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: 41918
The relative importance of wetland area versus habitat heterogeneity for promoting species richness and abundance of wetland birds in the Prairie Pothole Region, USA
Recent work has suggested that a tradeoff exists between habitat area and habitat heterogeneity, with a moderate amount of heterogeneity supporting greatest species richness. Support for this unimodal relationship has been mixed and has differed among habitats and taxa. We examined the relationship between habitat heterogeneity and species richness after accounting for habitat area in glacially fo
Authors
Lisa H. Elliott, Lawrence Igl, Douglas H. Johnson
The burning of biocrusts facilitates the emergence of a bare soil community of poorly-connected chemoheterotrophic bacteria with depressed ecosystem services
Wildfires destabilize biocrust, requiring decades for most biological constituents to regenerate, but bacteria may recover quickly and mitigate the detrimental consequences of burnt soils. To evaluate the short-term recovery of biocrust bacteria, we tracked shifts in bacterial community form and function in Cyanobacteria/lichen-dominated (shrub interspaces) and Cyanobacteria/moss-dominated (beneat
Authors
Zachary T. Aanderud, Jason Bahr, David M. Robinson, Jayne Belnap, Tayte Campbell, Richard Gill, Brock McMillian, Samuel B St. Clair
A comparison of bacteria cultured from unionid mussel hemolymph between stable populations in the upper Mississippi River and a mortality event in the Clinch River
The diagnosis of bacterial disease in freshwater unionid mussels has been hindered by a lack of baseline information regarding the microbial communities associated with these animals. In this study, we cultured and identified bacteria from the hemolymph of stable mussel populations from the upper Mississippi River basin and compared results to those from mussel populations experiencing a mortality
Authors
Eric Leis, Sarah Erickson, Diane L. Waller, Jordan Richard, Tony Goldberg
Variation of annual apparent survival and detection rates with age, year, and individual identity in male Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) from long-term mark-recapture data
Exploring age- and sex-specific survival rates provides insight regarding population behavior and life-history trait evolution, but many population studies exclude males. Accordingly, our understanding of how age-specific patterns of survival, including actuarial senescence, compare between the sexes remains inadequate. Using 35 years of mark-recapture data for 7,516 male Weddell seals (Lepton
Authors
Jamie L. Brusa, Jay J. Rotella, Robert A. Garrott, J. Terrill Paterson, William Link
Using maintenance records from a long-term sensor monitoring network to evaluate the relationship between maintenance schedule and data quality
Sensor-based environmental monitoring networks are beginning to provide the large-scale, long-term data required to address important fundamental and applied questions in ecology. However, the data quality from deployed sensors can be difficult and costly to ensure. In this study, we use maintenance records from the 12-year history of Louisiana’s Coastwide Reference Monitoring System (CRMS) to ass
Authors
Donald Schoolmaster, Sarai Piazza
Simulation of post-hurricane impact on invasive species with biological control management
Understanding the effects of hurricanes and other large storms on ecological communities and the post-event recovery in these communities can guide management and ecosystem restoration. This is particularly important for communities impacted by invasive species, as the hurricane may affect control efforts. Here we consider the effect of a hurricane on tree communities in southern Florida that has
Authors
Linhao Xu, Marya Claire Zdechlik, Melissa C. Smith, Min B. Rayamajhi, Don DeAngelis, Bo Zhang
Caribou use of habitat near energy development in Arctic Alaska
Increasing demands for energy have generated interest in expanding oil and gas production on the North Slope of Alaska, raising questions about the resilience of barren-ground caribou populations to new development. Although the amount of habitat lost directly to energy development in the Arctic will likely be relatively small, there are significant concerns about habitat that may be indirectly im
Authors
Heather E. Johnson, Trevor Golden, Layne G. Adams, David Gustine, Elizabeth A. Lenart
The seasonal energetic landscape of an apex marine carnivore, the polar bear
Divergent movement strategies have enabled wildlife populations to adapt to environmental change. In recent decades, the Southern Beaufort Sea subpopulation of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) has developed a divergent movement strategy in response to diminishing sea ice where the majority of the subpopulation (73–85%) stays on the sea ice in summer and the remaining bears move to land. Although decl
Authors
Anthony M. Pagano, Todd C. Atwood, George M. Durner, Terrie M. Williams
Use of subsistence-harvested whale carcasses by polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea
The availability of a food subsidy has the potential to influence the condition, behavior, fitness, and population dynamics of a species. Since the early 2000s, monitoring efforts along the coast of northern Alaska indicated a higher proportion of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) of the southern Beaufort Sea (SB) subpopulation come onshore and feed at subsistence-harvested bowhead whale (Balaena myst
Authors
Kate M Lillie, Eric M Gese, Todd C. Atwood, Mary M Conner
Influence of turbulence and in-stream structures on the transport and survival of grass carp eggs and larvae at various developmental stages
Understanding the response of grass carp to flow and turbulence regimes during early life stages is fundamental to monitoring and controlling their spread. A comprehensive set of hydrodynamic experiments was conducted with live grass carp eggs and larvae, to better understand their drifting and swimming patterns with 3 different in-stream obstructions: (1) a gravel bump, (2) a single cylinder, and
Authors
Andres F. Prada, Amy E. George, Benjamin H. Stahlschmidt, P. Ryan Jackson, Duane Chapman, Rafael O. Tinoco
Traversing the wasteland: A framework for assessing ecological threats to drylands
Drylands cover 41% of the Earth's terrestrial surface, play a critical role in global ecosystem function, and are home to over two billion people. Like other biomes, drylands face increasing pressure from global change, but many of these ecosystems are close to tipping points, which, if crossed, can lead to abrupt transitions and persistent degraded states. Their limited but variable precipitation
Authors
David L. Hoover, Brandon T. Bestelmeyer, Nancy B. Grimm, Travis E. Huxman, Sasha C. Reed, Osvaldo E. Sala, Timothy Seastedt, Hailey Wilmer, Scott Ferrenberg
Rapid early development and feeding benefits an invasive population of lake trout
Lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) were discovered in Yellowstone Lake in 1994 and their population expanded dramatically despite intensive suppression. The lake is species-depauperate, with no major lake trout embryo predators. We hypothesized that without this predation threat, lake trout free embryo feeding and growth may be greater than in their native range, leading to increased survival of ag
Authors
Lee G. Simard, J Ellen Marsden, Robert E. Gresswell, Megan Euclide