Publications
Browse more than 150,000 publications authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS. Publications available are: USGS-authored journal articles, series reports, book chapters, other government publications, and more.
Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center Publications
Filter Total Items: 3223
Large-scale climate variation modifies the winter grouping behavior of endangered Indiana bats
Power laws describe the functional relationship between 2 quantities, such as the frequency of a group as the multiplicative power of group size. We examined whether the annual size of well-surveyed wintering populations of endangered Indiana bats (Myotis sodalis) followed a power law, and then leveraged this relationship to predict whether the aggregation of Indiana bats in winter was influenced
Authors
Wayne E. Thogmartin, Patrick C. McKann
Prioritizing bird conservation actions in the Prairie Hardwood transition of the Midwestern United States
Large-scale planning for the conservation of species is often hindered by a poor understanding of factors limiting populations. In regions with declining wildlife populations, it is critical that objective metrics of conservation success are developed to ensure that conservation actions achieve desired results. Using spatially explicit estimates of bird abundance, we evaluated several management a
Authors
Wayne E. Thogmartin, Shawn M. Crimmins, Jennie Pearce
Replacement cost valuation of Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) subsistence harvest in Arctic and sub-Arctic North America
Migratory species provide economically beneficial ecosystem services to people throughout their range, yet often, information is lacking about the magnitude and spatial distribution of these benefits at regional scales. We conducted a case study for Northern Pintails (hereafter pintail) in which we quantified regional and sub-regional economic values of subsistence harvest to indigenous communitie
Authors
Joshua H. Goldstein, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Kenneth J. Bagstad, James A. Dubovsky, Brady J. Mattsson, Darius J. Semmens, Laura López-Hoffman, James E. Diffendorfer
Monitoring rationale, strategy, issues, and methods: UMRR-EMP LTRMP fish component
The Long Term Resource Monitoring Program (LTRMP), an element of the multiagency partnership Upper Mississippi River Restoration-Environmental Management Program, has been monitoring fishes in the Upper Mississippi River System (UMRS) for over two decades, using scientific and highly standardized methods. Today, the LTRMP’s data assets represent one of the world’s largest and most extensive datase
Authors
Brian S. Ickes, Jennifer S. Sauer, James T. Rogala
Long Term Resource Monitoring Program procedures: fish monitoring
This manual constitutes the second revision of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Upper Mississippi River Restoration-Environmental Management Program (UMRR-EMP) Long Term Resource Monitoring Program (LTRMP) element Fish Procedures Manual. The original (1988) manual merged and expanded on ideas and recommendations related to Upper Mississippi River fish sampling presented in several early documents
Authors
Eric N. Ratcliff, Eric J. Glittinger, T. Matt O'Hara, Brian S. Ickes
Changes in polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) exposure in tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) nesting along the Sheboygan River, WI, USA
Exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) eggs on the Sheboygan River, Wisconsin in the 1990s was higher at sites downstream (geometric means = 3.33–8.69 μg/g wet wt.) of the putative PCB source in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin than it was above the source (1.24 μg/g) with the exposure declining as the distance downstream of the source increased. A similar pat
Authors
Christine M. Custer, Thomas W. Custer, Sean M. Strom, Kathleen A. Patnode, J. Christian Franson
Contaminants of emerging concern in ambient groundwater in urbanized areas of Minnesota, 2009-12
A study of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in ambient groundwater in urbanized areas of Minnesota was completed by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. For this study, water samples were collected from November 2009 through June 2012 from 118 wells located in different land-use settings. The sampled wells primarily were screened in vulnerab
Authors
Melinda L. Erickson, Susan K. Langer, Jason L. Roth, Sharon E. Kroening
Spatially explicit habitat models for 28 fishes from the Upper Mississippi River System (AHAG 2.0)
Environmental management actions in the Upper Mississippi River System (UMRS) typically require pre-project assessments of predicted benefits under a range of project scenarios. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) now requires certified and peer-reviewed models to conduct these assessments. Previously, habitat benefits were estimated for fish communities in the UMRS using the Aquatic Habitat
Authors
Brian S. Ickes, J.S. Sauer, N. Richards, M. Bowler, B. Schlifer
Water quality and algal community dynamics of three deepwater lakes in Minnesota utilizing CE-QUAL-W2 models
Water quality, habitat, and fish in Minnesota lakes will potentially be facing substantial levels of stress in the coming decades primarily because of two stressors: (1) land-use change (urban and agricultural) and (2) climate change. Several regional and statewide lake modeling studies have identified the potential linkages between land-use and climate change on reductions in the volume of suitab
Authors
Erik A. Smith, Richard L. Kiesling, Joel M. Galloway, Jeffrey R. Ziegeweid
Spatial variability in nutrient transport by HUC8, state, and subbasin based on Mississippi/Atchafalaya River Basin SPARROW models
Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) loading from the Mississippi/Atchafalaya River Basin (MARB) has been linked to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. With geospatial datasets for 2002, including inputs from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), and monitored loads throughout the MARB, SPAtially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes (SPARROW) watershed models were constructed specifically for the MA
Authors
Dale M. Robertson, David A. Saad, Gregory E. Schwarz
Effects of lakes and reservoirs on annual river nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment export in agricultural and forested landscapes
Recently, effects of lakes and reservoirs on river nutrient export have been incorporated into landscape biogeochemical models. Because annual export varies with precipitation, there is a need to examine the biogeochemical role of lakes and reservoirs over time frames that incorporate interannual variability in precipitation. We examined long-term (~20 years) time series of river export (annual ma
Authors
Stephen M. Powers, Dale M. Robertson, Emily H. Stanley
Relationship of weed shiner and young-of-year bluegill and largemouth bass abundance to submersed aquatic vegetation in Navigation Pools 4, 8, and 13 of the Upper Mississippi River, 1998-2012
Aquatic vegetation provides food resources and shelter for many species of fish. This study found a significant relationship between increases in submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV) in four study reaches of the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) and increases in catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) of weed shiners (Notropis texanus) and age-0 bluegills (Lepomis macrochirus) and largemouth bass (Micropterus salm
Authors
Steven A. DeLain, Walter A. Popp