Publications

Hurricane Florence made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, shortly after dawn on September 14, 2018. Once over land, the forward motion of the hurricane slowed to about 2 to 3 miles per hour. Over the next several days, the hurricane delivered historic amounts of rainfall across North and South Carolina, causing substantial flooding in many...

1.Better understanding human‐wildlife interactions and their links with management can help improve the design of wildlife protection zones. One example is the problem of wildlife collisions with vehicles or human‐built structures (e.g. power lines, wind farms). In fact, collisions between marine wildlife and watercraft are among the major threats faced by several endangered species of...

Objectively delimiting species boundaries remains an important challenge in systematics and becomes urgent when unresolved taxonomy complicates conservation and recovery efforts. We examined species boundaries in the imperiled freshwater mussel genus Cyclonaias(Bivalvia: Unionidae) using morphometrics, molecular phylogenetics, and multispecies coalescent models to help guide pending...

A research priority can be defined as a knowledge gap that, if resolved, identifies the optimal course of conservation action. We (a group of geographically distributed and multidisciplinary research scientists) used tools from nominal group theory and decision analysis to collaboratively identify and prioritize information needs within the context of disease-associated amphibian decline...

Crop residues serve many important functions in agricultural conservation including preserving soil moisture, building soil organic carbon, and preventing erosion. Percent crop residue cover on a field surface reflects the outcome of tillage intensity and crop management practices. Previous studies using proximal hyperspectral remote sensing have demonstrated accurate measurement of...

In 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, collected data on isotopes, age dating, and geochemistry including aqueous uranium concentrations of samples from 20 locations in the vicinity of the Homestake Mining Company Superfund site near Milan, New Mexico. The 20 sampled locations include 19 groundwater wells and 1 treatment plant...

Two three-dimensional seismic surveys totaling 3.4 square miles were acquired in southeastern Miami-Dade County during 2015 as part of an ongoing broad regional investigation by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department, that includes mapping and karst characterization of the Floridan aquifer system in southeastern Florida. Twenty...

Invasive species provide powerful in situ experimental systems for studying evolution in response to selective pressures in novel habitats. While research has shown that phenotypic evolution can occur rapidly in nature, few examples exist of genome‐wide adaptation on short ‘ecological’ timescales. Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) have become a successful and impactful invasive...

We developed an age‐structured population matrix model to perform population viability analysis for Lower Missouri River (LMR) shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus). We investigated potential effects of the commercial fishing moratorium put in place to help protect the similar‐appearing pallid sturgeon (S. albus). The model applies different components of total variance in...

Understanding the spatial and temporal dynamics underlying the introduction and spread of nonindigenous aquatic species (NAS) can provide important insights into the historical drivers of biological invasions and aid in forecasting future patterns of nonindigenous species arrival and spread. Increasingly, public databases of species observation records are being used to quantify changes...

Dauphin Island, Alabama, is a barrier island located in the northern Gulf of Mexico that supports local residences, tourism, commercial infrastructure, and historic Fort Gaines. During the past decade, Dauphin Island was affected by several major hurricanes—Hurricanes Ivan (2004), Katrina (2005), and Isaac (2012)—and storms, along with sea-level rise, continue to present a threat to...

Video measurements of runup were collected at low tide along several profiles covering an alongshore distance of 500 m. The morphology displayed a complex shape with a shoreline sandwave in the lower beach face of about 250 m long mirrored in the inner sandbar. Wave conditions were stationary and moderate (offshore height of 2 m and peak period of nearly 13 s) but yet dissipative. Runup...