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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: 41772

Height-related changes in forest composition, not tree vulnerability, explain increasing mortality with height during an extreme drought

Recently, Stovall et al.1 (hereafter SSY) showed that during an extreme drought, remotely sensed mortality of tall trees was more than double that of short trees. They interpreted this to be a consequence of inherently greater hydraulic vulnerability of tall trees, and suggested that tall-tree vulnerability should thus generalize more broadly. Here we reassess their conclusions using contemporan
Authors
Nathan L. Stephenson, Adrian Das

Beloniformes: Belonidae (Needlefishes) and Hemiramphidae (Halfbeaks)

The order Beloniformes (or Synentognathi) contains two suborders, six families, 37 genera, and about 235 species of atherinomorph fishes (Rosen & Parenti 1981; Collette et al. 1984; Collette 2004). Features common to these fishes include dorsal and anal fins on the rear half of the body, abdominal pelvic fins with six soft rays, no fin spines, lateral line running along the ventral edge of the bod
Authors
Bruce B. Collette, Stephen Walsh

Do two wrongs make a right? Persistent uncertainties regarding environmental selenium-mercury interactions

Mercury (Hg) is a pervasive environmental pollutant and contaminant of concern for both people and wildlife that has been a focus of environmental remediation efforts for decades. A growing body of literature has motivated calls for revising Hg consumption advisories to co-consider selenium (Se) levels in seafood and implies that remediating aquatic ecosystems with ecosystem-scale Se additions cou
Authors
Jacqueline R. Gerson, David Walters, Collin Eagles-Smith, Emily S. Bernhardt, Jessica E Brandt

Dietary versus nondietary fatty acid profiles of lake trout ecotypes from Lake Superior and Great Bear Lake: Are fish really what they eat?

Fatty acids are well-established biomarkers used to characterize trophic ecology, food-web linkages, and the ecological niche of many different taxa. Most often, fatty acids that are examined include only those previously identified as “dietary” or “extended dietary” biomarkers. Fatty acids considered as nondietary biomarkers, however, represent numerous fatty acids that can be extracted. Some stu
Authors
Louise Chavarie, John P. Hoffmann, A. M. Muir, C. C. Krueger, C.R. Bronte, K.L. Howland, S.P. Gallagher, S. P. Sitar, M.J. Hansen, Mark Vinson, L.F. Baker, L.L. Loseto, William M. Tonn, H. Swanson

Improved fish counting method accurately quantifies high‐density fish movement in dual‐frequency identification sonar data files from a coastal wetland environment

There are many ways to quantify fish movement through shallow‐water habitats, but most noninvasive methods (e.g., visual counts) are not effective in turbid coastal wetland waters of the Great Lakes. Dual‐frequency identification sonar (DIDSON) technology (Sound Metrics) offers a noninvasive, hydroacoustic‐based approach to characterize fish movement in wetlands and other habitats by collecting hi
Authors
Michael R. Eggleston, Scott W. Milne, Maxwell Ramsay, Kurt P. Kowalski

The effects of management practices on grassland birds—Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis)

Keys to Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis) management are providing extensive grasslands of intermediate height and density with a well-developed litter layer, controlling succession, and protecting nesting habitat from disturbance during the breeding season. Savannah Sparrows have been reported to use habitats with 11–190 centimeters (cm) average vegetation height, 4–50 cm visual obstru
Authors
David A. Swanson, Jill A. Shaffer, Lawrence D. Igl

Piscivory in recovering Lake Michigan Cisco (Coregonus artedi): The role of invasive species

Contemporary conditions in Lake Michigan where cisco (Coregonus artedi) populations are expanding are vastly different from those encountered by the historic fish community. Invasive species introductions have substantially altered the Lake Michigan ecosystem in the last half century. Successful management efforts for cisco in Lake Michigan hinge on our ability to understand their contemporary eco
Authors
Ben S Breaker, Kevin L. Pangle, Kevin Donner, Jason Smith, Benjamin A. Turschak, Randall M. Claramunt, David Bunnell, Jory L. Jonas

Accidental chlorophacinone exposure of lactating ewes: Clinical follow-up and human health dietary implications

Anticoagulant rodenticides are widely used for rodent control in agricultural and urban settings. Their intense use can sometimes result in accidental exposure and even poisoning of livestock. Can milk, eggs or meat derived from such accidentally exposed animals be consumed by humans? Data on the pharmacokinetics of chlorophacinone in milk of accidentally exposed ewes were used to estimate the ris
Authors
Meg-Anne Moriceau, Sébastien Lefebvre, Isabelle Fourel, Etienne Benoit, Barnett A. Rattner, Virginie Lattard

The role of warm, dry summers and variation in snowpack on phytoplankton dynamics in high-elevation lakes

Abstract Climate change is altering biogeochemical, metabolic, and ecological functions in lakes across the globe. Historically, mountain lakes in temperate regions have been unproductive due to brief ice-free seasons, a snowmelt-driven hydrograph, cold temperatures, and steep topography with low vegetation and soil cover. We tested the relative importance of winter and summer weather, watershed c
Authors
Isabella A. Oleksy, Whitney Beck, R. Lammers, Cara Steger, Cody Wilson, Kyle Christensen, Kim Vincent, Pieter Johnson, Jill Baron

What could explain δ13C signatures in biocrust cyanobacteria of drylands?

Dryland ecosystems are increasing in geographic extent and contribute greatly to interannual variability in global carbon dynamics. Disentangling interactions among dominant primary producers, including plants and autotrophic microbes, can help partition their contributions to dryland C dynamics. We measured the δ13C signatures of biological soil crust cyanobacteria and dominant plant species (C3 
Authors
Eva Stricker, Grace Cain, Jennifer A. Rudgers, Robert L Sinsabaugh, Vanessa Fernandes, Corey Nelson, Ana Giraldo Silva, Ferran Garcia-Pichel, Jayne Belnap, Anthony Darrouzet-Nardi

Validating deployment of aerially delivered toxic bait cartridges for control of invasive brown treesnakes

Aerial application of management tools can provide a cost‐effective means to conserve or control wildlife populations at the landscape scale. Large spatial scales, however, present difficulties when assessing in situ reliability and integrity of the devices themselves. We demonstrate application of a distance‐sampling density estimation approach to assess the performance of a newly developed toxic
Authors
Scott Michael Goetz, Amy A. Yackel Adams, Shane S Siers

msocc: Fit and analyse computationally efficient multi‐scale occupancy models in R

Environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling is a promising tool for the detection of rare and cryptic taxa, such as aquatic pathogens, parasites and invasive species. Environmental DNA sampling workflows commonly rely on multi‐stage hierarchical sampling designs that induce complicated dependencies within the data. This complex dependence structure can be intuitively modelled with Bayesian multi‐scale occup
Authors
Christian Stratton, Adam J. Sepulveda, Andrew B. Hoegh