Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center (NOROCK)
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 ssoileau@usgs.gov.
Chronic wasting disease—Research by the U.S. Geological Survey and partners
This report is temporarily unavailable.
Hopkins, M. Camille; Carlson, Christina M.; Cross, Paul C.; Johnson, Christopher J.; Richards, Bryan J.; Russell, Robin E.; Samuel, Michael D.; Sargeant, Glen A.; Walsh, Daniel P.; Walter, W. David
1200 years of Upper Missouri River streamflow reconstructed from tree rings
Paleohydrologic records can provide unique, long-term perspectives on streamflow variability and hydroclimate for use in water resource planning. Such long-term records can also play a key role in placing both present day events and projected future conditions into a broader context than that offered by instrumental observations. However,...
Martin, Justin; Pederson, Gregory T.; Woodhouse, Connie A.; Cook, Edward R; McCabe, Gregory; Wise, Erika K.; Erger, Patrick; Dolan, Larry; McGuire, Marketa; Gangopadhyay, Subhrendu; Chase, Katherine J.; Littell, Jeremy S.; Gray, Stephen; St. George, Scott; Friedman, Jonathan M.; Sauchyn, David J.; St. Jacques, Jannine; King, John W. Research Note: How old are the people who die in avalanches? A look into the ages of avalanche victims in the United States (1950-2018)
Since the winter of 1950-1951, 1084 individuals perished in snow avalanches in the United States. In this study, we analyze the ages of those killed (n=900) by applying non-parametric methods to annual median ages and for age groups and primary activity groups. Change point detection results suggest a significant change in 1990 in the median age...
Peitzsch, Erich; Boilen, Sara; Birkeland, Karl W.; Logan, Spencer Yellowstone Grizzly Bear investigations: Annual report of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team 2018
This annual report summarizes the results of grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) research and monitoring conducted in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) during 2018. The research and monitoring program is focused on population estimation and demographics, food monitoring, and habitat monitoring. The...
van Manen, Frank T.; Haroldson, Mark A.; Karabensh, Bryn Drought-mediated extinction of an arid-land amphibian: Insights from a spatially explicit dynamic occupancy model
Understanding how natural and anthropogenic processes affect population dynamics of species with patchy distributions is critical to predicting their responses to environmental changes. Despite considerable evidence that demographic rates and dispersal patterns vary temporally in response to an array of biotic and abiotic processes, few...
Muths, Erin L.; Zylstra, Erin R; Swann, Don E; Hossack, Blake R.; Steidl, Robert J Restoring a forest icon: Could returning the American chestnut remodel our wildlife landscape?
Mother Nature was not making it easy. It was February 18, 2009, and winds were gusting, sleet was falling, and temperatures were hovering around 40° F. Our crew of 9 which consisted of personnel from the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station, the Cherokee National Forest, and The University of Tennessee’s Tree Improvement Program, was...
Clark, Staci L; Schlarbaum, Scott E.; Clark, Joseph D. Species-specific responses to wetland mitigation among amphibians in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
Because habitat loss and degradation are leading causes of biodiversity declines, assessing the capacity of created mitigation wetlands to function as replacement habitat for wildlife has become a management priority. We compared occurrence and abundance of larvae of four species of pond-breeding amphibians in wetlands created for mitigation,...
Swartz, LK; Lowe, WH; Muths, Erin L.; Hossack, Blake R. Adding invasive species bio-surveillance to the U.S. Geological Survey streamgage network
The costs of invasive species in the United States alone are estimated to exceed US$100 billion per year so a critical tactic in minimizing the costs of invasive species is the development of effective, early-detection systems. To this end, we evaluated the efficacy of adding environmental (e)DNA surveillance to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)...
Sepulveda, Adam J.; Schmidt, Christian; Amberg, Jon J.; Hutchins, Patrick R.; Stratton, Christian; Mebane, Christopher A.; Laramie, Matthew; Pilliod, David Epidemic growth rates and host movement patterns shape management performance for pathogen spillover at the wildlife-livestock interface
Managing pathogen spillover at the wildlife–livestock interface is a key step towards improving global animal health, food security and wildlife conservation. However, predicting the effectiveness of management actions across host–pathogen systems with different life histories is an on-going challenge since data on intervention effectiveness are...
Manlove, K.R.; Sampson, L. M.; Borremans, B.; Cassirer, E. Frances; Miller, R. S.; Pepin, K.; Besser, T. E.; Cross, Paul Confronting models with data: The challenges of estimating disease spillover
For pathogens known to transmit across host species, strategic investment in disease control requires knowledge about where and when spillover transmission is likely. One approach to estimating spillover is to directly correlate observed spillover events with covariates. An alternative is to mechanistically combine information on host density,...
Cross, Paul C.; Prosser, Diann; Ramey, Andrew M.; Hanks, Ephraim M.; Pepin, Kim M. Ecological interventions to prevent and manage zoonotic pathogen spillover
Spillover of a pathogen from a wildlife reservoir into a human or livestock host requires the pathogen to overcome a hierarchical series of barriers. Interventions aimed at one or more of these barriers may be able to prevent the occurrence of spillover. Here, we demonstrate how interventions that target the ecological context in which spillover...
Sokolow, S. H.; Nova, Nicole; Pepin, Kim; Peel, A. J.; Pulliam, J; Manlove, Kezia R.; Cross, Paul; Becker, D.; Plowright, RK; McCallum, Hamish; De Leo, Giulio A. Streamflow reconstruction in the Upper Missouri River Basin using a novel Bayesian network model
A Bayesian model that uses the spatial dependence induced by the river network topology, and the leading principal components of regional tree-ring chronologies for paleo-streamflow reconstruction is presented. In any river basin, a convergent, dendritic network of tributaries comes together to form the main stem of a river. Consequently, it is...
Ravindranath, Arun; Devineni, Naresh; Lall, Upmanu; Cook, Edward; Pederson, Gregory T.; Martin, Justin; Woodhouse, Connie A.