Publications

The bryoflora of two small maritime islands, Chisik and Duck Island (2,302 ha), comprising Tuxedni Wilderness in western lower Cook Inlet, Alaska, was examined to determine species composition in an area where no previous collections had been reported. The field study was conducted from sites selected to represent the totality of environmental variation within Tuxedni Wilderness. Data...

Most paleoseismic studies are at low to moderate latitudes. Here we present results from a high-latitude (61°30′ N) trenching study of the Castle Mountain fault in south-central Alaska. This fault is the only one known in the greater Anchorage, Alaska, area with historical seismicity and a Holocene fault scarp. It strikes east-northeast and cuts glacial and postglacial sediments in an...

Sea otter Enhydra lutris populations were severely affected by the 1989 'Exxon Valdez' oil spill in western Prince William Sound, AK, and had not fully recovered by 2000. Here we present results of population surveys and incorporate findings from related studies to identify current population status and factors affecting recovery. Between 1993 and 2000, the number of sea otters in the...

Following the 1989 'Exxon Valdez' oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, we studied the status of recovery of harlequin duck Histrionicus histrionicus populations during 1995 to 1998. We evaluated potential constraints on full recovery, including (1) exposure to residual oil; (2) food limitation; and (3) intrinsic demographic limitations on population growth rates. In this paper, we...

We have determined high-resolution hypocenters for 45,000+ earthquakes that occurred between 1980 and 2000 in the Long Valley caldera area using a double-difference earthquake location algorithm and routinely determined arrival times. The locations reveal numerous discrete fault planes in the southern caldera and adjacent Sierra Nevada block (SNB). Intracaldera faults include a series of...

Marine mammals being among the top predators in the food web tend to accumulate organic and inorganic contaminants from the environment. The body burden of contaminants in these species could reflect their foods and thus contaminant levels could serve as proxies on the changes of ecosystem. A pilot study was carried out to investigate the possibility of radionuclide leakage at Amchitka...

Lesser snow geese (Anser caerulescens caerulescens) and Canada geese (Branta canadensis) use several salt marshes in Cook Inlet, Alaska, as stopover areas for brief periods during spring migration. We investigated the effects of geese on nitrogen cycling processes in Susitna Flats, one of the marshes. We compared net nitrogen mineralization, organic nitrogen pools and production in...

We used satellite telemetry to study the migration routes and wintering areas of two allopatric breeding populations of Pacific Common Eiders (Somateria mollissima v-nigrum) in Alaska: the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, and the western Beaufort Sea coast. Only 6% (2 of 36) of females wintered within the wintering area of the other breeding population. Both breeding populations wintered in the...

Matings between close relatives often reduce the fitness of offspring, probably because homozygosity leads to the expression of recessive deleterious alleles1,2,3,4,5. Studies of several animals have shown that reproductive success is lower when genetic similarity between parents is high4,5,6,7, and that survival and other measures of fitness increase with individual levels of genetic...

Nesting ecology of Tundra Swans (Cygnus columbianus columbianus) was studies the Kashunuk River near Old Chevak (61A?26a??N, 165A?27a??W), on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of western Alaska from 1988-2000. Annual variation in snow-melt chronology, nesting phenology, nesting density, clutch size and nest success was examined. The same area (approximately 23 kmA?) was searched each year and...

The northern lampfish (Stenobrachius leucopsarus, family Myctophidae) and northern smoothtongue (Leuroglossus schmidti, family Bathylagidae) are mesopelagic fishes, defined by their vertical distribution in the mesopelagic zone (200–1000 m) during daylight hours. Northern lampfish range from the Bering Sea to southern California (Shimada, 1948), where their abundance is highest along the

Extrapair copulations and fertilizations are common among birds, especially in passerines. So far, however, few studies have examined genetic mating systems in socially monogamous shorebirds. Here, we examine parentage in the Western Sandpiper (Calidris mauri). Given that Western Sandpipers nest at high densities on the Arctic tundra, have separate nesting and feeding areas, and show...