Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Wetland and Aquatic Research Center

WARC conducts relevant and objective research, develops new approaches and technologies, and disseminates scientific information needed to understand, manage, conserve, and restore wetlands and other aquatic and coastal ecosystems and their associated plant and animal communities throughout the nation and the world. 

News

Celebrating American Wetlands Month with USGS Wetland Science

Celebrating American Wetlands Month with USGS Wetland Science

Inaugural USGS Wildlife Health Awareness Day - April 25, 2025

Inaugural USGS Wildlife Health Awareness Day - April 25, 2025

Invasive Species Science at WARC

Invasive Species Science at WARC

Publications

Causal effects verses causal mechanisms: Two traditions with different requirements and contributions towards causal understanding

The scientific aspiration of building causal knowledge has received little explicit discussion in ecology despite its fundamental importance. When methods are described as ‘causal’, emphasis is increasingly placed on statistical techniques for isolating associations so as to quantify causal effects. In contrast, natural scientists have historically approached the pursuit of causal...
Authors
James Grace, Nick Huntington-Klein, E. William Schweiger, Melinda Martinez, Michael Osland, Laura C. Feher, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Karen M. Thorne

Object detection-assisted workflow facilitates cryptic snake monitoring

Camera traps are an important tool used to study rare and cryptic animals, including snakes. Time-lapse photography can be particularly useful for studying snakes that often fail to trigger a camera's infrared motion sensor due to their ectothermic nature. However, the large datasets produced by time-lapse photography require labor-intensive classification, limiting their use in large...
Authors
Storm Miller, Michael Kirkland, Kristen Hart, Robert A. McCleery

Ecological thresholds and transformations due to climate change: The role of abiotic stress

An ecological threshold is the point at which a comparatively small environmental change triggers an abrupt and disproportionately large ecological response. In the face of accelerating climate change, there is concern that abrupt ecosystem transformations will become more widespread as critical ecological thresholds are crossed. There has been ongoing debate, however, regarding the...
Authors
Michael J. Osland, John Bradford, Lauren Toth, Matthew Germino, James B. Grace, Judith Z. Drexler, Camille L. Stagg, Eric Grossman, Karen M. Thorne, Stephanie S. Romañach, Davina Passeri, Gregory Noe, Jessica R. Lacy, Ken W. Krauss, Kurt P. Kowalski, Glenn Guntenspergen, Neil Kamal Ganju, Nicholas Enwright, Joel Carr, Kristin B. Byrd, Kevin Buffington
Was this page helpful?