Publications

Warming winters due to climate change can facilitate the range expansion of invasive non-native species. In the southeastern United States, the frequency and intensity of extreme winter temperatures determines the northern range limits of many tropical organisms including many species of invasive non-native plants. However, the effects of winter climate change on invasive species’ range limits hav

Convergent adaptation to the same environment by multiple lineages frequently involves rapid evolutionary change at the same genes, implicating these genes as important for environmental adaptation. Such adaptive molecular changes may yield either change or loss of protein function; loss of function can eliminate newly deleterious proteins or reduce energy necessary for protein production. We prev

Diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin) are sexually dimorphic generalist turtles that inhabit salt marshes and estuaries along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. On October 29th, 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey, USA, directly impacting terrapin populations inhabiting central and southern Barnegat Bay. To examine potential food web mediated impacts to the terr

Louisiana has high coastal wetland loss rates due to natural processes such as subsidence and anthropogenic activities such as construction of river levees and dams, pervasive alteration of surface hydrology by local industries such as oil and gas, and navigation. With the exception of the Atchafalaya River discharge area, most of Louisiana's marsh coastline is retreating and coastal marshes are d

The proliferation of genomic sequencing approaches has significantly impacted the field of phylogenetics. Target capture approaches provide a cost-effective, fast and easily applied strategy for phylogenetic inference of non-model organisms. However, several existing target capture processing pipelines are incapable of incorporating whole genome sequencing (WGS). Here, we develop a new pipeline fo

Salinity regimes in coastal ecosystems are highly dynamic and driven by complex geomorphic and hydrological processes. Estuarine biota are generally adapted to salinity fluctuation, but are vulnerable to salinity extremes. Characterizing coastal salinity regime for ecological studies therefore requires representing extremes of salinity ranges at time scales relevant to ecology (e.g., daily, monthl

Emissions of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) from soils to the atmosphere can offset the benefits of carbon sequestration for climate change mitigation. While past study has suggested that both CH4 and N2O emissions from tidal freshwater forested wetlands (TFFW) are generally low, the impacts of coastal droughts and drought-induced saltwater intrusion on CH4 and N2O emissions remain unclear.

The U.S. Geological Survey Community for Data Integration annually supports small projects focusing on data integration for interdisciplinary research, innovative data management, and demonstration of new technologies. This report provides a summary of the 14 projects supported in fiscal year 2019 and outlines their goals, activities, and accomplishments. Proposals in 2019 were encouraged to addre

Nature-based features, also called living shorelines, are increasingly applied in coastal protection and restoration. However, the processes and mechanisms (feedbacks and interactions) of wave attenuation, current velocity change, and sediment deposition and erosion along the living shoreline remain unclear, thus limiting the adaptive management of living shoreline restoration projects for coastal

Loss of habitat and human disturbance are major factors in the worldwide decline of shorebird populations, including that of the threatened migratory piping plover (Charadrius melodus). From 2013 to 2018, we conducted land-based surveys of the shorebird community every other week during the peak piping plover season (September to March). We assessed the ability of a thin plate spline occupancy mod

Kings Bay in northwest Florida, USA, is an important winter home of the largest aggregation of Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris), and the only location in the United States where visitors legally swim and interact with manatees. In addition to ambient conditions, visitors to the area and management actions have the potential to influence manatee behaviors. We tracked 32 manatees wit

Inaccurate taxonomy can lead to species in need of conservation being overlooked, which makes revisionary systematics crucially important for imperilled groups. The freshwater mussel genus Alasmidonta is one such group in need of study. Here, we take a multilocus phylogenetic approach to assess species-level taxonomy of Alasmidonta and test monophyly of this genus. Phylogenetic inference resulted