevin D. Lafferty, Donald A. Rodriguez, Angela Chapman
Seed harvesting is influenced by associational effects in mixed seed neighbourhoods, not just by seed density
Rodents frequently forage in a density-dependent manner, increasing harvesting in patches with greater seed densities. Although seldom considered, seed harvesting may also depend on the species identities of other individuals in the seed neighbourhood. When the seed harvest of a focal species increases in association with another seed species, the focal species suffers from Associational Susceptib
Authors
Steven M. Ostoja, Eugene W. Schupp, Susan Durham, Robert C. Klinger
Structural equation modeling and the analysis of long-term monitoring data
The analysis of long-term monitoring data is increasingly important; not only for the discovery and documentation of changes in environmental systems, but also as an enterprise whose fruits validate the allocation of effort and scarce funds to monitoring. In simple terms, we may distinguish between the detection of change in some ecosystem attribute versus the investigation of causes and consequen
Authors
James B. Grace, Jon E. Keeley, Darren Johnson, A Bollen
Post-release survival of surf scoters following an oil spill: an experimental approach to evaluating rehabilitation success
Birds are often the most numerous vertebrates damaged and rehabilitated in marine oil spills; however, the efficacy of avian rehabilitation is frequently debated and rarely examined experimentally. We compared survival of three radio-marked treatment groups, oiled, rehabilitated (ORHB), un-oiled, rehabilitated (RHB), and un-oiled, non-rehabilitated (CON), in an experimental approach to examine pos
Authors
Susan E. W. De La Cruz, John Y. Takekawa, Kyle A. Spragens, Julie Yee, Richard T. Golightly, Greg Massey, Laird A. Henkel, Scott Larsen, Michael Ziccardi
Summer-time use of west coast U. S. National Marine Sanctuaries by migrating sooty shearwaters (Puffinus griseus)
Non-breeding sooty shearwaters are the most abundant seabird in the California Current Large Marine
Ecosystem (CCLME) during boreal spring and summer months. This, combined with relatively great
energy demands, reliance on patchy, shoaling prey (krill, squid, and forage fishes), and unconstrained
mobility free from central-place-foraging demands—make shearwaters useful indicators of ecosystem
vari
Authors
Josh Adams, Catriona MacLeod, Robert M. Suryan, K. David Hyrenbach, James T. Harvey
Waste rice seed in conventional and stripper-head harvested fields in California: Implications for wintering waterfowl
Waste rice seed is an important food for wintering waterfowl and current estimates of its availability are needed to determine the carrying capacity of rice fields and guide habitat conservation. We used a line-intercept method to estimate mass-density of rice seed remaining after harvest during 2010 in the Sacramento Valley (SACV) of California and compared results with estimates from previous st
Authors
Joseph P. Fleskes, Brian J. Halstead, Michael L. Casazza, Peter S. Coates, Jeffrey D. Kohl, Daniel A. Skalos