Publications
This list of publications includes peer-review journal articles, official USGS publications series, reports and more authored by scientists in the Ecosystems Mission Area. A database of all USGS publications, with advanced search features, can be accessed at the USGS Publications Warehouse.
Filter Total Items: 41763
Changes in aquatic vegetation cover following lock closure on the Illinois Waterway from 2019 – 2021
Over the summer of 2020, the Illinois Waterway was closed to complete maintenance on lock chambers along the Illinois River. This closure restricted inter-pool vessel traffic along the river and potentially changed habitat characteristics for aquatic vegetation establishment and growth. To assess if patterns of vegetation establishment and growth changed during the closure, peak biomass imagery fr
Authors
Andrew C. Strassman
Potential cheatgrass abundance within lightly invaded areas of the Great Basin
ContextAnticipating where an invasive species could become abundant can help guide prevention and control efforts aimed at reducing invasion impacts. Information on potential abundance can be combined with information on the current status of an invasion to guide management towards currently uninvaded locations where the threat of invasion is high.ObjectivesWe aimed to support management by develo
Authors
Helen Sofaer, Catherine S. Jarnevich, Erin K. Buchholtz, Brian S. Cade, John T. Abatzoglou, Cameron L. Aldridge, Patrick Comer, Daniel Manier, Lauren E. Parker, Julie A. Heinrichs
Explainable machine learning improves interpretability in the predictive modeling of biological stream conditions in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, USA
Anthropogenic alterations have resulted in widespread degradation of stream conditions. To aid in stream restoration and management, baseline estimates of conditions and improved explanation of factors driving their degradation are needed. We used random forests to model biological conditions using a benthic macroinvertebrate index of biotic integrity for small, non-tidal streams (upstream area ≤2
Authors
Kelly O. Maloney, Claire Buchanan, Rikke Jepsen, Kevin P. Krause, Matthew Joseph Cashman, Benjamin Paul Gressler, John A. Young, Matthias Schmid
Evaluating the effect of nuclear inclusion X (NIX) infections on Pacific razor clam populations
ABSTRACT: Nuclear inclusion X (NIX), the etiological agent of bacterial gill disease in Pacific razor clams Siliqua patula, was associated with host mortality events in coastal Washington State, USA, during the mid-1980s. Ongoing observations of truncated razor clam size distributions in Kalaloch Beach, Washington, raised concerns that NIX continues to impact populations. We conducted a series of
Authors
Maya Groner, Paul Hershberger, Steven C. Fradkin, Carla M. Conway, Aine C. Hawthorn, Maureen K. Purcell
Exploring metapopulation-scale suppression alternatives for a global invader in a river network experiencing climate change
Invasive species can dramatically alter ecosystems, but eradication is difficult, and suppression is expensive once they are established. Uncertainties in the potential for expansion and impacts by an invader can lead to delayed and inadequate suppression, allowing for establishment. Metapopulation viability models can aid in planning strategies to improve responses to invaders and lessen invasive
Authors
Brian D. Healy, Phaedra E. Budy, Charles Yackulic, Brendan P. Murphy, Robert C. Schelly, Mark C. McKinstry
Causality guided machine learning model on wetland CH4 emissions across global wetlands
Wetland CH4 emissions are among the most uncertain components of the global CH4 budget. The complex nature of wetland CH4 processes makes it challenging to identify causal relationships for improving our understanding and predictability of CH4 emissions. In this study, we used the flux measurements of CH4 from eddy covariance towers (30 sites from 4 wetlands types: bog, fen, marsh, and wet tundra)
Authors
Kunxiaojia Yuan, Qing Zhu, Fa Li, William J. Riley, Margaret Torn, Housen Chu, Gavin McNicol, Mingshu Chen, Sara Knox, Kyle B. Delwiche, Huayi Wu, Dennis Baldocchi, Hongxu Ma, Ankur R. Desai, Jiquan Chen, Torsten Sachs, Masahito Ueyama, Oliver Sonnentag, Manuel Helbig, Eeva-Stiina Tuittila, Gerald Jurasinski, Franziska Koebsch, David I. Campbell, Hans Peter Schmid, Annalea Lohila, Mathias Goeckede, Mats B. Nilsson, Thomas Friborg, Joachim Jansen, Donatella Zona, Eugenie S. Euskirchen, Eric Ward, Gil Bohrer, Zhenong Jin, Licheng Liu, Hiroki Iwata, Jordan P. Goodrich, Robert B. Jackson
A synthesis of coral reef research at Buck Island Reef National Monument and Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands: 1961 to 2022
This synthesis focuses on the history of research on coral reefs within two U.S. National Park Service units in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands: Buck Island Reef National Monument (from 1961 to 2022) and Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve (from 1980 to 2022). Buck Island Reef National Monument (BUIS) is off the north shore of the island of St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin
Authors
Caroline Rogers
What makes wildfires destructive in California?
As human impacts from wildfires mount, there is a pressing need to understand why structures are lost in destructive fires. Despite growing research on factors contributing to structure loss, fewer studies have focused on why some fires are destructive and others are not. We characterized overall differences between fires that resulted in structure loss (“destructive fires”) and those that did not
Authors
Alexandra D. Syphard, Jon Keeley, Mike Gough, Mitchell Lazarz, John Rogan
Restoration of Gavia immer (common loon) in Minnesota—2021 annual report
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused extensive injury to natural resources in the Gulf of Mexico, and Gavia immer (common loon) were negatively affected from the spill. The Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group funded the project Restoration of Common Loons in Minnesota to restore common loons lost to the spill. In 2020–21, priority lakes in an eight-county region in north-central Minnesota we
Authors
William S. Beatty, Luke J. Fara, Steven C. Houdek, Kevin P. Kenow, Brian R. Gray
Environmental DNA metabarcoding read numbers and their variability predict species abundance, but weakly in non-dominant species
Metabarcoding of environmental DNA (eDNA) provides more comprehensive, efficient, and non-invasive sampling of biological communities than conventional methods. However, limitations of metabarcoding include taxon-specific biases in amplification and sequencing that distort assessments of community composition. Further, hyper-abundant species may disproportionately affect community composition asse
Authors
James Skelton, Allison Cauvin, Maggie Hunter
Distribution and demography of Coastal Cactus Wrens in Southern California, 2015–19
Surveys and monitoring for the coastal Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus) were completed in San Diego County between March 2015 and July 2019. A total of 383 plots were surveyed across 3 genetic clusters (Otay, Lake Jennings, and Sweetwater/Encanto). From 2015 to 2019, 317 plots were surveyed 8 times (twice per year in 2015, 2017–19). Additional plots were added in later years as wrens
Authors
Suellen Lynn, Alexandra Houston, Barbara E. Kus
Over the hills and through the farms: Land use and topography influence genetic connectivity of northern leopard frog (Rana pipiens) in the Prairie Pothole Region
ContextAgricultural land-use conversion has fragmented prairie wetland habitats in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), an area with one of the most wetland dense regions in the world. This fragmentation can lead to negative consequences for wetland obligate organisms, heightening risk of local extinction and reducing evolutionary potential for populations to adapt to changing environments.Objectives
Authors
Justin M. Waraniak, David M. Mushet, Craig A. Stockwell