Bear Lodge Mountains Research Articles

The importance of disturbance and forest structure to bird abundance in the Black Hills

AbstractMany North American birds associated with forest disturbances such as wildfire and mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) outbreaks are declining in abundance. More information on relationships between avian abundance and forest structure and disturbance is needed to guide conservation and management. Our objective was to determine densities of American Three-toed Woodpecker (Picoides dorsalis), Black-backed Woodpecker (Picoides arcticus), Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis), Brown Creeper (Certhia americana), and White-winged Junco (Junco hyemalis aikeni) in relation to vegetation characteristics and disturbance at the point and landscape level in the Black Hills and Bear Lodge Mountains of South Dakota and Wyoming. We conducted 3 point counts from late March to late June 2015 and 2016 at more than 2,300 locations distributed across a gradient of forest structure and disturbance types. We estimated densities using 3-level hierarchical time-removal models that simultaneously estimated abundance, availability, and detection probability. Black-backed Woodpeckers were positively related to percent area in 1- to 3-year-old wildfires and Brown Creepers were positively associated with percent area in 4- to 5-year-old wildfires; however, Red-breasted Nuthatches were negatively related to percent area in 3- to 5-year-old wildfires. With the exception of American Three-toed Woodpeckers, species were positively related to percent cover of beetle-killed trees. Brown Creepers, White-winged Juncos, and Red-breasted Nuthatches had mixed responses to percent overstory canopy cover. White-winged Juncos also had a positive association with percent ground vegetation at the point and landscape level. Brown Creepers were strongly linked with spruce vegetation type. American Three-toed Woodpeckers, which are thought to occupy spruce forest in the Black Hills, did not show a strong relationship with any covariates. Maintaining some areas of natural disturbances along with heterogeneity of vegetation characteristics within stands and at the landscape scale will benefit the needs of a diverse bird community in the Black Hills.

Black‐backed woodpecker abundance in the Black Hills

ABSTRACTThe Black Hills population of black‐backed woodpeckers (Picoides arcticus) was petitioned, but deemed not warranted, to be listed as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act and more information on their population size in the region is needed. Our objective was to map abundance and provide a population estimate of black‐backed woodpeckers in the Black Hills and Bear Lodge Mountains of South Dakota and Wyoming, USA. We conducted 3,666 and 3,384 5‐minute point count surveys from late‐March to late‐June in 2015 and 2016, respectively. We characterized vegetation around each point using geographic information system‐derived landscape variables and fit 3‐level hierarchical time‐removal models in R package unmarked using gmultmix. The global abundance model received the most support and included year, latitude, and percent area of green trees, beetle‐killed trees, dead trees, 1‐ to 2‐year‐old wildfire, 3‐year‐old wildfire, and 4‐ to 5‐year‐old wildfire. Points with high percent cover of beetle‐killed trees had the greatest density of black‐backed woodpeckers, followed by 1‐ to 2‐year‐old wildfires. After 4 years, areas burned by wildfire supported lower densities of black‐backed woodpeckers than undisturbed forests. Mean density was 0.528 birds/km2 in 2015 and 0.626 birds/km2 in 2016. There were an estimated 2,920 and 3,439 black‐backed woodpeckers in the Black Hills and Bear Lodge Mountains in 2015 and 2016, respectively. We suggest areas with high percent cover of beetle‐killed trees may support high densities of black‐backed woodpeckers and are important to sustaining populations when the availability of recent (<4 years old) wildfire is declining or scarce. Published 2018. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Evolution of rare-earth mineralization in the Bear Lodge carbonatite, Wyoming: Mineralogical and isotopic evidence

The Bear Lodge alkaline complex in northeastern Wyoming (USA) is host to potentially economic rare-earth mineralization in carbonatite and carbonatite-related veins and dikes that intrude heterolithic diatreme breccias in the Bull Hill area of the Bear Lodge Mountains. The deposit is zoned and consists of pervasively oxidized material at and near the surface, which passes through a thin transitional zone at a depth of ~120–183m, and grades into unaltered carbonatites at depths greater than ~183–190m. Carbonatites in the unoxidized zone consist of coarse and fine-grained calcite that is Sr-, Mn- and inclusion-rich and are characterized by the presence of primary burbankite, early-stage parisite and synchysite with minor bastnäsite that have high (La/Nd)cn and (La/Ce)cn values. The early minerals are replaced with polycrystalline pseudomorphs consisting of secondary rare-earth fluorocarbonates and ancylite with minor monazite. Different secondary parageneses can be distinguished on the basis of the relative abundances and composition of individual minerals. Variations in key element ratios, such as (La/Nd)cn, and chondrite-normalized profiles of the rare-earth minerals and calcite record multiple stages of hydrothermal deposition involving fluids of different chemistry. A single sample of primary calcite shows mantle-like δ18OV-SMOW and δ13CV-PDB values, whereas most other samples are somewhat depleted in 13C (δ13CV-PDB≈−8 to −10‰) and show a small positive shift in δ18OV-SMOW due to degassing and wall-rock interaction. Isotopic re-equilibration is more pronounced in the transitional and oxidized zones; large shifts in δ18OV-SMOW (to ~18‰) reflect the input of meteoric water during pervasive hydrothermal reworking and supergene oxidation. The textural relations, mineral chemistry and C and O stable-isotopic variations record a polygenetic sequence of rare-earth mineralization in the deposit. With the exception of one Pb-poor sample showing an appreciable positive shift in 208Pb/204Pb value (~39.2), the Bear Lodge carbonatites are remarkably uniform in their Nd, Sr and Pb isotopic composition: 143Nd/144Ndt=0.512591–0.512608; εNdt=0.2–0.6; 87Sr/86Srt=0.704555–0.704639; εSrt=−1.5–2.7; 206Pb/204Pbt=18.071–18.320; 207Pb/204Pbt=15.543–15.593; and 208Pb/204Pbt=38.045–39.165. These isotopic characteristics indicate that the source of the carbonatitic magma was in the subcontinental lithospheric mantle, and modified by subduction-related metasomatism. Carbonatites are interpreted to be generated from small degrees of partial melt that may have been produced via interaction of upwelling asthenosphere giving a small depleted MORB component, with an EM1 component likely derived from subducted Farallon crust.

Macrofungi Collected from the Black Hills of South Dakota and Bear Lodge Mountains of Wyoming

The objective of the study was to collect, identify and document the presence of macrofungi occurring in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Bear Lodge Mountains of Wyoming. Two-hundred sixty species of macrofungi were collected from 95 sites in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Bear Lodge Mountains of Wyoming during 1998–2002. Two-hundred thirty-nine are submitted as new records for the area. Thirty percent of all species were collected only once during the study and 35% were collected from only one site. A total of 173 species were collected from five established permanent sites. All permanent sites were visited four times each summer during the study. Of species collected at permanent sites, 19% were collected only once at a site and 57% occurred at only one of the five sites. Twenty-five species (10%) were collected every year from one or more of all 95 sites and 10 species (6%) were collected every year from one or more of the five permanent sites.

Additional information on lowest Ordovician trilobites from the uppermost Deadwood Formation, Black Hills and Bear Lodge Mountains, South Dakota and Wyoming

Trilobites from the Missisquoia Zone and the Symphysurina brevispicata Subzone of the Symphysurina Zone (Ibexian Series, lowest Ordovician) were collected from measured sections in the uppermost Deadwood Formation in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Bear Lodge Mountains in northeasternmost Wyoming. These collections were made by Christina Lochman-Balk and her students, and turned over to the author to complete the project. They are compared with previous reported occurrences of this fauna from this area. No trilobites from the underlying Sunwaptan Stage (Upper Cambrian) occur with the lowest Ordovician trilobites, suggesting that the sharp faunal extinction at the base of the Ordovician (North American sense = Eurekia apopsis Zone, Ibexian Series) occurred in the Deadwood Formation as it did over all of the North American continent.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON LOWEST ORDOVICIAN TRILOBITES FROM THE UPPERMOST DEADWOOD FORMATION, BLACK HILLS AND BEAR LODGE MOUNTAINS, SOUTH DAKOTA AND WYOMING

Trilobites from the Missisquoia Zone and the Symphysurina brevispicata Subzone of the Symphysurina Zone (Ibexian Series, lowest Ordovician) were collected from measured sections in the uppermost Deadwood Formation in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Bear Lodge Mountains in northeasternmost Wyoming. These collections were made by Christina Lochman-Balk and her students, and turned over to the author to complete the project. They are compared with previous reported occurrences of this fauna from this area. No trilobites from the underlying Sunwaptan Stage (Upper Cambrian) occur with the lowest Ordovician trilobites, suggesting that the sharp faunal extinction at the base of the Ordovician (North American sense = Eurekia apopsis Zone, Ibexian Series) occurred in the Deadwood Formation as it did over all of the North American continent. The Black Hills is a domal uplift cored by Precambrian granites and quartzitic and schistose metamorphic rocks that was formed during the Laramide orogeny (Stitt, 1998). The Deadwood crops out as an oval belt of siltstones, sandstones, shales, and limestones unconformably overlying the Precambrian rocks. Specimens used in this study were collected from a series of measured sections located in the northernmost outcrop belt of the Deadwood. Hu (1973) identified lowest Ordovician trilobites from one section (Bridal Veil Falls) in the northern Black Hills and from three sections (Reuter Canyon, Bearlodge Ranch, and Sheep Mountain) in the nearby Bear Lodge Mountains. He also described one new genus and four new species. His composite faunal list, and subsequent taxonomic reassignments in brackets, include the following trilobites: Euloma cordilleri [= Highgatella cordilleri Winston and Nicholls, 1967], Euptychaspis trematocus, Highgatella facila [= Apoplanias rejectus Ludvigsen, 1982], Hystricurus sp., Missisquoia graphica [= Missisquoia typicalis Westrop, 1986], Missisquoia cyclochila [= Missisquoia typicalis Ludvigsen, 1982], cf. Missisquoia typicalis, Olenaspella elongata, Symphysurina brevispicata, and the brachiopod …

Lithic Resources of the Bearlodge Mountains, Wyoming: Description, Distribution, and Implications

Les Bearlodge Mountains, dans le nord-est du Wyoming, revelent de considerables affleurements lithiques exploites par l'homme prehistorique. Parmi ceux-ci, on trouve les orthoquartzites des formations de Lakota et Fall River, ainsi que les calcedoines et orthoquartzites de la formation de Morisson. Les donnees presentees resultent d'une etude centree sur les materiaux lithiques de Black Hill National Forest. Un modele predictif d'approvisionnement lithique est suggere a partir d'une evaluation des ressources. Les descriptions geolologiques, les caracteristiques spatiales des ressources lithiques, le type et l'etendue de l'exploitation sont commentes, de meme que les implications archeologiques de ces facteurs

Mountains and plains: the ecology of Wyoming landscapes

Part 1 Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West: Landscape History Modern Environments. Part 2 Along Creeks and Rivers: Riparian Landscapes. Part 3 Plains and Intermountain Basins: Grasslands Sagebrush Steppe Desert Shrublands and Playas Sand Dunes, Badlands, Mud Volcanoes, and Mima Mounds. Part 4 Foothills and Mountains: Escarpments and the Foothill Transition Mountain Forests The Forest Ecosystem Mountain Meadows and Snowglades Upper Treeline and Alpine Tundra. Part 5 Landscapes of Special Interest: The Yellowstone Plateau Jackson Hole and the Tetons The Black Hills, Bear Lodge Mountains, and Devil's Tower. Part 6 Sustainable Land Management: Using Wyoming Landscapes. Appendices: Latin Names for Plants Referred to in the Text by Common Name Latin Names for Birds, Mammals, Reptiles, Amphibian, and Invertebrates Referred to in the text by Common Name.