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Publications

This list of publications includes peer-review journal articles, official USGS publications series, reports and more authored by scientists in the Ecosystems Mission Area. A database of all USGS publications, with advanced search features, can be accessed at the USGS Publications Warehouse.  

Filter Total Items: 41763

Gaussian process forecasts Pseudogymnoascus destructans will cover coterminous United States by 2030

White-nose syndrome has been decimating populations of several bat species since its first occurrence in the Northeastern United States in the winter 2006–2007. The spread of the disease has been monitored across the continent through the collaboration of many organizations. Inferring the rate of spread of the disease and predicting its arrival at new locations is critical when assessing the curre
Authors
Ashton M. Wiens, Wayne E. Thogmartin

Towards a unified drag coefficient formula for quantifying wave energy reduction by salt marshes

Coastal regions are susceptible to increasing flood risks amid climate change. Coastal wetlands play an important role in mitigating coastal hazards. Vegetation exerts a drag force to the flow and dampens storm surges and wind waves. The prediction of wave attenuation by vegetation typically relies on a pre-determined drag coefficient CD. Existing CD formulas are subject to vegetation biomechanica
Authors
Ling Zhu, Q. Chen, Yan Ding, Navid H. Jafari, Hongqing Wang, Bradley D. Johnson

Genetic population structure of cisco, Coregonus artedi, in the Laurentian Great Lakes

Management of a widely distributed species can be a challenge when management priorities, resource status, and assessment methods vary across jurisdictions. For example, restoration and preservation of coregonine species diversity is a goal of management agencies across the Laurentian Great Lakes. However, management goals and the amount of information available varies across management units, mak
Authors
Wendylee Stott, Daniel Yule, Chris L. Davis, Kevin Donner, Mark P. Ebener, Stephen Lenart, Christopher Olds

Grazing and ecosystem service delivery in global drylands

Grazing represents the most extensive use of land worldwide. Yet its impacts on ecosystem services remain uncertain because pervasive interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil properties, and biodiversity may occur but have never been addressed simultaneously. Using a standardized survey at 98 sites across six continents, we show that interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil
Authors
Fernando T. Maestre, Yoann Le Bagousse-Pinguet, Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo, David J. Eldridge, Hugo Saiz, Miguel Berdugo, Beatriz Gozalo, Victoria Ochoa, Emilio Guirado, Miguel García-Gómez, Enrique Valencia, Juan J. Gaitán, Sergio Asensio, Betty J. Mendoza, César Plaza, Paloma Díaz-Martínez, Ana Rey, Hang-Wei Hu, Ji-Zheng He, Jun-Tao Wang, Anika Lehmann, Matthias C. Rillig, Simone Cesarz, Nico Eisenhauer, Jaime Martínez-Valderrama, Eduardo Moreno-Jiménez, Osvaldo E. Sala, Mehdi Abedi, Negar Ahmadian, Concepción L. Alados, Valeria Aramayo, Fateh Amghar, Tulio Arredondo, Rodrigo J. Ahumada, Khadijeh Bahalkeh, Farah Ben Salem, Niels Blaum, Bazartseren Boldgiv, Matthew A. Bowker, Donaldo Bran, Chongfeng Bu, Rafaella Canessa, Andrea P. Castillo-Monroy, Helena Castro, Ignacio Castro, Patricio Castro-Quezada, Roukaya Chibani, Abel A. Conceição, Courtney M. Currier, Anthony Darrouzet-Nardi, Balázs Deák, David A. Donoso, Andrew J. Dougill, Jorge Durán, Batdelger Erdenetsetseg, Carlos I. Espinosa, Alex Fajardo, Mohammad Farzam, Daniela Ferrante, Anke S. K. Frank, Lauchlan H. Fraser, Laureano A. Gherardi, Aaron C. Greenville, Carlos A. Guerra, Elizabeth Gusmán-Montalvan, Rosa M. Hernández-Hernández, Norbert Hölzel, Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald, Frederic M. Hughes, Oswaldo Jadán-Maza, Florian Jeltsch, Anke Jentsch, Kudzai F. Kaseke, Melanie Köbel, Jessica E. Koopman, Cintia V. Leder, Anja Linstädter, Peter C. le Roux, Xinkai Li, Pierre Liancourt, Jushan Liu, Michelle A. Louw, Gillian Maggs-Kölling, Thulani P. Makhalanyane, Oumarou Malam Issa, Antonio J. Manzaneda, Eugene Marais, Juan P. Mora, Gerardo Moreno, Seth M. Munson, Alice Nunes, Gabriel Oliva, Gastón R. Oñatibia, Guadalupe Peter, Marco O. D. Pivari, Yolanda Pueyo, R. Emiliano Quiroga, Soroor Rahmanian, Sasha C. Reed, Pedro J. Rey, Benoit Richard, Alexandra Rodríguez, Víctor Rolo, Juan G. Rubalcaba, Jan C. Puppert, Ayman Salah, Max A. Schuchardt, Sedona Spann, Ilan Stavi, Colton R. A. Stephens, Anthony M. Swemmer, Alberto L. Teixido, Andrew D. Thomas, Heather L. Throop, Katja Tielbörger, Samantha K. Travers, James Val, Orsolya Valkó, Liesbeth van den Brink, Sergio Velasco Ayuso, Frederike Velbert, Wanyoike Wamiti, Deli Wang, Lixin Wang, Glenda M. Wardle, Laura Yahdjian, Eli Zaady, Yuanming Zhang, Xiaobing Zhou, Brajesh K. Singh, Nicolas Gross

Editorial: Plant phenology shifts and their ecological and climatic consequences

Climate change is causing plant phenology to shift, with consequences for ecosystems and the Earth’s climate. Over the last decades, the timing of many important phenological events has advanced in spring, such as leaf emergence and flowering, or been delayed in fall, such as leaf coloration and leaf fall. The consequences of such phenological shifts are still largely unknown, but are hypothesized
Authors
Yongshuo H. Fu, Janet S. Prevéy, Yann Vitasse

Evolutionary and ecological connectivity in westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi) and mountain whitefish (Prosopium williamsoni) in relation to the potential influences of Boundary Dam, Washington, Idaho, and parts of British Columbia

In this report, we consider evolutionary and ecological connectivity for westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi) and mountain whitefish (Prosopium williamsoni) within the Pend Oreille River in northeastern Washington State, northern Idaho, and adjacent portions of southeastern British Columbia, Canada. Specifically, we focused on the rationale for active translocation of individual
Authors
Jason B. Dunham, Eric B. Taylor, Ernest R. Keeley

Freshwater mussels show elevated viral richness and intensity during a mortality event

Freshwater mussels (Unionida) are among the world’s most imperiled taxa, but the relationship between freshwater mussel mortality events and infectious disease is largely unstudied. We surveyed viromes of a widespread and abundant species (mucket, Actinonaias ligamentina; syn: Ortmanniana ligamentina) experiencing a mortality event of unknown etiology in the Huron River, Michigan, in 2019–2020 and
Authors
Jordan Richard, Eric Leis, Christopher D. Dunn, Cleyo Harris, Rose Agbalog, Lewis J. Campbell, Susan Knowles, Diane L. Waller, Joel G. Putnam, Tony Goldberg

Size distribution and reproductive phenology of the invasive Burmese python (Python molurus bivittatus) in the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, Florida, USA

The design of successful invasive species control programs is often hindered by the absence of basic demographic data on the targeted population. Establishment of invasive Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) in the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, Florida USA has led to local precipitous declines (> 90%) of mesomammal populations and is also a major threat to native populations of reptiles an
Authors
Andrea Faye Currylow, Bryan Falk, Amy A. Yackel Adams, Christina M. Romagosa, Jillian Josimovich, Michael R. Rochford, Michael Cherkiss, Melia Gail Nafus, Kristen Hart, Frank J. Mazzotti, Ray W. Snow, Robert Reed

Vegetative buffer strips show limited effectiveness for reducing antibiotic transport in surface runoff

Vegetative buffer strips (VBS) have been demonstrated to effectively reduce loads of sediment, nutrients, and herbicides in surface runoff, but their effectiveness for reducing veterinary antibiotic (VA) loads in runoff has not been well documented. The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of VBS vegetation and width on surface runoff loads of the VAs sulfamethazine (SMZ) and
Authors
Adam H. Moody, Robert N. Lerch, Keith W. Goyne, Stephen H. Anderson, David Mendoza-Cózatl, David Alvarez

A review of current capabilities and science gaps in water supply data, modeling, and trends for water availability assessments in the Upper Colorado River Basin

The Colorado River is a critical water resource in the southwestern United States, supplying drinking water for 40 million people in the region and water for irrigation of 2.2 million hectares of land. Extended drought in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCOL) and the prospect of a warmer climate in the future pose water availability challenges for those charged with managing the river. Limited wat
Authors
Fred D. Tillman, Natalie K. Day, Matthew P. Miller, Olivia L. Miller, Christine Rumsey, Daniel Wise, Patrick Cullen Longley, Morgan C. McDonnell

Hawaiian waterbird movement across a developed landscape

A key component for biologists managing mobile species is understanding where and when a species occurs at different locations and scaling management to fit the spatial and temporal patterns of movement. We established an automated radio-telemetry tracking network to document multi-year movement in 2016–2018 of 3 endangered waterbirds among wetlands on Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, USA: ʻalae ʻula or Hawaiian g
Authors
Eben H. Paxton, Kristina L. Paxton, Martha Kawasaki, P. Marcos Gorresen, Charles B. van Rees, Jared G. Underwood

Piñon and juniper tree removal increases available soil water, driving understory response in a sage-steppe ecosystem

Over the past century, piñon and juniper trees have encroached into sagebrush steppe lands of the interior United States, and managers have for many years removed trees to stimulate the favored understory. While consistent understory response to tree removal in these semiarid lands suggests that trees outcompete other plants for water, no studies have linked increased soil water to understory resp
Authors
James D. McIver, James Grace, Bruce A. Roundy