Publications
Below is a list of WERC's peer-reviewed publications. If you are searching for a specific publication and cannot find it in this list, please contact werc_web@usgs.gov
Filter Total Items: 3617
Distribution and abundance of Southwestern Willow Flycatchers (Empidonax traillii extimus) on the Upper San Luis Rey River, San Diego County, California—2023 data summary
Executive SummaryWe surveyed for Southwestern Willow Flycatchers (Empidonax traillii extimus; flycatcher) along the upper San Luis Rey River near Lake Henshaw in Santa Ysabel, California, in 2023. Surveys were completed at four locations: three downstream from Lake Henshaw, where surveys previously occurred from 2015 to 2022 (Rey River Ranch [RRR], Cleveland National Forest [CNF], Vista Irrigation
Authors
Scarlett L. Howell, Barbara E. Kus
Modeling coupled dynamics of an empirical predator-prey system to predict top predator recovery
Limited data, time, and funding lead conservation managers to make difficult choices in managing species recovery. Coupled dynamical models are relied upon for decision support, but their application to empirical predator-prey systems has generally been restricted to small, tractable species. To broaden their use in conservation decision-making, we developed a model suitable for predicting the pop
Authors
Samantha N. M. Hamilton, M. T. Tinker, Joseph Jackson, Joseph A. Tomoleoni, Michael C. Kenner, Julie L. Yee, Tomoko Bell, Max C. N. Castorani, Benjamin H. Becker, Brent B. Hughes
Tool use increases mechanical foraging success and tooth health in southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis)
Although tool use may enhance resource utilization, its fitness benefits are difficult to measure. By examining longitudinal data from 196 radio-tagged southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis), we found that tool-using individuals, particularly females, gained access to larger and/or harder-shelled prey. These mechanical advantages translated to reduced tooth damage during food processing. We a
Authors
Chris J. Law, M. Tim Tinker, Jessica A. Fujii, Teri Nicholson, Michelle M. Staedler, Joseph A. Tomoleoni, Colleen Young, Rita S. Mehta
Homogenization of soil seed bank communities by fire and invasive species in the Mojave Desert
Soil seed banks help maintain species diversity through temporal storage effects and function as germination pools that can optimize fitness across varying environmental conditions. These characteristics promote the persistence of native plant communities, yet disturbances such as fire and associated invasions by non-native species can disrupt these reserves, fundamentally altering successional tr
Authors
Steven R. Lee, Robert C. Klinger, Matthew L. Brooks, Scott Ferrenberg
Landscape fragmentation overturns classical metapopulation thinking
Habitat loss and isolation caused by landscape fragmentation represent a growing threat to global biodiversity. Existing theory suggests that the process will lead to a decline in metapopulation viability. However, since most metapopulation models are restricted to simple networks of discrete habitat patches, the effects of real landscape fragmentation, particularly in stochastic environments, are
Authors
Yun Tao, Alan Hastings, Kevin D. Lafferty, Ilkka Hanski, Otso Ovaskainen
Stony coral tissue loss disease indirectly alters reef communities
Many Caribbean coral reefs are near collapse due to various threats. An emerging threat, stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), is spreading across the Western Atlantic and Caribbean. Data from the U.S. Virgin Islands reveal how SCTLD spread has reduced the abundance of susceptible coral and crustose coralline algae and increased cyanobacteria, fire coral, and macroalgae. A Caribbean-wide struct
Authors
Sara D. Swaminathan, Kevin D. Lafferty, Nicole S. Knight, Andrew H. Altieri
Season of grazing interacts with soil texture, selecting for associations of biocrust morphogroups
Livestock grazing, a widespread land use in semi-arid systems, is often placed in opposition to the perpetuation of biological soil crusts (“biocrusts”: lichens, mosses, and algal crusts including cyanobacteria) that live on the soil surface and provide ecosystem functions. The composition of biocrusts and vascular plants varies with climate, soils, and disturbance. In general, ruderal mosses and
Authors
Lea A. Condon, Roger Rosentreter, Kari E. Veblen, Peter S. Coates
Global mercury concentrations in biota: Their use as a basis for a global biomonitoring framework
An important provision of the Minamata Convention on Mercury is to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the adopted measures and its implementation. Here, we describe for the first time currently available biotic mercury (Hg) data on a global scale to improve the understanding of global efforts to reduce the impact of Hg pollution on people and the environment. Data from the peer-reviewed lit
Authors
David C. Evers, Josh T. Ackerman, Staffan Åkerblom, Dominique Bally, Niladri Basu, Kevin Bishop, Nathalie Bodin, Hans Fredrik Veitberg Braaten, Mark Burton, Paco Bustamante, Celia Y. Chen, John Chételat, Linroy Christian, Rune Dietz, Paul Drevnick, Collin Eagles-Smith, Luis Fernandez, Neil Hammerschlag, Mireille Harmelin-Vivien, Agustin Harte, Eva Kruemmel, Jose Lailson-Brito, Gabriella Medina, Cesar Rodriguez, Iain Stenhouse, Elsie M. Sunderland, Akinori Takeuchi, Timothy Tear, Claudia Vega, Simon Wilson, Pianpian Wu
Methylmercury effects on birds: A review, meta-analysis, and development of toxicity reference values for injury assessment based on tissue residues and diet
Birds are used as bioindicators of environmental mercury (Hg) contamination, and toxicity reference values are needed for injury assessments. We conducted a comprehensive review, summarized data from 168 studies, performed a series of Bayesian hierarchical meta-analyses, and developed new toxicity reference values for the effects of methylmercury (MeHg) on birds using a benchmark dose analysis fra
Authors
Josh T. Ackerman, Sarah H. Peterson, Mark P. Herzog, Julie L. Yee
Post-fire reference densities for giant sequoia seedlings in a new era of high-severity wildfires
Many forests globally are experiencing increases in large, high-severity wildfires, often with increasingly inadequate post-fire tree regeneration. To identify areas that might need post-fire planting, forest managers have a growing need for seedling reference densities – the natural seedling densities expected to be adequate to regenerate a forest – to compare with observed post-fire seedling den
Authors
Nathan L. Stephenson, Anthony C. Caprio, David Nicolas Bertil Soderberg, Adrian Das, Eva Louisa Lopez, A. Park Williams
Carotenoid skin ornaments as flexible indicators of male foraging behavior in a marine predator: Variation among Mexican colonies of brown booby (Sula leucogaster)
Carotenoid-dependent ornaments can reflect animals’ diet and foraging behaviors. However, this association should be spatially flexible and variable among populations to account for geographic variation in optimal foraging behaviors. We tested this hypothesis using populations of a marine predator (the brown booby, Sula leucogaster) that forage across a gradient in ocean depth in and near the Gulf
Authors
Nathan P. Michael, Roxana Torres, Andreanna J. Welch, Jonathan J. Felis, Mario Erandi Bonillas-Monge, Josh Adams, Samantha Hodgson, Laura Lopez-Marques, Alejadro Martínez-Flores, Gala Enidh Castro-Mejias, Anne E. Wiley
Eggshell membrane thickness and its contribution to total eggshell thickness for 13 waterbird species
Eggshell thickness can be an indicator of environmental pollution in wild birds and shell quality in wild and domestic birds, but it is difficult to measure calcite eggshell thickness due to the presence of the adherent outer eggshell membrane. Eggshells of 13 waterbird species were divided in half longitudinally and the outer membrane was removed from one of the halves. Subsequently, we measured
Authors
Gary M. Santolo, Sarah H. Peterson, Breanne Cooney, C. Alex Hartman, Mark P. Herzog, Josh T. Ackerman