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Publications

Below are publications associated with the Southwest Biological Science Center's research.

If you are unable to access or download a product after you've clicked through the links below, email mhartwell@usgs.gov with your request. Please include the citation in your email and/or a link to the product. Note that each product has several link options once you click on the title.

Filter Total Items: 1332

Soil depth and precipitation moderate soil textural effects on seedling survival of a foundation shrub species

In drylands, there is a need for controlled experiments over multiple planting years to examine how woody seedlings respond to soil texture and the potentially interactive effects of soil depth and precipitation. Understanding how multiple environmental factors interactively influence plant establishment is critical to restoration ecology and in this case to broad-scale restoration efforts in west
Authors
Kari E. Veblen, Kyle C. Nehring, Michael C. Duniway, Anna C Knight, Thomas A. Monaco, Eugene W. Schupp, Janis L Boettinger, Juan J Villalba, Steven Fick, Colby C. Brungard, Eric Thacker

Decline in biological soil crust N-fixing lichens linked to increasing summertime temperatures

Across many global drylands, biocrusts form a protective barrier on the soil surface and fill many critical roles in these harsh yet fragile environments. Previous short-term research suggests that climate change and invasive plant introduction can damage and alter biocrust communities, yet few long-term observations exist. Using a globally unique long-term record of continuous biocrust surveys fr
Authors
Rebecca A Finger-Higgens, Michael C. Duniway, Stephen E. Fick, Erika L. Geiger, David L. Hoover, Alix A. Pfennigwerth, Matthew W. Van Scoyoc, Jayne Belnap

Early career researchers have questions about peer review—we asked the ASLO editors for answers

Peer review is the formal means by which the scientific community assesses the originality, reproducibility, validity, and quality of a research study (Bakker and Traniello 2019). As such, peer review assures nonexperts that they can trust a study's findings (Jamieson et al. 2019). Despite the critical importance of peer review, graduate students, postdocs, and other early career researchers (ECRs
Authors
Mary R. Gradoville, Bridget Deemer

Environmental filtering controls soil biodiversity in wet tropical ecosystems

The environmental factors controlling soil biodiversity along resource gradients remain poorly understood in wet tropical ecosystems. Aboveground biodiversity is expected to be driven by changes in nutrient availability in these ecosystems, however, much less is known about the importance of nutrient availability in driving soil biodiversity. Here, we combined a cross-continental soil survey acros
Authors
Haiying Cui, Peter M. Vitousek, Sasha C. Reed, Wei Sun, Blessing Sokoya, Adebola R. Bamigboye, Jay Prakash Verma, Arpan Mukherjee, Gabriel F. Peñaloza-Bojacá, Alberto L. Teixido, Pankaj Trivedi, Ji-Zheng He, Hang-Wei Hu, Kenny Png, Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo

Population reproductive structure of Rainbow Trout determined by histology and advancing methods to assign sex and assess spawning capability

Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss have been intensively studied and gametogenesis has been described, but the use of reproductive indices in field studies has not been widely applied when assessing variability in growth or recruitment dynamics. We integrated descriptions for gametogenesis within the framework of standardized terminology for reproductive development in teleosts to develop sex-speci
Authors
James A. Crossman, Molly A. H. Webb, Josh Korman, Michael D. Yard

RestoreNet: Collaboration to improve success of seed-based restoration on the Colorado Plateau

Dryland restoration faces challenges from heat, drought, and unpredictable rainfall, that are increasingly common and severe due to climate change. Land managers need information about successful seed-based restoration techniques and seed mixes that are not widely available to increase restoration success. Researchers from the US Geological Survey (USGS) and partner universities are working with l
Authors
Seth M. Munson, Molly L. McCormick, M. Scott, Ariel Leger

Landscape-scale forest restoration decreases vulnerability to drought mortality under climate change in southwest USA ponderosa forest

Drought-induced tree mortality is predicted to increase in dry forests across the western USA as future projections show hotter, drier climates potentially resulting in large-scale tree die-offs, changes in species composition, and loss of forest ecosystem services, including carbon storage. While some studies have found that forest stands with greater basal areas (BA) have higher drought mortalit
Authors
Lisa A McCauley, John B. Bradford, Marcos D. Robles, Robert K Shriver, Travis J. Woolley, Caitlin M. Andrews

Winter 2021 edition

No abstract available.
Authors
Molly L. McCormick, Seth M. Munson

The use of continuous sediment-transport measurements to improve sand-load estimates in a large sand-bedded river: The Lower Chippewa River, WI

Accurately determining sediment loads is necessary for managing river environments but is difficult because multiple processes can lead to large discharge-independent changes in sediment transport. Thus, estimations of sediment load using discharge–sediment rating curves fit to sparse or historical sediment-transport measurements can be inaccurate, necessitating alternative approaches to reduce un
Authors
David Dean, David Topping, D. D. Buscombe, Joel T. Groten, Jeffrey R. Ziegeweid, Faith A. Fitzpatrick, John (William) Lund, Erin Nicole Coenen

Winter 2020-2021 edition

In this edition: 2021 year in review, native seed development process, RestoreNet protocol published and lots of associated research, a handful of climate change science, and more.
Authors
Molly L. McCormick, Seth M. Munson, John B. Bradford

The effects of requested flows for native fish on sediment dynamics, geomorphology, and riparian vegetation for the Green River in Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Releases of water from Flaming Gorge Dam together with climate-related variations in runoff determine the streamflow regime of the Green River, which affects the physical characteristics of the channel and riparian ecosystem of the Green River corridor in Canyonlands National Park. The dam has decreased peak streamflows and raised base streamflows, resulting in vegetation encroachment and channel
Authors
Paul E. Grams, Jonathan M. Friedman, David Dean, David J. Topping

Woody plant encroachment of grassland and the reversibility of shrub dominance: Erosion, fire, and feedback processes

Many grass-dominated ecosystems in dryland regions have experienced increasing woody plant density and abundance during the past century. In many cases, this process has led to land degradation and declines in ecosystem functions. An example is the Chihuahuan Desert in the southwestern United States, which experienced different stages of shrub encroachment in the past 150 years. Among a wide varie
Authors
Junran Li, Sujith Ravi, Guan Wang, R. Scott Van Pelt, Thomas E. Gill, Joel B. Sankey