Articles

Distributions of landslide size are hypothesized to reflect hillslope strength, and consequently weathering patterns. However, the association of weathering and critical zone architecture with mechanical strength properties of parent rock and soil are poorly-constrained. Here we use three-dimensional stability to analyze 7330 landslides in western Oregon to infer combinations of strength...

Influenza A viruses (IAV) circulate endemically among many wild aquatic bird populations that seasonally migrate between wintering grounds in southern latitudes to breeding ranges along the perimeter of the circumpolar arctic. Arctic and subarctic zones are hypothesized to serve as ecologic drivers of the intercontinental movement and reassortment of IAVs due to high densities of...

Fragile geologic features (FGFs), which are extant on the landscape but vulnerable to earthquake ground shaking, may provide geological constraints on the intensity of prior shaking. These empirical constraints are particularly important in regions such as the Pacific Northwest that have not experienced a megathrust earthquake in written history. Here, we describe our field survey of...

Oil spills can inflict mortality and injury on bird populations; many of these deaths involve starvation resulting from thermoregulatory costs incurred by oiling of birds’ feathers. However, the fates and responses of sublethally oiled birds are poorly known. Due to this knowledge gap and the potential for birds to die far from the spill site, resource risk and injury assessors need...

The late Pleistocene was a climatically dynamic period, with abrupt shifts between cool-wet and warm-dry conditions. Increased effective precipitation supported large pluvial lakes and long-lived spring ecosystems in valleys and basins throughout the western and southwestern U.S., but the source and seasonality of the increased precipitation are debated. Increases in the proportions of...

We present a model of the lower seismogenic depth of earthquakes in the western United States (WUS) estimated using the hypocentral depths of events M > 1, a crustal temperature model, and historical earthquake rupture depth models. Locations of earthquakes are from the Advanced National Seismic System Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog from 1980 to 2021 supplemented with seismicity in...

In Katmai National Park, Alaska, USA, we have seen changes in the number of brown bears and sea otters. The number of animals of a species a habitat can support is called carrying capacity. Even though bears live on land and sea otters live in the ocean, these two mammals share coastal habitats. Bears eat salmon, other fish, plants, clams, and beached whales. Sea otters feed on clams and...

Sturgeons have a complex free-embryo period extending from hatch to the initiation of exogenous feeding. Although available for some sturgeon species of the genus Acipenser, descriptions of the developmental stages of free embryos of the genus Scaphirhynchus are lacking. We characterised the ontogenetic development of pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) and shovelnose sturgeon (S...

This study investigates the applicability of the Landsat Dynamic Surface Water Extent (DSWE) science product for waterbird habitat modeling in multiple non-canopied habitat types. We compare surface water distribution estimates derived from DSWE to two site-specific survey methods: visual surveys and digitized aerial imagery. These site-specific surveys were conducted on Poplar Island, a

Aim: Anticipating when and where changes in species' demographic rates will lead to range shifts in response to changing climate remains a major challenge. Despite evidence of increasing mortality in dry forests across the globe in response to drought and warming temperatures, the overall impacts on the distribution of dry forests are largely unknown because we lack comparable large...

The increasing global expansion of antimicrobial resistant infections warrants the development of effective antibiotic alternative therapies, particularly for use in livestock production, an agricultural sector that is perceived to disproportionately contribute to the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis by consuming nearly two-thirds of the global antibiotic supply. Probiotics and...

We used two datasets to investigate the reliability of plumage for sexing adult Ruddy Turnstones Arenaria interpres of the morinella subspecies during May and early June in Delaware Bay, on the Mid-Atlantic Coast of the United States (39.1202°N, 75.2479°W). We first examined 23 years of data on the capture and recapture of 1,818 individual Ruddy Turnstones to assess the consistency of...