Meryl Storb
Biography
While completing my B.S. at the University of Montana I worked as a research assistant for a groundwater modeling project related to the Milltown Dam Removal. I also worked as Environmental Health Technician for the Missoula City County Department of Water Quality working on monitoring and communicating impacts of the Milltown dam removal to residents.
After completing my B.S. I worked as a hydrogeologist for a series of environmental consulting firms in Missoula. In 2014 I moved to Bozeman to pursue a Ph.D. related to hydrology at Montana State University. My dissertation research is focused on understanding impacts from climate change and development on alpine stream ecosystems.
B.S. in Environmental Geology from the University of Montana, 2008
In progress: Ph.D. in Ecology and Environmental Science – working in the Watershed Hydrology Lab at Montana State University
Science and Products
A Bayesian framework for assessing extinction risk based on ordinal categories of population condition and projected landscape change
Many at-risk species lack standardized surveys across their range or quantitative data capable of detecting demographic trends. As a result, extinction risk assessments often rely on ordinal categories of risk based on explicit criteria or expert elicitation. This study demonstrates a Bayesian approach to assessing extinction risk based on this...
Fitzgerald, Daniel Bruce; Henderson, Andrew R; Maloney, Kelly O.; Freeman, Mary; Young, John A.; Rosenberger, Amanda E.; Kazyak, David; Smith, David R.Soil organic carbon development and turnover in natural and disturbed salt marsh environments
Salt marsh survival with sea‐level rise (SLR) increasingly relies on soil organic carbon (SOC) accumulation and preservation. Using a novel combination of geochemical approaches, we characterized fine SOC (≤1 mm) supporting marsh elevation maintenance. Overlaying thermal reactivity, source (δ13C), and age (F14C) information demonstrates several...
Luk, Sheron; Todd-Brown, Katherine; Eagle, Meagan; McNichol, Ann; Sanderman, Jonathan; Gosselin, Kelsey; Spivak, Amanda C.Permafrost promotes shallow groundwater flow and warmer headwater streams
The presence of permafrost influences the flow paths of water through Arctic landscapes and thereby has the potential to impact stream discharge and thermal regimes. Observations from eleven headwater streams in Alaska showed that July water temperatures were higher in catchments with more near‐surface permafrost. We apply a fully coupled...
Sjoberg, Ylva; Janke, Adam K.; Painter, S; Coonradt, E.; Carey, Michael P.; O'Donnell, Jonathan A.; Koch, Joshua C.Environmental data associated with sites infected with white-nose syndrome (WNS) before October 2011 in North America
White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emerging infectious disease of hibernating bats caused by a fungus previously known as Geomyces destructans and reclassified as Pseudogymnoascus destructans. The disease was first documented in 2006 in New York, has since spread across much of eastern North America, and as of January 2012, had caused the death of at...
Swezey, Christopher S.; Garrity, Christopher P.Groundwater quality and groundwater levels in Dougherty County, Georgia, April 2019 through March 2020
The Upper Floridan aquifer is the uppermost, reliable aquifer in southwest Georgia. The aquifer lies on top of the Claiborne, Clayton, and Cretaceous aquifers, all of which exhibited water level declines in the 1960s and 1970s. The U.S. Geological Survey has been working cooperatively with Albany Utilities to monitor groundwater quality and...
Gordon, Debbie W.Cretaceous to Oligocene magmatic and tectonic evolution of the western Alaska Range: insights from U-Pb and 40Ar/39Ar geochronology
New U-Pb and 40Ar/39Ar ages integrated with geologic mapping and observations across the western Alaska Range constrain the distribution and tectonic setting of Cretaceous to Oligocene magmatism along an evolving accretionary plate margin in south-central Alaska. These rocks were emplaced across basement domains that include Neoproterozoic to...
Jones, James V.; Todd, Erin; Box, Stephen E.; Haeussler, Peter; Holm-Denoma, Christopher; Karl, Susan M.; Graham, Garth E.; Bradley, Dwight C.; Kylander-Clark, Andrew R.C.; Friedman, Richard M.; Layer, Paul W.Interpretation of hydrogeologic data to support groundwater management, Bazile Groundwater Management Area, northeast Nebraska, 2019—A case demonstration of the Nebraska Geocloud
Nitrate, age tracer, and continuous groundwater-level data were interpreted in conjunction with airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey data to understand the movement of nitrate within the Bazile Groundwater Management Area (BGMA) in northeastern Nebraska. Previously published age tracer data and nitrate data indicated vertical stratification of...
Hobza, Christopher M.; Steele, Gregory V.Resource partitioning across a trophic gradient between a freshwater fish and an intraguild exotic
The introduction of exotic species has the potential to cause resource competition with native species and may lead to competitive exclusion when resources are limiting. On the other hand, information is lacking to predict under what alternate trophic conditions coexistence may occur. Comparing diets of native yellow perch Perca flavescens...
Kraus, Richard; Schmitt, Joseph; Keretz, Kevin R.Measuring, modelling and projecting coastal land subsidence
Coastal subsidence contributes to relative sea-level rise and exacerbates flooding hazards, with the at-risk population expected to triple by 2070. Natural processes of vertical land motion, such as tectonics, glacial isostatic adjustment and sediment compaction, as well as anthropogenic processes, such as fluid extraction, lead to globally...
Shirzaei, Manoochehr; Freymueller, Jeffery T.; Törnqvist, Torbjörn E; Galloway, Devin; Dura, Tina; Minderhoud, Philip S. J.Effective hydrological events in an evolving mid‐latitude mountain river system following cataclysmic disturbance—A saga of multiple influences
Cataclysmic eruption of Mount St. Helens (USA) in 1980 reset 30 km of upper North Fork Toutle River (NFTR) valley to a zero‐state fluvial condition. Consequently, a new channel system evolved. Initially, a range of streamflows eroded channels (tens of meters incision, hundreds of meters widening) and transported immense sediment loads. Now, single...
Major, Jon J.; Spicer, Kurt R.; Mosbrucker, AdamPopulation estimates for selected breeding seabirds at Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, Kauaʻi, in 2019
Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge (KPNWR) is an important seabird breeding site located at the northeastern tip of Kauaʻi in the main Hawaiian Islands. Despite the regional significance of KPNWR as one of the most important breeding sites for red-tailed tropicbirds (Phaethon rubricauda), red-footed boobies (Sula sula), and wedge-tailed...
Felis, Jonathan J.; Kelsey, Emily C.; Adams, Josh; Stenske, Jennilyn G.; White, Laney M.Non-analog increases to air, surface, and belowground temperature extreme events due to climate change
Air temperatures (Ta) are rising in a changing climate, increasing extreme temperature events. Examining how Ta increases are influencing extreme temperatures at the soil surface and belowground in the soil profile can refine our understanding of the ecological consequences of rising temperatures. In this paper, we validate surface and soil...
Petrie, M.D.; Bradford, John; Lauenroth, W.K.; Schlaepfer, D.R.; Andrews, Caitlin M.; Bell, D.M.