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Creators/Authors contains: "Hamilton, S."

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  1. Diamond anvil cells are commonly used at synchrotron x-ray diffraction beamlines to study structural and thermoelastic properties of materials at high pressures. In a radial geometry, where the x-ray probe is oriented perpendicular to the axis of force, the deformation and strength of materials can be measured in situ. Because the anelastic and failure properties of materials depend strongly on temperature, many applications would benefit from the ability to measure high pressure radial diffraction in elevated and accurately controlled thermal environments. Previous work to introduce high temperature to radial diamond anvil cells has been largely limited to laser heating, with relatively scant efforts to resistively heat the sample. Here, we report a relatively straightforward adaptation of a simple wire coil heater, with in situ high-temperature radial diffraction performed on tungsten carbide up to 573 K at beamline 12.2.2 of the Advanced Light Source. The results demonstrate that the differential stress supported by WC decreases with increasing temperature: the differential stress on the basal (001) and pyramidal (101) planes decreased 6.6% and 5.5%, respectively, while the (100) plane only saw a 2.7% decrease, in agreement with previous studies. 
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  2. Abstract Marine protected areas (MPAs) globally serve conservation and fisheries management goals, generating positive effects in some marine ecosystems. Surf zones and sandy beaches, critical ecotones bridging land and sea, play a pivotal role in the life cycles of numerous fish species and serve as prime areas for subsistence and recreational fishing. Despite their significance, these areas remain understudied when evaluating the effects of MPAs. We compared surf zone fish assemblages inside and outside MPAs across 3 bioregions in California (USA). Using seines and baited remote underwater videos (BRUVs), we found differences in surf zone fish inside and outside MPAs in one region. Inside south region MPAs, we observed higher abundance (Tukey's honest significant difference [HSD] = 0.83,p = 0.0001) and richness (HSD = 0.22,p = 0.0001) in BRUVs and greater biomass (HSD = 0.32,p = 0.0002) in seine surveys compared with reference sites. Selected live‐bearing, fished taxa were positively affected by MPAs. Elasmobranchs displayed greater abundance in BRUV surveys and higher biomass in seine surveys inside south region MPAs (HSD = 0.35,p = 0.0003 and HSD = 0.23,p = 0.008, respectively). Although we observed no overall MPA signal for Embiotocidae, abundances of juvenile and large adult barred surfperch (Amphistichus argenteus), the most abundant fished species, were higher inside MPAs (K–S testD = 0.19,p < 0.0001). Influence of habitat characteristics on MPA performance indicated surf zone width was positively associated with fish abundance and biomass but negatively associated with richness. The south region had the largest positive effect size on all MPA performance metrics. Our findings underscored the variability in species richness and composition across regions and survey methods that significantly affected differences observed inside and outside MPAs. A comprehensive assessment of MPA performance should consider specific taxa, their distribution, and the effects of habitat factors and geography. 
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  3. Coll, Marta (Ed.)
    Abstract The efficacy of marine protected areas (MPAs) may be reduced when climate change disrupts the ecosystems and human communities around which they are designed. The effects of ocean warming on MPA functioning have received attention but less is known about how multiple climatic stressors may influence MPAs efficacy. Using a novel dataset incorporating 8.8 million oceanographic observations, we assess exposure to potentially stressful temperatures, dissolved oxygen concentrations, and pH levels across the California MPA network. This dataset covers more than two-thirds of California’s 124 MPAs and multiple biogeographic domains. However, spatial-temporal and methodological patchiness constrains the extent to which systematic evaluation of exposure is possible across the network. Across a set of nine well-monitored MPAs, the most frequently observed combination of stressful conditions was hypoxic conditions (<140 umol/kg) co-occurring with low pH (<7.75). Conversely, MPAs exposed most frequently to anomalously warm conditions were less likely to experience hypoxia and low pH, although exposure to hypoxia varied throughout the 2014–2016 marine heatwaves. Finally, we found that the spatial patterns of exposure to hypoxia and low pH across the MPA network remained stable across years. This multiple stressor analysis both confirms and challenges prior hypotheses regarding MPA efficacy under global environmental change. 
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  4. null (Ed.)
    The prevalence of disease-driven mass mortality events is increasing, but our understanding of spatial variation in their magnitude, timing and triggers are often poorly resolved. Here, we use a novel range-wide dataset comprised 48 810 surveys to quantify how sea star wasting disease affected Pycnopodia helianthoides , the sunflower sea star, across its range from Baja California, Mexico to the Aleutian Islands, USA. We found that the outbreak occurred more rapidly, killed a greater percentage of the population and left fewer survivors in the southern half of the species's range. Pycnopodia now appears to be functionally extinct (greater than 99.2% declines) from Baja California, Mexico to Cape Flattery, Washington, USA and exhibited severe declines (greater than 87.8%) from the Salish Sea to the Gulf of Alaska. The importance of temperature in predicting Pycnopodia distribution rose more than fourfold after the outbreak, suggesting latitudinal variation in outbreak severity may stem from an interaction between disease severity and warmer waters. We found no evidence of population recovery in the years since the outbreak. Natural recovery in the southern half of the range is unlikely over the short term. Thus, assisted recovery will probably be required to restore the functional role of this predator on ecologically relevant time scales. 
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  5. Numerical simulations present challenges because they generate petabyte-scale data that must be extracted and reduced during the simulation. We demonstrate a seamless integration of feature extraction for a simulation of turbulent fluid dynamics. The simulation produces on the order of 6 TB per timestep. In order to analyze and store this data, we extract velocity data from a dilated volume of the strong vortical regions and also store a lossy compressed representation of the data. Both reduce data by one or more orders of magnitude. We extract data from user checkpoints in transit while they reside on temporary burst buffer SSD stores. In this way, analysis and compression algorithms are designed to meet specific time constraints so they do not interfere with simulation computations. Our results demonstrate that we can perform feature extraction on a world-class direct numerical simulation of turbulence while it is running and gather meaningful scientific data for archival and post analysis. 
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  6. null (Ed.)
  7. Headwater streams remove, transform, and store inorganic nitrogen (N) delivered from surrounding watersheds, but excessive N inputs from human activity can saturate removal capacity. Most research has focused on quantifying N removal from the water column over short periods and in individual reaches, and these ecosystem-scale measurements suggest that assimilatory N uptake accounts for most N removal. However, cross-system comparisons addressing the relative role of particular biota responsible for incorporating inorganic N into biomass are lacking. Here we assess the importance of different primary uptake compartments on reach-scale ammonium (NH4 +-N) uptake and storage across a wide range of streams varying in abundance of biota and local environmental factors. We analyzed data from 17 15N-NH4 + tracer addition experiments globally, and found that assimilatory N uptake by autotrophic compartments (i.e., epilithic biofilm, filamentous algae, bryophytes/macrophytes) was higher but more variable than for heterotrophic microorganisms colonizing detrital organic matter (i.e., leaves, small wood, and fine particles). Autotrophic compartments played a disproportionate role in N uptake relative to their biomass, although uptake rates were similar when we rescaled heterotrophic assimilatory N uptake associated only with live microbial biomass. Assimilatory NH4 +-N uptake, either estimated as removal from the water column or from the sum uptake of all individual compartments, was four times higher in open- than in closed-canopy streams. Using Bayesian Model Averaging, we found that canopy cover and gross primary production (GPP) controlled autotrophic assimilatory N uptake while ecosystem respiration (ER) was more important for the heterotrophic contribution. The ratio of autotrophic to heterotrophic N storage was positively correlated with metabolism (GPP:ER), which was also higher in open- than in closed-canopy streams. Our analysis shows riparian canopy cover influences the relative abundance of different biotic uptake compartments and thus GPP:ER. As such, the simple categorical variable of canopy cover explained differences in assimilatory N uptake among streams at the reach scale, as well as the relative roles of autotrophs and heterotrophs in N storage. Finally, this synthesis links cumulative N uptake by stream biota to reach-scale N demand and provides 
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