Geology topics

Jonathan N. Pauli

Publications and source records attributed to Jonathan N. Pauli.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2024

Design, development, and implementation of IsoBank: A centralized repository for isotopic data

Stable isotope data have made pivotal contributions to nearly every discipline of the physical and natural sciences. As the generation and application of stable isotope data continues to grow exponentially, so does the need for a unifying data repository to improve accessibility and promote collaborative engagement. This paper provides an overview of the design, development, and implementation of IsoBank , a community-driven initiative to create an open-access repository for stable isotope data implemented online in 2021. A central goal of IsoBank is to provide a web-accessible database supporting interdisciplinary stable isotope research and educational opportunities. To achieve this goal, we convened a multi-disciplinary group of over 40 analytical experts, stable isotope researchers, database managers, and web developers to collaboratively design the database. This paper outlines the main features of IsoBank and provides a focused description of the core metadata structure. We present plans for future database and tool development and engagement across the scientific community. These efforts will help facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration among the many users of stable isotopic data while also offering useful data resources and standardization of metadata reporting across eco-geoinformatics landscapes.

PLoS ONE↗

USGS2020

Latitudinal variation in snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) body mass: A test of Bergmann’s Rule

The relationship between body size and latitude have been the focus of dozens of studies across many species. However, results of testing Bergmann’s Rule – that organisms in colder climates or at higher latitudes possess larger body sizes – have been inconsistent across studies. We investigated whether snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) follow the Rule by investigating differences in body mass using data from six published studies and from data of 755 individual hares captured from ten populations across North America covering 26° of latitude. We also explored alternative hypotheses related to variation in hare body mass, including winter severity, length of growing season, elevation, and snow depth. We found body mass of hares varied throughout their range, but the drivers of body mass differed based on geographic location. Females in northern populations followed Bergmann’s rule, whereas males did not. In northern populations male mass was related to average snow depth. In contrast, in southern populations body mass of both sexes was related to length of the growing season. These differences likely represent variation in the drivers of selection. Specifically, in the north, a large body size is beneficial to conserve heat because of low winter temperatures, whereas in the south, it is likely due to increased food supply associated with longer growing seasons.

Canadian Journal of Zoology↗

USGS2017

Opinion: Why we need a centralized repository for isotopic data

Stable isotopes encode and integrate the origin of matter; thus, their analysis offers tremendous potential to address questions across diverse scientific disciplines ( 1 , 2 ). Indeed, the broad applicability of stable isotopes, coupled with advancements in high-throughput analysis, have created a scientific field that is growing exponentially, and generating data at a rate paralleling the explosive rise of DNA sequencing and genomics ( 3 ). Centralized data repositories, such as GenBank, have become increasingly important as a means for archiving information, and “Big Data” analytics of these resources are revolutionizing science and everyday life.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of↗