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At least 829 records · Page 46Linked to original sources

USGS2001

On the decline of the Rusty Blackbird and the use of ornithological literature to document long-term population trends

Unlike most North American blackbirds, Rusty Blackbirds ( Euphagus carolensis ) have shown steep population declines. Declines of approximately 90% are indicated for three recent decades from the Breeding Bird Survey, Christmas Bird Counts, and Quebec Checklist Program. Analyses of abundance classifications in bird distribution books and annotated checklists reveal an overlooked but long-term decline dating back to at least the early part of this century. Rusty Blackbirds were described as very common to abundant in 56% of the pre-1920 published accounts, 19% of the 1921–1950 accounts, and only 7% of the post-1950 accounts. Rusty Blackbirds were described as uncommon in none of the pre-1950 accounts, 18% of the 1951–1980 accounts, and 43% of the post-1980 accounts. A similar pattern was found for analyses based on local checklists. Destruction of wooded wetlands on wintering grounds, acid precipitation, and the conversion of boreal forest wetlands could have contributed to these declines. Systematic analysis of regional guides and checklists provides a valuable tool for examining large-scale and long-term population changes in birds.

Conservation Biology↗

USGS2010

Advances in the hydrogeochemistry and microbiology of acid mine waters

The last decade has witnessed a plethora of research related to the hydrogeochemistry and microbiology of acid mine waters and associated tailings and waste-rock waters. Numerous books, reviews, technical papers, and proceedings have been published that examine the complex bio-geochemical process of sulfide mineral oxidation, develop and apply geochemical models to site characterization, and characterize the microbial ecology of these environments. This review summarizes many of these recent works, and provides references for those investigating this field. Comparisons of measured versus calculated Eh and measured versus calculated pH for water samples from several field sites demonstrate the reliability of some current geochemical models for aqueous speciation and mass balances. Geochemical models are not, however, used to predict accurately time-dependent processes but to improve our understanding of these systems and to constrain possible processes that contribute to actual or potential water quality issues. Microbiological studies are demonstrating that there is much we have yet to learn about the types of different microorganisms and their function and ecology in mine-waste environments. A broad diversity of green algae, bacteria, archaea, yeasts, and fungi are encountered in acid mine waters, and a better understanding of their ecology and function may potentially enhance remediation possibilities as well as our understanding of the evolution of life.

International Geology Review↗

USGS2022

Diatoms.org: Supporting taxonomists, connecting communities

Consistent identification of diatoms is a prerequisite for studying their ecology, biogeography, and successful application as environmental indicators. However, taxonomic consistency among observers has been difficult to achieve because taxonomic information is scattered across numerous literature sources, presenting challenges to the diatomist. Firstly, literature is often inaccessible because of cost or its location in journals that are not widely circulated. Secondly, taxonomic revisions of diatoms are taking place faster than floras can be updated. Finally, taxonomic information is often contradictory across literature sources. These issues can be addressed by developing a content creation community dedicated to making taxonomic, ecological, and image-based data freely available for diatom researchers. Diatoms.org represents such a content curation community, providing open, online access to a vast amount of recent and historical information on North American diatom taxonomy and ecology. The content curation community aggregates existing taxonomic information, creates new content, and provides feedback in the form of corrections and notices of literature with nomenclatural changes. The website not only addresses the needs of experienced diatom scientists for consistent identification but is also designed to meet users at their level of expertise, including engaging the lay public in the importance of diatom science. The website now contains over 1000 species pages contributed by over 100 content contributors, from students to established scientists. The project began with the intent to provide accurate information on diatom identification, ecology, and distribution using an approach that incorporates engaging design, user feedback, and advanced data access technology. In retrospect, the project that began as an ‘extended electronic book’ has emerged not only as a means to support taxonomists, but for practitioners to communicate and collaborate, expanding the size of and benefits to the content curation community. In this paper, we outline the development of diatoms.org , document key elements of the project, examine ongoing challenges and consider the unexpected emergent properties, including the value of diatoms.org as a source of data. Ultimately, if the field of diatom taxonomy, ecology, and biodiversity is to be relevant, a new generation of taxonomists needs to be trained and employed using new tools. We propose that diatoms.org is in a key position to serve as a hub of training and continuity for the study of diatom biodiversity and aquatic conditions.

Diatom Research↗

USGS2026

From understanding to action: Integrating new and old methodologies to manage marine infectious disease

Marine diseases can have far-reaching effects on population, community and ecosystem health; however, our ability to track, predict and manage these diseases has, historically, been poor. As a result, the fields of disease ecology and epidemiology have developed at a slower pace for marine than terrestrial systems [ 1 ]. New methodologies, including genomic tools for diagnostics [ 2 , 3 ], transcriptomic tools for measuring host and pathogen responses to infection (e.g. [ 4 , 5 ]), regional oceanic modelling systems that estimate environmental conditions influencing pathogen dispersal and disease progression [ 6 ], artificial intelligence methods for quantifying pathology from images (e.g. [ 7 ]) and advanced disease modelling techniques [ 8 , 9 ] are precipitating a rapid increase in our understanding of marine pathosystems. In 2016, these efforts led to the first special issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B ( Marine diseases, volume 371, issue 1689) focused entirely on marine disease ecology and evolution, and in 2020, the first book, Marine disease ecology, was devoted to this topic [ 10 ]. This special issue, focused on marine disease management , is being published a decade after the first Philosophical Transactions special issue on marine diseases. The shift to a management focus reflects an urgent need for management strategies to address high-impact diseases and the rapid methodological advances that have resulted. The papers included in this issue demonstrate the value of combining classical approaches (e.g. routine disease surveillance, reductionistic pathogen challenge trials, rapid throughput diagnostics) with cutting-edge technologies (e.g. high-resolution oceanographic models, Bayesian models, replicated transcriptomic studies) to identify drivers of disease, quantify impacts and suggest management strategies.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, S↗

USGS2012

Luna B. Leopold--pioneer setting the stage for modern hydrology

In 1986, during the first year of graduate school, the lead author was sampling the water from a pitcher pump in front of “The Shack,” the setting of the opening essays in Aldo Leopold's renowned book A Sand County Almanac. The sampling was part of my Master's work that included quarterly monitoring of water quality on the Leopold Memorial Reserve (LMR) near Baraboo, Wisconsin. The Shack was already a well-known landmark, and it was common to come upon visitors and hikers there. As such, I took no special note of the man who approached me as I was filling sample bottles and asked, as was typical, “What are you doing?”

Ground Water↗

USGS2021

An assessment of current wolf Canis lupus domestication hypotheses based on wolf ecology and behaviour

The dog was the first domesticated animal. Its derivation from grey wolves Canis lupus is important to the study of mammalian domestication, and wolf domestication is an active area of investigation. Recent popular books have promoted a hypothesis that wolves domesticated themselves as opposed to the earliest hypothesis that featured pup collection, adoption, and artificial selection. Continuing research has produced a greater understanding of wolf ecology and behaviour, including new insights into the wolf’s interaction with humans. Several characteristics make the wolf conducive to domestication: its sociality, catholic diet, excellent individual and cultural memory, inbreeding tolerance, varied personalities, and adaptable lifestyle. The wolf’s fear of humans is the main impediment and that alone is a factor strongly disfavouring the self-selection hypothesis. However, collecting young pups from dens and raising them would foster their socialising with humans as pack members. Neither hypothesis explains how wolves undergoing domestication were separated reproductively from their wild relatives, an important condition for domestication. We combine information from the literature with information from our own research on wild wolves, archaeology, and canid morphology. We explain how pup collection and deliberate or incidental selection and encouragement to breed with similarly raised wolves could keep incipient dogs separated reproductively from wild relatives. The key is humans regularly feeding the wolves and keeping only those able to live harmoniously with humans. Well-fed, human-dependent wolves would remain near their food supply and in the company of humans, thus increasing their bonds to humans and vice versa . Outbreeding with wild wolves would thus be avoided. Generation after generation of these human-fed, raised, and selected wolves would become increasingly dependent on humans and shaped by them. The pup-adoption hypothesis presented here is more in keeping with basic wolf ecology and behaviour than the self-domestication hypothesis.

Current Biology↗

USGS2000

Evolution of the Creede Caldera and its relation to mineralization in the Creede mining district, Colorado

At 25 Ma a major epithermal silver and base metal deposit formed in rhyolitic welded tuff near Creede, Colorado. Nearly 24000 metric tons of silver, appreciable lead, and small amounts of zinc, copper, and gold, have been produced from large, crustified veins under Bachelor and Bulldog Mountains north and northwest of Creede. Prior geologic, hydrologic, and stable-isotope studies showed that ore deposition was associated with the mixing and boiling of waters from diverse sources and suggester that a critical part of the ore-forming fluid may have originated within the ancient lake and sediments of the lacustrine Creede Formation that filled the Creede caldera. Two drill holes that sampled the heretofore hidden lower half of the Creede Formation are the focus of this book. The Creede caldera formed at 26.9 Ma within a high constructional plateau of silicic ashflows that covered and were sporadically interlayed with, intermediate lavas and lahars from large stratovolcanoes. The Creede caldera lake had an inflow evaporation balance that did not permit rapid filling to create a brim-full deep lake. Thus salts were evaporatively concentrated; but, with the exception of possible gypsum, no evaporite minerals preserved. Cool springs deposited travertine as mounds and contributed to limestone interlaminations within the sediment. The lake bottom was anoxic, and bacterial reduction of sulfate led to extreme sulfur isotopic fractionation in diagenetic pyrite. The caldera gradually resurged, converting the initial equant lake into an arcuate moat. Resurgent doming, alluvial fans, lacustrine sediments, ashfalls, and lava domes displaced water, lifted the lake so that it overlapped what later became the southern edge of the mineralized are, and eventually filled the basin. At 25.1 Ma an unseen pluton intruded beneath the northen part of the Creede district and created a convecting olume that drew in brine from the Creede caldera fill, meteotic water from highlands to the north, and possibly a fluid carrying radiogenic lead. These waters mixed and boiled as they approached the surface and moved southward, deposited a zoned epithermal deposit a few hundred meters below the paleosurface, and finally discharged into the top of the Creede Formation. The sulfide in the ores was the igneous derivation, but the sulfate was a mixture of biogenic sulfur from the Creede Formation, oxidized igneous sulfide, and thermochemically reduced and partially oxygen exchanged sulfate. The studies of the Creede caldera provide key observational and conceptual elements for the generalized model of the Creede ore deposit. The relation of the Creed ore deposit to a brine reservoir has broad significance because other brine accumulations (as in the Great Basin, the Green River Basin, or the playas of the Altiplano offer similar setting and exploration opportunities.

Colorado↗

USGS1999

Synchroneity of the K-T oceanic mass extinction and meteorite impact: Blake Nose, western North Atlantic

A 10-cm-thick layer of green spherules occurs precisely at the biostratigraphic boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene (K-T boundary) at Ocean Drilling Program Site 1049 (lat 30°08′N, long 76°06′W). The spherulitic layer contains abundant rock fragments (chalk, limestone, dolomite, chert, mica books, and schist) as well as shocked quartz, abundant large Cretaceous planktic foraminifera, and rounded clasts of clay as long as 4 mm interpreted as altered tektite glass probably derived from the Chicxulub impact structure. Most of the Cretaceous foraminifera present above the spherule layer are not survivors since small specimens are conspicuously rare compared to large individuals. Instead, the Cretaceous taxa in Paleocene sediments are thought to be reworked. The first Paleocene planktic foraminifera and calcareous nannofossil species are recorded immediately above the spherule bed, the upper part of which contains an iridium anomaly. Hence, deposition of the impact ejecta exactly coincided with the biostratigraphic K-T boundary and demonstrates that the impact event was synchronous with the evolutionary turnover in the oceans. These results are consistent with a reanalysis of the biostratigraphy of the K-T boundary stratotype, which argues that shallow-marine K-T boundary sections are not biostratigraphically more complete than deep-sea K-T boundary sites.

Geology↗

USGS2015

Preface

This book grew out of a topical session on “Central Virginia Earthquakes of 2011: Geology, Geophysics, and Significance for Seismic Hazards in Eastern North America” at the 2012 The Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina (USA). It also benefitted from related sessions at other meetings. The goal of this volume, The 2011 Mineral, Virginia, Earthquake, and Its Significance for Seismic Hazards in Eastern North America , is to bring together as much information as possible on lessons learned from this rare event. Chapters encompass a wide range of geoscience, engineering, and related studies of this earthquake and its effects from the epicentral area in central Virginia to Washington, D.C., and beyond. The intended audience is a broad spectrum of geoscientists, engineers, and decision makers interested in understanding earthquakes and seismic hazards in eastern North America and other intraplate settings. Chapters by Berti et al. (21), Chapman (2), Costain (8), Davenport et al. (15), Green et al. (9), Heller and Carter (10), Horton et al. (14), Hughes et al. (19), Powars et al. (23), Pratt et al. (16), Roeloffs et al. (7), Shah et al. (17), Stephenson et al. (3), Walsh et al. (18), and Wells et al. (12) are expansions of presentations at the 2012 GSA meeting. The volume also contains chapters from recent studies that were not presented at the GSA meeting, including those by Bobyarchick (22), Burton et al. (20), Dreiling and Mooney (5), Li et al. (11), McNamara et al. (4), Pollitz and Mooney (6), and Shahidi et al. (13). Following an overview and synthesis by the volume editors (1), chapters are arranged under the topical headings “Seismology and Regional Effects,” “Earthquake Damage, Geotechnical, and Engineering Investigations,” “Aftershocks, Geophysical Imaging, and Modeling,” “Geologic Investigations—Epicentral Area,” and “Geologic Investigations— Central Virginia Seismic Zone and Nearby Faults.” We thank the authors for their contributions and the many scientists and engineers who contributed time and expertise in reviewing manuscripts to substantially improve the quality of the volume. These reviewers include Gail Atkinson, Christopher Bailey, Richard Berquist, Kimberly Blisniuk, Paul Bodin, Aaron Bradshaw, Clive Collins, Ariel Conn, Randy Cox, Haitham Dawood, James Dewey, John Ebel, David Fenster, Alexander Gates, Kathleen Haller, Gregory Hancock, Robert Hatcher, William Henika, Paul Hsieh, Steven Jaumé, Jeffrey Kimball, Charles Langston, Jongwon Lee, Andrea Llenos, John McBride, Scott Olson, Michael Oskin, Brent Owens, Gilles Peltzer, Mark Quigley, Dhananjay Ravat, David Saftner, Arthur Snoke, Jamison Steidl, Kevin Stewart, Alice Stieve, Danielle Sumy, Ertugrul Taciroglu, Roy Van Arsdale, Mason Walters, Chiyuen Wang, Yang Wang, Richard Whittecar, Lorraine Wolf, Clint Wood, Liam Wotherspoon, and some anonymous reviewers.

Virginia↗

USGS2024

Reviews

World Atlas of Submarine Gas Hydrates in Continental Margins , edited by Jürgen Mienert et al., ISBN 978-3-030-81185-3, Springer, 2022, 514 p., US$299.99 (print), $299.99 (e-book). The recently published World Atlas of Submarine Gas Hydrates in Continental Margins , edited by Mienert et al., provides a remarkably comprehensive global look at gas hydrates in continental margins. Given that approximately 99% of global gas hydrates are thought to exist on continental margins (the rest are in permafrost areas), this atlas covers the vast majority of gas hydrates on the earth. In addition to 37 geographically focused chapters covering essentially every continental margin on the planet (plus the Black Sea and Lake Baikal), the first six chapters review the history of gas-hydrate studies and fundamental considerations. The geographically focused chapters generally present a thorough description of geophysical and geologic observations from that area, written by an author or authors representing many years or decades of expertise there.

The Leading Edge↗

USGS2012

Root zone water quality model (RZWQM2): Model use, calibration and validation

The Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM2) has been used widely for simulating agricultural management effects on crop production and soil and water quality. Although it is a one-dimensional model, it has many desirable features for the modeling community. This article outlines the principles of calibrating the model component by component with one or more datasets and validating the model with independent datasets. Users should consult the RZWQM2 user manual distributed along with the model and a more detailed protocol on how to calibrate RZWQM2 provided in a book chapter. Two case studies (or examples) are included in this article. One is from an irrigated maize study in Colorado to illustrate the use of field and laboratory measured soil hydraulic properties on simulated soil water and crop production. It also demonstrates the interaction between soil and plant parameters in simulated plant responses to water stresses. The other is from a maize-soybean rotation study in Iowa to show a manual calibration of the model for crop yield, soil water, and N leaching in tile-drained soils. Although the commonly used trial-and-error calibration method works well for experienced users, as shown in the second example, an automated calibration procedure is more objective, as shown in the first example. Furthermore, the incorporation of the Parameter Estimation Software (PEST) into RZWQM2 made the calibration of the model more efficient than a grid (ordered) search of model parameters. In addition, PEST provides sensitivity and uncertainty analyses that should help users in selecting the right parameters to calibrate.

Transactions of the ASABE↗

USGS2017

Review: The size of the risk: Histories of multiple use in the Great Basin by Leisl Carr Childers

In The Size of the Risk , Leisl Carr Childers chronicles the changing ways in which public lands of the Great Basin have been managed from the latter half of the nineteenth century through the late 1970s. The main focus is the State of Nevada, which constitutes the core of the Great Basin. Rather than proceeding chronologically, the book is organized by the uses to which lands were put, including grazing of cattle and sheep, weapons testing by the military, parks and recreation, and grazing of wild mustangs. Review info: The size of the risk: Histories of multiple use in the Great Basin . By Leisl Carr Childers, 2015. ISBN: 9780806152530, 320pp.

Pacific Historical Review↗

USGS1994

History of early diet development in fish culture, 1000 B.C. to A.D. 1955

This paper traces the observations and speculations of early fish culturists as they sought to define the feeds necessary to keep hatchery fish alive. Although prescientific ideas about feeding fish existed in Egypt and China over three millennia ago, it was not until the 1700s that scientific studies of feeding and digestion by fish were documented. Aside from several books that provided early anecdotal accounts of feeds and feeding, much of the technical literature up to the 1930s is found in a few journals and relatively obscure bulletins. Such was the state of knowledge regarding the feeding of fish until about 1927 when Clive McCay, a professor at Yale University, and Abram Tunison, a hatchery worker, began some part‐time research on the nutritional requirements of trout at Connecticut's Burlington Fish Hatchery. In June 1932, these men founded an experimental hatchery, designed to study the nutrition, feeds, and feeding of fish, at Cortland, New York; this hatchery was operated under the auspices of the federal Bureau of Fisheries, the Conservation Department of New York State, and Cornell University. Over the next 25 years, it was research from this hatchery as well as from other federal, state, and university facilities that led to the development of purified test diets and the identification of the (unknown) growth factors in fresh meat, both essential criteria for scientific diet formulation, The first nutritionally complete diets appeared about 1955.

Progressive Fish-Culturist↗

USGS2019

Where has turtle ecology been, and where is it going?

Over 9000 articles have been published on turtles and tortoises (excluding sea turtles) since 1950 according to the Web of Science, including over 8000 contained in a personal bibliography that we analyze in this paper. Research had a slow start from 1900 to 1950, with mostly anecdotal additions to our knowledge until the contributions of F. Cagle and A. Carr took turtle research to new levels as the cofathers of turtle ecology in the middle of the last century. Books written in 1939, 1952, and 1972 that compiled existing literature on turtles in the United States and Canada set the stage for growing interest in turtles. The first global compilation of turtle species did not become available until 1961. Publication frequency increased in the 1960s and especially the 1970s as interest in turtles grew, and a wave of turtle biologists emerged from doctoral degree programs. We briefly review the contributions of scientists who published extensively on turtle ecology in those and later decades up to the present. We also review advances in our knowledge of various topics, including the global distribution of turtle research efforts; changes in our perceptions of turtle species diversity over time; turtle community ecology; sex ratios, sex-determination, and climate change; overwintering behavior; sexual size dimorphism and sexual dichromatism; analyses of population genetics; turtles and vocalization; and the emergence of turtle conservation biology efforts. We conclude with a discussion of future opportunities and challenges for working with turtles.

Herpetologica↗

USGS2005

Birds of the Baja California Peninsula: Status, distribution, and taxonomy

Birds of the Baja California Peninsula: Status, Distribution, and Taxonomy. By Richard A. Erickson and Steve N. G. Howell (Eds.). American Birding Association Monographs in Field Ornithology No. 3, Colorado Springs, Colorado. 2001: 261 pp. ISBN: 1878788396. $39.95 (paper). This volume is a collection of eight papers and five appendices on the status and distribution of the birds of Baja California. In the preface, the editors lament the end of an era of "frontier" birding in Baja California brought on by the publication of this volume. While discoveries of new species are certain to decline with time, I suspect that interest in birding and ornithology in Baja California will be enhanced by the information contained in this book. Perhaps the "frontier" era that Erickson and Howell lament the end of is the unbirded, wide open spaces and the chance for making new discoveries.

Baja California Peninsula↗

USGS2009

Haunted Summerville: Ghostly lights or earthquake lights?

Among the colorful local lore in the Charleston, South Carolina, area, are a number of ghost stories, shared not only over campfires but also in published books. Among the most well-known of the stories is the tale of the Summerville Light. Local lore holds that a strange light sometimes seen in a remote area is a lantern carried by the ghost of a local woman who once waited hours for her husband, who turned out to have been decapitated earlier that day in a train accident (DePoppe, 2023). Extant sources suggest the ghost stories began to circulate in the 1950s to 1960s. So pervasive was the lore that (Old) Sheep Island Road became known among local residents as Light Road, with a local stretch of road known today as Old Light Road. Reviewing the location where the lights appear as well as the nature of accounts, I suggest that many if not all of the anecdotal observations can be most readily attributed to natural phenomena, including earthquake lights from earthquakes that were too small to be felt. Accounts of lights near Summerville cluster in proximity to the generally accepted epicenter of the 1886 Charleston, South Carolina, earthquake, where foreshocks to the 1886 mainshock were apparently concentrated, and within a few kilometers of three M3.5 – 4.4 earthquakes in 1959 and 1960.

South Carolina↗

USGS1949

Origin of the Bendigo saddle reefs with comments on the formation of ribbon quartz

"Several textural varieties of quartz, together with ore textures and structural relations, indicate that (1) open-space filling, (2) replacement, and (3) growth by accretion were active processes in the formation of saddle reefs and related quartz bodies of the Bendigo goldfield, Australia. The relative importance of each process varied with the type of quartz body. . . . Book structure, ribbon structure, and 'crinkly banding' probably resulted primarily from the replacement of previously sheared or foliated zones in wall rock; the individual leaves and ribbons are usually residues from the replacement process."

Economic Geology↗