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
Three decades of stranding data reveal insights into endangered hawksbill sea turtles in Hawai‘i
Hawksbill sea turtles Eretmochelys imbricata inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands are extremely rare and listed as endangered under the US Endangered Species Act. The paucity of data on basic hawksbill ecology continues to hinder effective management of the species. We analyzed stranding data collected between 1984 and 2018 to gain insights into the distribution, demography, and conservation challenges
Authors
Shandell Brunson, Alexander Gaos, Irene Kelly, Kyle van Houtan, Yonat Swimmer, Stacy Hargrove, George H. Balazs, Thierry M. Work, T. Todd Jones
Behavioural adjustments in the social associations of a precocial shorebird mediate the costs and benefits of grouping decisions
Animals weigh multiple costs and benefits when making grouping decisions. The cost-avoidance grouping framework proposes that group density, information quality and risk affect an individual’s preference for con or heterospecific groups. However, this assumes the cost–benefit balance of a particular grouping is constant spatiotemporally, which may not always be true. Investigating how spatiotempor
Authors
Luke R. Wilde, Rose J. Swift, Nathan R. Senner
Comparative toxicity of aquatic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance exposure in three species of amphibians
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are contaminants of concern due to their widespread occurrence in the environment, persistence, and potential to elicit a range of negative health effects. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are regularly detected in surface waters, but their effects on many aquatic organisms are still poorly understood. Species with thyroid-dependent development, like a
Authors
Robert Wesley Flynn, Gary M. Hoover, Michael G. Iacchetta, Samuel C. Guffey, Youn J. Choi, Chloe De Perre, Belinda Huerta, Weiming Li, Jason T. Hoverman, Linda S. Lee, Maria S. Speulveda
Toward scoping reviews of individual bird species
Scoping reviews, in which the literature on a given topic is systematically collated and summarized, aid literature searches and highlight knowledge gaps on a given topic, thus hastening scientific progress and informing conservation efforts. Because much research and conservation is targeted at the species level, ornithology and bird conservation would benefit from scoping reviews of individual s
Authors
Christopher J W McClure, Zackery Szymczycha, David L Anderson, Francisca Helena Aguiar-Silva, Sarah Schulwitz, Leah Dunn, MIchael T Henderson, Leticia Camacho, José de Jesús Vargas González, Chris N. Parish, Evan R. Buechley, Jesse D'Elia, Sanford Wilbur, Kenneth Johansen, Devin L Johnson, Søren Møller, Ivan Pokrovsky, Todd E. Katzner
Site- and individual-level contaminations affect infection prevalence of an emerging infectious disease of amphibians
Emerging infectious disease outbreaks are one of multiple stressors responsible for amphibian declines globally. In the northeastern United States, ranaviral diseases are prevalent in amphibians and other ectothermic species, but there is still uncertainty as to whether their presence is leading to population level effects. Further, there is also uncertainty surrounding the potential interactions
Authors
Kelly L. Smalling, Brittany A. Mosher, Luke R. Iwanowicz, Keith Loftin, Adam Boehlke, Michelle Hladik, Carly R. Muletz-Wolz, Nandadevi Córtes-Rodríguez, Robin Femmer, Evan H. Campbell Grant
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Contaminant Biology, Environmental Health Program, Toxic Substances Hydrology, Eastern Ecological Science Center, California Water Science Center, Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry Science Center, Kansas Water Science Center, New Jersey Water Science Center
Assessing vegetation recovery from energy development using a dynamic reference approach
Ecologically relevant references are useful for evaluating ecosystem recovery, but references that are temporally static may be less useful when environmental conditions and disturbances are spatially and temporally heterogeneous. This challenge is particularly acute for ecosystems dominated by sagebrush (Artemisia spp.), where communities may require decades to recover from disturbance. We demons
Authors
Adrian P. Monroe, Travis W. Nauman, Cameron L. Aldridge, Michael O'Donnell, Michael C. Duniway, Brian S. Cade, Daniel Manier, Patrick J. Anderson
Face-off: Novel depredation and nest defense behaviors between an invasive and a native predator in the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, Florida, USA
We describe several photo-documented novel interactions between intraguild predators in southern Florida—the native bobcat (Lynx rufus) and the invasive Burmese python (Python bivittatus). Over several days we documented a bobcat's depredation of an unguarded python nest and subsequent python nest defense behavior following the return of both animals to the nest. This is the first documentation of
Authors
Andrea Faye Currylow, Matthew F. McCollister, Gretchen Erika Anderson, Jillian Maureen Josimovich, Austin Lee Fitzgerald, Christina M. Romagosa, Amy A. Yackel Adams
Higher temperature sensitivity of flowering than leaf-out alters the time between phenophases across temperate tree species
AimThe aims of this study were to evaluate the changes in the length of the time period between leaf-out and flowering across temperate tree species, and associate these changes with potential physiological and environmental drivers to enhance mechanistic insight into these phenomena.LocationCentral Europe.Time period1980–2016.Major taxa studiedSix temperate woody species.MethodsStatistical analys
Authors
Xiaojun Geng, Yongshuo F. Fu, Shilong Piao, Fanghua Hao, Hans J. De Boeck, Xuan Zhang, Shouzhi Chen, Yahui Guo, Janet S. Prevéy, Yann Vitasse, Josep Penuelas, Ivan A. Janssens, Nils Christian Stenseth
Coupling process-based and empirical models to assess management options to meet conservation goals
Conservation lands face a mounting threat of ecosystem transformation and the loss of biodiversity from the invasion of fire-prone perennial and annual grasses. Managers must make difficult decisions to find efficient ways to expend limited resources to manage large and complex landscapes amidst substantial uncertainty regarding effective treatment strategies, climates, and invader-induced novel p
Authors
Catherine S. Jarnevich, Catherine Cullinane Thomas, Nicholas E. Young, Perry Grissom, Dana M. Backer, Leonardo Frid
INHABIT: A web-based decision support tool for invasive plant species habitat visualization and assessment across the contiguous United States
Narrowing the communication and knowledge gap between producers and users of scientific data is a longstanding problem in ecological conservation and land management. Decision support tools (DSTs), including websites or interactive web applications, provide platforms that can help bridge this gap. DSTs can most effectively disseminate and translate research results when producers and users collabo
Authors
Peder Engelstad, Catherine S. Jarnevich, Terri Hogan, Helen Sofaer, Ian Pearse, Jennifer Sieracki, Neil Frakes, Julia Sullivan, Nicholas E. Young, Janet S. Prevéy, Pairsa Nicole Belamaric, Jillian Marie Laroe
Elevations of mangrove forests of Pohnpei, Micronesia
Mangrove surface elevation is the crux of mangrove vulnerability to sea level rise. Local topography influences critical periods of tidal inundation that govern distributions of mangrove species and dictates future distributions. This study surveyed ground surface elevations of the extensive mangroves of Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, integrating four survey technologies to solve issues
Authors
Joanna C Ellison, Kevin J. Buffington, Karen M. Thorne, Dean B. Gesch, Jeffrey Irwin, Jeffrey J. Danielson
Exploring genetic variation and population structure in a threatened species, Noturus placidus, with whole-genome sequence data
The Neosho madtom (Noturus placidus) is a small catfish, generally less than 3 inches in length, unique to the Neosho-Spring River system within the Arkansas River Basin. It was federally listed as threatened in 1990, largely due to habitat loss. For conservation efforts, we generated whole-genome sequence data from 10 Neosho madtom individuals originating from 3 geographically separated populatio
Authors
Lynsey K. Whitacre, Mark L. Wildhaber, Gary S. Johnson, Harly J. Durbin, Troy N. Rowan, Robert D. Schnabel, Tendai Mhlanga-Mutangadura, Vernon M. Tabor, Daniel Fenner, Jared E. Decker