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: 41894
Dam removal and river restoration
The removal of dams from rivers has become a common and widespread practice in the United States and Europe. Although often initiated by factors like economics and safety, ecosystem restoration is often a desired benefit and outcome of dam removal. We describe the physical and ecological effects that the placement and removal of dams have on rivers. We then focus on the drivers of dam removal, pre
Authors
Jeffrey J. Duda, J. Ryan Bellmore
Evaluating establishment success of non-native fishes introduced to inland aquatic habitats of tropical Pacific islands
An information-theoretic approach was used to evaluate non-native freshwater fish species introduced to insular habitats of Hawaii and Guam comparing successful establishments vs. failures. Since the late 1800s, as many as 81 non-native freshwater fish species have been recorded as introduced to Hawaii and Guam (combined) and 50 (62%) of these are documented as having one or more established popul
Authors
Stephen Walsh, Leo Nico, Mark W. Miller
Variable effects of wind-energy development on seasonal habitat selection of pronghorn
In the face of climate change, wind energy represents an important alternative to oil and gas extraction to meet increasing energy demands, but it has the potential to disrupt wildlife populations. Because behavioral adjustments, such as altered habitat selection, are a primary way that long-lived species respond to novel disturbances, we evaluated effects of wind energy development on pronghorn (
Authors
Megan C. Milligan, Aaron N. Johnston, Jeff L Beck, Kurt T. Smith, Kaitlyn L. Taylor, Embere Hall, Lee Knox, Teal Cufaude, Cody F. Wallace, Geneva W. Chong, Matthew Kauffman
Spatial network clustering reveals elk population structure and local variation in prevalence of chronic wasting disease
Spatial organization plays prominent roles in disease transmission, genetics, and demography of wildlife populations and is therefore an important consideration not only for wildlife management, but also for inference about populations and processes. We used hierarchical agglomerative clustering of a spatial graph network to partition Wind Cave National Park (WICA) into five regions used by 163 fe
Authors
Glen A. Sargeant, Margaret A. Wild, Gregory M. Schroeder, Jenny G. Powers, Nathan L. Galloway
Subsurface swimming and stationary diving are metabolically cheap in adult Pacific walruses (Odobenus rosmarus divergens)
Walruses rely on sea-ice to efficiently forage and rest between diving bouts while maintaining proximity to prime foraging habitat. Recent declines in summer sea ice have resulted in walruses hauling out on land where they have to travel farther to access productive benthic habitat while potentially increasing energetic costs. Despite the need to better understand the impact of sea ice loss on ene
Authors
Alicia Borque-Espinosa, Karyn D. Rode, Diana Ferrero-Fernandex, Anabel Forte, Romana Capaccioni-Azzati, Andreas Fahlman
What determines the effectiveness of Pinyon-Juniper clearing treatments? Evidence from the remote sensing archive and counter-factual scenarios
In the intermountain western US, expansion of Pinyon (Pinus edulis) and Juniper (Juniperus spp.) woodlands (PJ) into grasslands and shrublands is a pervasive phenomenon, and an example of the global trend towards enhanced woody growth in drylands. Due to the perceived impacts of these expansions on ecosystem services related to biodiversity, hydrology, soil stability, fire prevention, and livestoc
Authors
Stephen E. Fick, Travis W. Nauman, Colby C. Brungard, Michael C. Duniway
Historical and paleoflood analyses for probabilistic flood-hazard assessments—Approaches and review guidelines
Paleoflood studies are an effective means of providing specific information on the recurrence and magnitude of rare and large floods. Such information can be combined with systematic flood measurements to better assess the frequency of large floods. Paleoflood data also provide valuable information about the linkages among climate, land use, flood-hazard assessments, and channel morphology. This d
Authors
Tessa M. Harden, Karen R. Ryberg, Jim E. O'Connor, Jonathan M. Friedman, Julie E. Kiang
Quantifying the influence of different biocrust community states and their responses to warming temperatures on soil biogeochemistry in field and mesocosm studies
Biocrusts influence soil biogeochemistry by fixing carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) and through leachate inputs to soils. Functional rates can vary among biocrust community states and in response to edaphic properties, heterotrophic microbial activity, and global change. Using soils and biocrusts from the Colorado Plateau, Utah, USA, we aimed to quantify the influence of early-successional (ES) and lat
Authors
Scott Ferrrenberg, Colin L Tucker, Robin H. Reibold, Armin J. Howell, Sasha C. Reed
Current distribution and abundance of Kohala forest birds in Hawai‘i
The Kohala volcano is home to the most spatially isolated population of Hawaiian forest birds on Hawai‘i Island and contains one of the few native bird populations in the state that has not been monitored since the original Hawai‘i Forest Bird Survey (HFBS) in 1979. We surveyed 143 stations across 13 transects in Pu‘u ‘O ‘Umi Natural Area Reserve on Kohala from February through April 2017 and comp
Authors
Keith Burnett, Richard J. Camp, Patrick J. Hart
Empirically validated drought vulnerability mapping in the mixed conifer forests of the Sierra Nevada
Severe droughts are predicted to become more frequent in the future, and the consequences of such droughts on forests can be dramatic, resulting in massive tree mortality, rapid change in forest structure and composition, and substantially increased risk of catastrophic fire. Forest managers have tools at their disposal to try to mitigate these effects but are often faced with limited resources, f
Authors
Adrian Das, Michèle R Slaton, Jeffrey Mallory, Gregory P. Asner, Roberta E. Martin, Paul Hardwick
Complex demographic responses to contrasting climate drivers lead to divergent population trends across the range of a threatened alpine plant
Alpine plants are likely to be particularly vulnerable to climate change because of their restricted distributions and sensitivity to rapid environmental shifts occurring in high-elevation ecosystems. The well-studied Haleakalā silversword (‘āhinahina, Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum) already exhibits substantial climate-associated population decline, and offers the opportunity to u
Authors
Lucas Fortini, Paul Krushelnycky, Donald Drake, Forest Starr, Kim Starr, Charles G. Chimera
Convergence of undulatory swimming kinematics across a diversity of fishes
Fishes exhibit an astounding diversity of locomotor behaviors from classic swimming with their body and fins to jumping, flying, walking, and burrowing. Fishes that use their body and caudal fin (BCF) during undulatory swimming have been traditionally divided into modes based on the length of the propulsive body wave and the ratio of head:tail oscillation amplitude: anguilliform, subcarangiform, c
Authors
V. di Santo, E. Goerig, D Wainwright, O. Akanyeti, J.C. Liao, Theodore R. Castro-Santos, G.V. Lauder