Publications

Low-flow synoptic sampling campaigns are often used as the primary tool to characterize watersheds affected by mining. Although such campaigns are an invaluable part of site characterization, investigations which focus solely on low-flow conditions may yield misleading results. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate this point and elucidate the mechanisms responsible for the...

Relative to research focused on intercontinental viral exchange between Eurasia and North America, less attention has been directed towards understanding the redistribution of influenza A viruses (IAVs) by wild birds between North America and South America. In this study, we genomically characterized 45 viruses isolated from blue-winged teal (Anas discors) along the Texas and Louisiana...

Pharmaceutical pollution in surface waters poses risks to human and ecosystem health. Wastewater treatment facilities are primary sources of pharmaceutical pollutants, but little is known about the factors that affect drugs entering the wastewater stream. This paper investigates the effects of student pharmaceutical use and disposal behaviors and an annual demographic shift on...

Performance of compost and biochar amendments for in situ risk mitigation of aged DDT, DDE and dieldrin residues in an old orchard soil was examined. The change in bioavailability of pesticide residues to Lumbricus terrestris L. relative to the unamended control soil was assessed using 4-L soil microcosms with and without plant cover in a 48-day experiment. The use of aged dairy manure...

Explosives used in construction have been implicated as sources of NO3– contamination in groundwater, but direct forensic evidence is limited. Identification of blasting-related NO3– can be complicated by other NO3– sources, including agriculture and wastewater disposal, and by hydrogeologic factors affecting NO3– transport and stability. Here we describe a study that used hydrogeology...

Water, bed sediment, and biota were sampled in streams from Butte to near Missoula, Montana, as part of a monitoring program in the upper Clark Fork Basin of western Montana. The sampling program was led by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to characterize aquatic resources in the Clark Fork Basin, with emphasis on trace elements...

Wild waterfowl are primary reservoirs of avian influenza viruses (AIV). However the role of sea ducks in the ecology of avian influenza, and how that role differs from freshwater ducks, has not been examined. We obtained and analyzed sera from North Atlantic sea ducks and determined the seroprevalence in those populations. We also tested swab samples from North Atlantic sea ducks for the...

Methylmercury is a global pollutant of aquatic ecosystems, and monitoring programs need tools to predict mercury exposure of wildlife. We developed equations to estimate methylmercury exposure of piscivorous birds and sport fish using mercury concentrations in prey fish. We collected original data on western grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis) and Clark’s grebes (Aechmophorus clarkii) and

Intersex as the manifestation of testicular oocytes (TO) in male gonochoristic fishes has been used as an indicator of estrogenic exposure. Here we evaluated largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) or smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) form 19 National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) in the Northeast U.S. inhabiting waters on or near NWR lands for evidence of estrogenic endocrine disruption

Time-lapse electrical resistivity (ER) was used to capture the dilution of a seasonal pulse of acid mine drainage (AMD) contamination in the subsurface of a wetland downgradient of the abandoned Pennsylvania mine workings in central Colorado. Data were collected monthly from mid-July to late October of 2013, with an additional dataset collected in June of 2014. Inversion of the ER data...

Methylation of tracer and ambient mercury (200Hg and 202Hg, respectively) equilibrated with four different natural organic matter (NOM) isolates was investigated in vivo using the Hg-methylating sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfobulbus propionicus 1pr3. Desulfobulbus cultures grown fermentatively with environmentally representative concentrations of dissolved NOM isolates, Hg[II], and HS...

In large portions of their geographic range, Mexican Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis lucida) roost in forest-dominated environments, but in some areas the owls use relatively arid rocky canyonlands. We measured habitat characteristics at 133 male roosts (n = 20 males) during 1992-95, and 56 female roosts (n = 13 females) during 1994-95. Across all years and study areas, 44% of Mexican...