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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: 41764

Shared functional traits explain synchronous changes in long‐term count trends of migratory raptors

AimAssessing long‐term shifts in faunal assemblages is important to understand the consequences of ongoing global environmental change. One approach to assess drivers of assemblage changes is to identify the traits associated with synchronous shifts in count trends among species. Our research identified traits influencing trends in 73 years of count data on migrating raptors recorded in the north‐
Authors
Patricia Kaye T. Dumandan, Keith L. Bildstein, Laurie J. Goodrich, Andrii Zaiats, Trevor Caughlin, Todd E. Katzner

Fire controls annual bromes in northern great plains grasslands—Up to a point

Concern about the impacts of two invasive annual brome grasses (cheatgrass and Japanese brome, Bromus tectorum L. and B. japonicus Thunb. ex Murray) on the mixed-grass prairie of North America's northern Great Plains (NGP) is growing. Cheatgrass is well known west of the NGP, where replacement of fire-intolerant, native sagebrush steppe by fire-prone, exotic annual grasslands is widespread. Conseq
Authors
Amy Symstad, Deborah A. Buhl, Daniel J Swanson

A watershed moment: Analysis of sub-basins refocuses the geography of turtle conservation across the globe

Conservation planners use a variety of decision-making tools, many of which require identifying and prioritizing spatial units based on their biodiversity and levels of imperilment. Turtles are highly imperiled, but present schemes for determining global priority areas are focused mostly on broad regional scales. We conduct the first global evaluation of turtle biodiversity and imperilment at a su
Authors
Joshua R. Ennen, Mickey Agha, Sarah C. Sweat, Wildredo A. Matamoros, Jeffrey E. Lovich, John B. Iverson, Anders G.J. Rhodin, Robert C. Thomson, H. Bradley Shaffer, Christopher W. Hoagstrom

Using turbulence to identify preferential areas for grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) larvae in streams: A laboratory study

In this experimental series, we studied the swimming capabilities and response of grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) larvae to flow turbulence in a laboratory flume. We compared three different experimental configurations, representing in‐stream obstructions commonly found in natural streams (e.g., a gravel bump, a single vertical cylinder, and patches of submerged rigid vegetation). Grass carp
Authors
Andres F. Prada, Amy E. George, Benjamin H. Stahlschmidt, P. Ryan Jackson, Duane Chapman, Rafael O. Tinoco

Crossroads of highly pathogenic H5N1: overlap between wild and domestic birds in the Black Sea-Mediterranean impacts global transmission

Understanding transmission dynamics that link wild and domestic animals is a key element of predicting the emergence of infectious disease, an event that has highest likelihood of occurring wherever human livelihoods depend on agriculture and animal trade. Contact between poultry and wild birds is a key driver of the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), a process that allows for
Authors
Nichola J. Hill, Lacy M. Smith, Sabir B. Muzaffar, Jessica L. Nagel, Diann Prosser, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Kyle A. Spragens, Carlos A. DeMattos, Cecilia C. Demattos, Lu'ay El Sayed, Kiraz Erciyas-Yavuz, C. Todd Davis, Joyce Jones, Zoltan Kis, Ruben O. Donis, Scott H. Newman, John Y. Takekawa

Lake-wide annual status of Mysis diluviana population in Lake Michigan in 2015

Mysis diluviana is one of the most abundant zooplankton by biomass in the Laurentian Great Lakes of North America, a predator of other zooplankton and an important prey for fishes. Studies of long-term trends in Lake Michigan have shown 2005–2016 densities to be 50–80% lower than 1990s densities, but these observations have been based on annual monitoring that is either spatially or seasonally lim
Authors
Toby J. Holda, Lars G. Rudstam, Steven A. Pothoven, David Warner, Dmytro S. Krystenko, James M. Watkins

Geometry of obstacle marks at instream boulders-Integration of laboratory investigations and field observations

Obstacle marks are instream bedforms, typically composed of an upstream frontal scour hole and a downstream sediment accumulation in the vicinity of an obstacle. Local scouring at infrastructure (e.g. bridge piers) is a well‐studied phenomenon in hydraulic engineering, while less attention is given to the time‐dependent evolution of frontal scour holes at instream boulders and their geometric rela
Authors
Oliver Schlömer, Paul Grams, Daniel Buscombe, Jürgen Herget

Forest management under megadrought: Urgent actions needed at finer-scale and higher intensity

Drought and warming increasingly are causing widespread tree die-offs and extreme wildfires. Forest managers are struggling to improve anticipatory forest management practices given more frequent, extensive, and severe wildfire and tree die-off events triggered by “hotter drought”—drought under warmer than historical conditions. Of even greater concern is the increasing probability of multi-year d
Authors
Jason P. Field, David D. Breshears, John B. Bradford, Darin J. Law, Xiaohui Feng, Craig D. Allen

Intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of life-history variability for a south-western cutthroat trout

The impacts of climate change on cold-water fishes will likely negatively manifest in populations at the trailing edge of their distributions. Rio Grande cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii virginalis, RGCT) occupy arid south-western U.S. streams at the southern-most edge of all cutthroat trout distributions, making RGCT particularly vulnerable to the anticipated warming and drying in this regio
Authors
Brock M. Huntsman, Colleen A. Caldwell, Abigail Lynch, Fitsum Abadi

Breeding birds of the upper Mississippi River floodplain forest: One community in a changing forest, 1994 to 1997

Floodplain forest on the upper Mississippi River (UMR), a unique habitat in the Midwest that is important for many bird species, has been reduced and is undergoing continued reduction and changes in structure and species diversity because of river engineering and invasive species. Hydrological changes are causing tree diversity to decline favoring Acer saccharinum (silver maple) and Fraxinus penns
Authors
Eileen M. Kirsch

Living with wildfire in Ashland, Oregon: 2020 data report

Wildfire affects many types of communities. Improved understandings of urban conflagrations are leading some fire-prone communities, such as Ashland, Oregon, to expand their attention from focusing solely on the intermix fringe to managing wildfire threats across more urbanized wildland urban interface (WUI) communities. The core intent of this project was to build a partnership between the Wildfi
Authors
Hannah Brenkert-Smith, Chris Chambers, Katie Gibble, Christopher M. Barth, Colleen Donovan, Carolyn Wagner, Alison Lerch, James Meldrum, Patricia A. Champ

Marsh equilibrium theory: Implications for responses to rising sea level

No abstract available. 
Authors
James T Morris, Donald Cahoon, John C. Callaway, Christopher Craft, Scott C Neubauer, Nathaniel B Weston