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: 41756
A gender and social vulnerability assessment approach
The report on an approach for gender and social vulnerability assessment is a supporting tool – or a guiding note – to assist the MRC to conduct the gender and vulnerability assessment in the Lower Mekong Basin. While the approach focuses on floods, droughts, and extreme storm events for the MRC’s future application, the overall gender and vulnerability framework described in this report could be
Authors
Saira Haider, Kathryn Powlen, Nina Burkardt, Matthew E. Andersen
Aligning renewable energy expansion with climate-driven range shifts
Fossil fuel dependence can be reduced, in part, by renewable energy expansion. Increasingly, renewable energy siting seeks to avoid significant impacts on biodiversity but rarely considers how species ranges will shift under climate change. Here we undertake a systematic literature review on the topic and overlay future renewable energy siting maps with the ranges of two threatened species under f
Authors
Uzma Ashraf, Toni Lyn Morelli, Adam B Smith, Rebecca Hernandez
Consumer isoscapes reveal heterogeneous food webs in deep-sea submarine canyons and adjacent slopes
The deep sea is the largest biome on earth, but one of the least studied despite its critical role in global carbon cycling and climate buffering. Deep-sea organisms largely rely on particulate organic matter from the surface ocean for energy – these organisms in turn play critical roles in energy transport, transformation, storage, and sequestration of carbon. Within the deep sea, submarine canyo
Authors
Amanda Demopoulos, Brian J. Smith, Jill Bourque, Jason Chaytor, Jennifer McClain Counts, Nancy G. Prouty, Steve W. Ross, Sandra Brooke, Gerard Duineveld, Furu Mienis
Fine-resolution land cover mapping over large and mountainous areas for Lāna‘i, Hawaii using posterior probabilities, and expert knowledge
The task of accurately mapping species-specific vegetation cover in remote and topographically complex regions like those found in Hawaiʻi presents unique challenges. This study leverages a machine learning approach to accurately classify vegetation into fine species-specific classes across the island of Lāna‘i, Hawaii, offering a novel methodology for tackling such challenges. Utilizing high-reso
Authors
Lucas Fortini, Qiuming Cheng, Yoko Uyehara, Kari Bogner, Jonathan Sprague, Rachel Sprague
Temperature impacts on dengue incidence are nonlinear and mediated by climatic and socioeconomic factors: A meta-analysis
Temperature can influence mosquito-borne diseases like dengue. These effects are expected to vary geographically and over time in both magnitude and direction and may interact with other environmental variables, making it difficult to anticipate changes in response to climate change. Here, we investigate global variation in temperature–dengue relationship by analyzing published correlations betwee
Authors
Devin Kirk, Samantha Straus, Marissa L. Childs, Mallory Harris, Lisa Couper, T. Jonathan Davies, Coreen Forbes, Alyssa-Lois Gehman, Maya L. Groner, Christopher Harley, Kevin D. Lafferty, Van Savage, Eloise Skinner, Mary I. O'Connor, Erin A. Mordecai
When to target control efforts? Using novel GPS telemetry to quantify drivers of invasive Argentine black and white tegu (Salvator merianae) movement
In South Florida, the Argentine black and white tegu (Salvator merianae), a large, omnivorous lizard, has become a recent threat to the Everglades ecosystem. The increase in tegu observations, especially near ecologically sensitive areas such as Everglades National Park, makes informed management critical to contain the tegu population. Using Very High Frequency (VHF) and Global Positioning System
Authors
Brittany M. Mason, Sergio A. Balaguera-Reina, Adam Benjamin, Frank J. Mazzotti, Hartwig H. Hochmair, Hardin Waddle
Integrative phylogenetic, phylogeographic and morphological characterisation of the Unio crassus species complex reveals cryptic diversity with important conservation implications
The global decline of freshwater mussels and their crucial ecological services highlight the need to understand their phylogeny, phylogeography and patterns of genetic diversity to guide conservation efforts. Such knowledge is urgently needed for Unio crassus, a highly imperilled species originally widespread throughout Europe and southwest Asia. Recent studies have resurrected several species fro
Authors
Manuel Lopes-Lima, Juergen Geist, Sarah Egg, Luboš Beran, Ani Bikashvili, Bert Van Bocxlaer, Arthur E. Bogan, Ivan N. Bolotov, O. A. Chelpanovskaya, Karel Douda, Vasco Fernandes, André Gomes-dos-Santos, Duarte V. Gonçalves, Mustafa E. Gürlek, Nathan Johnson, Ioannis Karaouzas, Ümit Kebapçı, Alexander V. Kondakov, Ralph Kuehn, Jasna Lajtner, Levan Mumladze, Karl-Otto Nagel, Eike Neubert, Martin Österling, John M. Pfeiffer, Vincent Prié, Nicoletta Riccardi, Jerzy Sell, Lea D. Schneider, Spase Shumka, Ioan Sirbu, Grita Skujienė, Chase H. Smith, Ronaldo Sousa, Katharina Stöckl, Jouni Taskinen, Amílcar Teixeira, Milcho Todorov, Teodora Trichkova, Maria Urbanska, Santtu Välilä, Simone Varandas, Joana Veríssimo, Ilya V. Vikhrev, G. Woschitz, Katarzyna Zając, Tadeusz Zając, David T. Zanatta, Alexandra Zieritz, Stamatis Zogaris, Elsa Froufe
Rising water temperature in rivers: Ecological impacts and future resilience
Rising water temperatures in rivers due to climate change are already having observable impacts on river ecosystems. Warming water has both direct and indirect impacts on aquatic life, and further aggravates pervasive issues such as eutrophication, pollution, and the spread of disease. Animals can survive higher temperatures through physiological and/or genetic acclimation, behavioral and phenolog
Authors
Matthew F. Johnson, Lindsey K. Albertson, Adam C. Algar, Stephen J. Dugdale, Patrick Edwards, Judy England, Christopher Gibbins, So Kazama, Daisuke Komori, Andrew Maccoll, Eric Arthur Scholl, Robert Wilby, Fabio de Oliveira Roque, Paul F. Wood
Writing SMART objectives for natural resource and environmental management
In natural resource and environmental management, well-written objectives are critical for effective decision-making and the achievement of desired outcomes. This article aims to improve practitioners' ability to identify and write SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) objectives for natural resource and environmental management.We differentiate between research and manage
Authors
Caleb A. Aldridge, Michael E. Colvin
Analysis adapted from text mining quantitively reveals abrupt and gradual plant-community transitions after fire in sagebrush steppe
ContextPlant communities vary both abruptly and gradually over time but differentiating between types of change can be difficult with existing classification and ordination methods. Structural topic modeling (STRUTMO), a text mining analysis, offers a flexible methodology for analyzing both types of temporal trends.ObjectivesOur objectives were to (1) identify post-fire dominant sagebrush steppe p
Authors
Cara Applestein, Christopher R. Anthony, Matthew Germino
Accurately characterizing climate change scenario planning in the U.S. National Park Service: Comment on Murphy et al. 2023
We more accurately locate the boundary between current practice and research priorities regarding climate change scenario planning in U.S. federal land management agencies by supplementing the characterization in a recent article (“Understanding perceptions of climate change scenario planning in United States public land management agencies”) of its use in the U.S. National Park Service. Accuratel
Authors
Joel H. Reynolds, Brian W. Miller, Gregor W. Schuurman, Wylie A. Carr, Amy Symstad, John E. Gross, Amber N. Runyon
Nerodia clarkii (Saltmarsh Watersnake). Predation
Predators of Nerodia clarkii are suspected to include larger species of crabs, fish, wading birds, snakes, alligators, and crocodiles. To our knowledge, there have only been two published observations of predation on N. clarkii, including a predation attempt from a Callinectes sapidus (Blue Crab) in Mississippi, USA and a successful predation by a Grus americana (Whooping Crane) in Texas, USA. Her
Authors
Bryna L. Daykin, Sidney T. Godfrey, Michael Cherkiss, Gareth Blakemore, Frank J. Mazzotti