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
Dynamic landscapes in northwestern North America structured populations of wolverines (Gulo gulo)
Cyclic climatic and glacial fluctuations of the Late Quaternary produced a dynamic biogeographic history for high latitudes. To refine our understanding of this history in northwestern North America, we explored geographic structure in a wide-ranging carnivore, the wolverine (Gulo gulo). We examined genetic variation in populations across mainland Alaska, coastal Southeast Alaska, and mainland wes
Authors
Dianna M Krejsa, Sandra L. Talbot, George K. Sage, Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Thomas S Jung, Audrey J Magoun, Joseph A. Cook
Intensity of grass invasion negatively correlated with population density and age structure of an endangered dune plant across its range
Invasive species are a global threat to ecosystem biodiversity and function; non-native grass invasion has been particularly problematic in sparsely vegetated ecosystems such as open dunes. Native plant population responses to invasion, however, are infrequently translated to landscape scales, limiting the effectiveness of these data for addressing conservation issues. We quantified population den
Authors
Scott Jones, Anna Kennedy, Chase M. Freeman, Karen M. Thorne
Cross-ecosystem fluxes of pesticides from prairie wetlands mediated by aquatic insect emergence: Implications for terrestrial insectivores
Contaminants alter the quantity and quality of insect prey available to terrestrial insectivores. In agricultural regions, the quantity of aquatic insects emerging from freshwaters can be impacted by insecticides originating from surrounding croplands. We hypothesized that, in such regions, adult aquatic insects could also act as vectors of pesticide transfer to terrestrial food webs. To estimate
Authors
Johanna M. Kraus, Kathryn Kuivila, Michelle Hladik, Neil Shook, David M. Mushet, Kelen Dowdy, Rachel Harrington
Using uncrewed aerial vehicles for identifying the extent of invasive Phragmites australis in treatment areas enrolled in an adaptive management program
Higher spatial and temporal resolutions of remote sensing data are likely to be useful for ecological monitoring efforts. There are many different treatment approaches for the introduced European genotype of Phragmites australis, and adaptive management principles are being integrated in at least some long-term monitoring efforts. In this paper, we investigated how natural color and a smaller set
Authors
Colin N. Brooks, Charlotte B. Weinstein, Andrew F. Poley, Amanda G. Grimm, Nicholas P. Marion, Laura Bourgeau-Chavez, Dana Hansen, Kurt P. Kowalski
A renewed philosophy about supplemental sea lamprey controls
Invasive sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) populations in the Laurentian Great Lakes have been reduced by up to 90% through the use of selective pesticides (lampricides) and physical sea lamprey barriers that block spawning migrations. Nevertheless, other control methods are needed to achieve integrated pest management objectives, delay biological resistance, and address societal pressure to reduce
Authors
Michael J. Siefkes, Nicholas S. Johnson, Andrew M. Muir
The tundra phenology database: More than two decades of tundra phenology responses to climate change
Observations of changes in phenology have provided some of the strongest signals of the effects of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems. The International Tundra Experiment (ITEX), initiated in the early 1990s, established a common protocol to measure plant phenology in tundra study areas across the globe. Today, this valuable collection of phenology measurements depicts the responses of plant
Authors
Janet S. Prevéy, Sarah Claire Elmendorf, Anne Bjorkman, J. M. Alatalo, Isabel Ashton, Jakob J. Assmann, Robert G Björk, Mats P. Björkman, Nicoletta Cannone, Michele Carbognani, Chelsea Chisholm, Karin Clark, Courtney G. Collins, Elisabeth J. Cooper, Bo Elberling, Esther R. Frei, Greg Henry, Robert D. Hollister, Toke Thomas Høye, Ingibjörg Svala Jónsdóttir, Jeffrey T. Kerby, Kari Klanderud, Christopher Kopp, Esther Lévesque, Marguerite Mauritz, Ulf Molau, Isla H. Myers-Smith, Susan M. Natali, Steven F. Oberbauer, Zoe Panchen, Alessandro Petraglia, Eric Post, Christian Rixen, Heidi Rodenhizer, Sabine B. Rumpf, Niels Martin Schmidt, Ted Schuur, Philipp R. Semenchuk, Jane Griffin Smith, Katharine Suding, Ørjan Totland, Tiffany G. Troxler, Henrik Wahren, Jeffrey M. Welker, Sonja Wipf, Yue Yang
Great Lakes harmful algal blooms: Current knowledge gaps
Freshwater Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) pose serious risks throughout the world to drinking water, recreation, and ecosystem health. The Great Lakes, which contain nearly 20% of the world’s available surface freshwater, have been experiencing an increase in HABs since the 1990s. Knowledge gaps relating to HABs remain even after extensive and ongoing research efforts. These knowledge gaps are presen
Authors
Gregory L. Boyer, Mary Anne Evans, Timothy Maguire, Silvia Newell, Heather Raymond, Dale M. Robertson, Katie Stammler, Nicole Zacharda, Kenneth J. Gibbons
Functional connectivity in a continuously distributed, migratory species as revealed by landscape genomics
Maintaining functional connectivity is critical for the long-term conservation of wildlife populations. Landscape genomics provides an opportunity to assess long-term functional connectivity by relating environmental variables to spatial patterns of genomic variation resulting from generations of movement, dispersal and mating behaviors. Identifying landscape features associated with gene flow at
Authors
Melanie E. F. LaCava, Roderick B. Gagne, Kyle D. Gustafson, Sara J. Oyler-McCance, Kevin L. Monteith, Hall Sawyer, Matthew J. Kauffman, Daniel J. Thiele, Holly B. Ernest
Assessing the population impacts and cost‐effectiveness of a conservation translocation
Managers often move, or translocate, organisms into habitats that are assumed to be suitable, however the consequences of these translocations are usually not rigorously assessed. Robust assessment of these management experiments should consider impacts to both donor and recipient populations and compare the cost‐effectiveness of translocations to other actions.Here we evaluate translocations of a
Authors
Charles B. Yackulic, David R. Van Haverbeke, Maria C. Dzul, Lucas S. Bair, Kirk L. Young
Climate drivers of large magnitude snow avalanche years in the U.S. northern Rocky Mountains
Large magnitude snow avalanches pose a hazard to humans and infrastructure worldwide. Analyzing the spatiotemporal behavior of avalanches and the contributory climate factors is important for understanding historical variability in climate-avalanche relationships as well as improving avalanche forecasting. We used established dendrochronological methods to develop a long-term (1867–2019) regional
Authors
Erich Peitzsch, Gregory T. Pederson, Karl W. Birkeland, Jordy Hendrikx, Daniel B. Fagre
Seasonal activity and diets of bats at uranium mines and adjacent areas near the Grand Canyon
Little information exists on the habitat use and feeding ecology of insectivorous bats in arid ecosystems, especially at and near uranium mines in northern Arizona, within the Grand Canyon watershed. In 2015–2016, we conducted mist-netting, nightly acoustic monitoring (>1 year), and diet analyses of bats, as well as insect sampling, at 2 uranium mines (Pinenut and Arizona 1) with water containment
Authors
Ernest W. Valdez, Mollie K Hanttula, Jo Ellen Hinck
Using fecal DNA and closed-capture models to estimate feral horse population size
Accurate population estimates provide the foundation for managing feral horses (Equus caballus ferus) across the western United States. Certain feral horse populations are protected by the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 and managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) or the United States Forest Service on designated herd management areas (HMAs) or wild horse territories, re
Authors
Kathryn A. Schoenecker, Sarah R. B. King, L. Stefan Ekernas, Sara J. Oyler-McCance