Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center
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.
Amphibian population responses to mitigation: Relative importance of wetland age and design
Wetland creation is a common practice to mitigate for the loss of natural wetlands. However, there is still uncertainty about how effectively created wetlands replace habitat provided by natural wetlands. This uncertainty is due in part because post-construction monitoring of biological communities, and vertebrates especially, is rare and...
Oja, Emily Bea; Swartz, Leah S; Muths, Erin L.; Hossack, Blake R. Corticosterone mediates a growth-survival tradeoff for an amphibian exposed to increased salinity
Life-history tradeoffs are common across taxa, but growth-survival tradeoffs—usually enhancing survival at a cost to growth—are less frequently investigated. Increased salinity (NaCl) is a prevalent anthropogenic disturbance that may cause a growth-survival tradeoff for larval amphibians. Although physiological mechanisms mediating tradeoffs are...
Tornabene, BJ; Hossack, Blake R.; Crespi, EJ; Breuner, CW Agent-based models for collective animal movement: Proximity-induced state switching
Animal movement is a complex phenomenon where individual movement patterns can be influenced by a variety of factors including the animal’s current activity, available terrain and habitat, and locations of other animals. Motivated by modeling grizzly bear movement in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, this article presents an agent-based model...
Hoegh, Andrew B.; van Manen, Frank T.; Haroldson, Mark A.
U.S. Geological Survey science for the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative—2018 annual report
The Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) was established in 2007 as a collaborative interagency partnership to develop and implement science-based conservation actions. During the past 11 years, partners from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), State and Federal land management agencies, universities, and the public have collaborated to...
Anderson, Patrick J.; Aldridge, Cameron L.; Alexander, Jason S.; Assal, Timothy J.; Aulenbach, Steven; Bowen, Zachary H.; Chalfoun, Anna D.; Chong, Geneva W.; Copeland, Holly; Edmunds, David R.; Germaine, Steve; Graves, Tabitha; Heinrichs, Julie A.; Homer, Collin G.; Huber, Christopher; Johnston, Aaron; Kauffman, Matthew J.; Manier, Daniel J.; McShane, Ryan R.; Eddy-Miller, Cheryl A.; Miller, Kirk A.; Monroe, Adrian P.; O'Donnell, Michael S.; Ortega, Anna; Walters, Annika W.; Wieferich, Daniel J.; Wyckoff, Teal B.; Zeigenfuss, Linda Evaluating corticosterone as a biomarker for amphibians exposed to increased salinity and ambient corticosterone
Physiological biomarkers are commonly used to assess the health of taxa exposed to natural and anthropogenic stressors. Glucocorticoid (GC) hormones are often used as indicators of physiological stress in wildlife because they affect growth, reproduction and survival. Increased salinity from human activities negatively influences amphibians and...
Tornabene, Brian J.; Hossack, Blake R.; Crespi, Erica J; Breuner, Creagh W Metal accumulation varies with life history, size, and development of larval amphibians
Amphibian larvae are commonly used as indicators of aquatic ecosystem health because they are susceptible to contaminants. However, there is limited information on how species characteristics and trophic position influence contaminant loads in larval amphibians. Importantly, there remains a need to understand whether grazers (frogs and...
Smalling, Kelly; Oja, Emily Bea; Cleveland, Danielle; Davenport, Jon D; Eagles-Smith, Collin; Campbell Grant, Evan H.; Kleeman, Patrick M.; Halstead, Brian J.; Stemp, Kenzi M; Tornabene, Brian J.; Bunnell, Zachary J; Hossack, Blake R. Resilience to fire and resistance to annual grass invasion in sagebrush ecosystems of US National Parks
Western North American sagebrush shrublands and steppe face accelerating risks from fire-driven feedback loops that transition these ecosystems into self-reinforcing states dominated by invasive annual grasses. In response, sagebrush conservation decision-making is increasingly done through the lens of resilience to fire and annual grass...
Rodhouse, Thomas J.; Lonneker, Jeffrey; Bowersock, Lisa; Popp, Diana; Thompson, Jamela; Dicus, Gordon; Irvine, Kathryn M. Spatial Gaussian processes improve multi-species occupancy models when range boundaries are uncertain and nonoverlapping
Species distribution models enable practitioners to analyze large datasets of encounter records and make predictions about species occurrence at unsurveyed locations. In omnibus surveys that record data on multiple species simultaneously, species ranges are often nonoverlapping and misaligned with the administrative unit defining the spatial...
Wright, Wilson; Irvine, Kathryn M.; Rodhouse, Tom; Litt, Andrea R. Integration of geophysical evidence suggests that anorthosite composes a significant portion of Grand Marais ridge, an inferred basement high in western Lake Superior
The Midcontinent Rift System (MRS) is expressed geophysically by a semi-linear, regional gravity high that trends across the Midcontinent and Great Lakes region of North America. The gravity high is interrupted by two prominent, semi-circular gravity lows, which have been interpreted from modeling and seismic-reflection sections as basement highs...
Grauch, V. J.; Heller, Samuel J. Broad-scale surface and atmospheric conditions during large fires in south-central Chile
The unprecedented size of the 2017 wildfires that burned nearly 600,000 hectares of central Chile highlight a need to better understand the climatic conditions under which large fires develop. Here we evaluate synoptic atmospheric conditions at the surface and free troposphere associated with anomalously high (active) versus low (inactive) months...
McWethy, David B.; Garreaud, René; Holz, Andrés; Pederson, Gregory T. Climate drivers of large magnitude snow avalanche years in the U.S. northern Rocky Mountains
Large magnitude snow avalanches pose a hazard to humans and infrastructure worldwide. Analyzing the spatiotemporal behavior of avalanches and the contributory climate factors is important for understanding historical variability in climate-avalanche relationships as well as improving avalanche forecasting. We used established dendrochronological...
Peitzsch, Erich; Pederson, Gregory T.; Birkeland, Karl W.; Hendrikx, Jordy; Fagre, Daniel B. Growth and defense characteristics of whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) and lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var latifolia) in a high-elevation, disturbance-prone mixed-conifer forest in northwestern Montana, USA
Recent, widespread tree mortality in the western U.S. resulting from changes in climate, pathogens, insect activity, and forest management practices has led to concerns for many ecologically and culturally important species. Within conifers, resin-based defenses have long been recognized as a primary defense mechanism against a variety of insects...
Kichas, Nicholas E.; Trowbridge, Amy M.; Raffa, Kenneth F.; Malone, Shealyn C.; Hood, Sharon M.; Everett, Richard G.; McWethy, David B.; Pederson, Gregory T.