Articles

Lateralization, or a left-right bias in behavior (e.g., handedness), was originally thought to exclusively exist in humans, but is now known to be widespread. Lateralization can exist at the individual or group level. In dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), tests of paw preference have produced inconsistent results. Because wolves (C. l.) differ genetically, morphologically, and behaviorally...

Since they were first introduced to the United States more than 50 years ago, invasive carp have rapidly colonized rivers of the Mississippi River Basin, with detrimental effects on native aquatic species. Their continued range expansion, and potential for subsequent invasion of the Great Lakes, has led to increased concern for the susceptibility of as-yet uncompromised lotic and lentic...

Many studies investigate river floods by analyzing annual maximum series that record the largest flow of each year, including many within-bank events inconsequential for human communities. Fewer focus on larger floods, especially at the continental scale. Using 473 streamgages across the conterminous United States with near-natural flow from 1966 to 2015, we characterized the seasonality

Aquatic ecosystems around the world are contaminated with a wide range of anthropogenic chemicals, including metals and organic pollutants, that originate from point and nonpoint sources. Many of these chemical contaminants have complex environmental cycles, are persistent and bioavailable, can be incorporated into aquatic food webs, and pose a threat to the health of wildlife and humans

Habitable ocean environments on Europa require an influx of reactants to maintain chemical disequilibrium. One possible source of reactants is seafloor volcanism. Modeling has shown that dissipation of tidal energy in Europa's asthenosphere can generate melt, but melt formation cannot be equated with volcanism. Melt must also be transported through Europa's cold lithosphere to erupt at...

Microbial necromass is a large, dynamic and persistent component of soil organic carbon, the dominant terrestrial carbon pool. Quantification of necromass carbon stocks and its susceptibility to global change is becoming standard practice in soil carbon research. However, the typical proxies used for necromass carbon do not reveal the dynamic nature of necromass carbon flows and...

Within the state of Arkansas there is an increasing number of aging dams and levees that have little to no documentation concerning their construction or composition. Surface geophysical surveys offer a non-intrusive method for investigating these structures: To describe their lithologic makeup, to evaluate the materials that they were constructed upon, and to identify potential flow...

Segmentation, or the classification of pixels (grid cells) in imagery, is ubiquitously applied in the natural sciences. Manual methods are often prohibitively time-consuming, especially those images consisting of small objects and/or significant spatial heterogeneity of colors or textures. Labeling complicated regions of transition that in Earth surface imagery are represented by...

The impacts of climate change (CC) on natural and cultural resources are far-reaching and complex. A major challenge facing resource managers is not knowing the exact timing and nature of those impacts. To confront this problem, scientists, adaptation specialists, and resource managers have begun to use scenario planning (SP). This structured process identifies a small set of scenarios

The success of individual sea turtle nests is influenced by nest location on the beach and the resulting incubation environment. Several abiotic factors affect nest incubation, and thus nest success, but tides and gas exchange are two of the most important. The effects of tides on nest success have been well documented in regard to overwash and inundation events. However, the possible...

Understanding spatial and temporal variation in plant traits is needed to accurately predict how communities and ecosystems will respond to global change. The National Observatory Ecological Network (NEON) Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) provides hyperspectral images and associated data products at numerous field sites at 1 m spatial resolution, potentially allowing high-resolution...

If volcanic eruptions could be forecast from the occurrence of some external process, it might be possible to better mitigate risk and protect lives and livelihoods. Farquharson and Amelung1 suggested that the 2018 lower East Rift Zone (ERZ) eruption of Kīlauea Volcano—the most destructive eruption in Hawai‘i in at least 200 years2—was triggered by extreme precipitation, which caused...