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
U.S. Geological Survey migratory bird science, 2020–21
Bird conservation as an endeavor engages a broad range of partners and a coordinated effort across State and Federal agencies, nongovernment organizations, universities and, at times, international partnerships. To understand information needs and respond to the many challenges in bird conservation, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists participate in Flyway committees, on Joint Venture board
Authors
Aaron T. Pearse, Mark H. Sherfy, Mark Wimer, Mona Khalil, Mark T. Wiltermuth
Continent-wide tree fecundity driven by indirect climate effects
Indirect climate effects on tree fecundity that come through variation in size and growth (climate-condition interactions) are not currently part of models used to predict future forests. Trends in species abundances predicted from meta-analyses and species distribution models will be misleading if they depend on the conditions of individuals. Here we find from a synthesis of tree species in North
Authors
James S. Clark, Robert A. Andrus, Melaine Aubry-Kientz, Yves Bergeron, Michal Bogdziewicz, Don C. Bragg, Dale G. Brockway, Natalie L. Cleavitt, Susan Cohen, Benoit Courbaud, Robert Daley, Adrian Das, Michael Dietze, Timothy J. Fahey, Istem Fer, Jerry F. Franklin, Catherine A. Gehring, Gregory S. Gilbert, Catheryn H Greenberg, Qinfeng Guo, Janneke Hille Ris Lambers, Ines Ibanez, Jill F. Johnstone, Christopher L. Kilner, Johannes MH Knops, Walter D. Koenig, Georges Kunstler, Jalene M. LaMontagne, Kristin L Legg, Jordan Luongo, James A. Lutz, Diana Macias, Eliot J. B. McIntire, Yassine Messaoud, Christopher M. Moore, Emily V. Moran, Orrin B Myers, Chase Nunez, Robert Parmenter, Scott Pearson, Renata Poulton Kamakura, Ethan Ready, Miranda D. Redmond, Chantal D. Reid, Kyle C. Rodman, C. Lane Scher, Wiliam H Schlesinger, Amanda M Schwantes, Erin Shanahan, Shubhi Sharma, Michael A. Steele, Nathan L. Stephenson, Samantha Sutton, Jennifer J. Swenson, Margaret Swift, Thomas T. Veblen, Amy V. Whipple, Thomas G. Whitham, Andreas P. Wion, Kai Zhu, Roman Zlotin
Locally abundant, endangered Mariana swiftlets impact the abundance, behavior, and body condition of an invasive predator
Invasive predators are known to have negative consumptive and non-consumptive effects on native species, but few examples show how the abundance of native prey may influence an established invasive predator. We compared invasive brown treesnakes (Boiga irregularis; BTS) found in caves occupied by endangered Mariana swiftlets (Aerodramus bartschi) to snakes found in nearby forests and caves without
Authors
Page E. Klug, Amy A. Yackel Adams, Shane R. Siers, Kevin M Brindock, Stephen M. Mosher, MJ Mazurek, William C. Pitt, Robert Reed
Migrating whooping cranes avoid wind-energy infrastructure when selecting stopover habitat
Electricity generation from renewable-energy sources has increased dramatically worldwide in recent decades. Risks associated with wind-energy infrastructure are not well understood for endangered whooping cranes or other vulnerable crane populations. From 2010 to 2016, we monitored 57 whooping cranes with remote-telemetry devices in the United States Great Plains to determine potential changes in
Authors
Aaron T. Pearse, Kristine L. Metzger, David A. Brandt, Jill A. Shaffer, Mark T. Bidwell, Wade C. Harrell
Prioritizing landscapes for grassland bird conservation with hierarchical community models
ContextGiven widespread population declines of birds breeding in North American grasslands, management that sustains wildlife while supporting rancher livelihoods is needed. However, management effects vary across landscapes, and identifying areas with the greatest potential bird response to conservation is a pressing research need.ObjectivesWe developed a hierarchical modeling approach to study g
Authors
Adrian Pierre-Frederic Monroe, David R. Edmunds, Cameron L. Aldridge, Matthew J Holloran, Timothy J Assal, Alison G Holloran
Cyanotoxin mixture models: Relating environmental variables and toxin co-occurrence to human exposure risk
Toxic cyanobacterial blooms, often containing multiple toxins, are a serious public health issue. However, there are no known models that predict a cyanotoxin mixture (anatoxin-a, microcystin, saxitoxin). This paper presents two cyanotoxin mixture models (MIX) and compares them to two microcystin (MC) models from data collected in 2016–2017 from three recurring cyanobacterial bloom locations in Ka
Authors
Victoria Christensen, Erin A. Stelzer, Barbara C. Scudder Eikenberry, Hayley T. Olds, Jaime F. LeDuc, Ryan P. Maki, Jack E. Norland, Eakalak Khan
Population density, distribution, and trends of landbirds in the National Park of American Samoa, Ta‘ū and Tutuila Units (2011–2018)
The National Park of American Samoa (NPSA) was surveyed for landbirds from June through July, 2018. Surveys were conducted using point-transect distance sampling methods to estimate bird densities. This information provides the second datum in the time-series of landbird monitoring for long-term trends in landbird distribution, density, and abundance within NPSA. The Ta‘ū Unit and Tutuila Unit, ea
Authors
Seth Judge, Richard J. Camp, Visa Vaivai, Patrick J. Hart
Trophic ecology
The trophic ecology of lake charr Salvelinus namaycush morphotypes from small and large lakes within their native and introduced ranges is reviewed over the past 50 years. The lake charr is an apex predator in most habitats it occupies, where it plays a significant role in defining food webs. While often considered piscivores, lake charr feed on a range of aquatic prey throughout their life histor
Authors
Mark Vinson, Louise Chavarie, Caroline Lynn Rosinski, Heidi K. Swanson
Distribution
The lake charr Salvelinus namaycush is restricted in its native distribution to oligotrophic fresh waters of northern North America largely within the extent of the Pleistocene glaciations. It is the only freshwater species in northwest North America that does not occur in Siberia. A GIS-based native occurrence map linked to the HydroLAKES database does not extend the lake charr range but provides
Authors
Andrew M. Muir, David Bennion, Michael J Hansen, Stephen Riley, John Gunn
Reproduction
Lake charr Salvelinus namaycush are typically fall spawners although one ecotype has populations that spawn during spring and fall (siscowets in Lake Superior). Lake charr are iteroparous (reproduce more than once in a lifetime) with group-synchronous ovarian development and typically spawn once per year. However, lake charr may not reproduce every year, a phenomenon known as skipped spawning. Fre
Authors
Frederick W. Goetz, J. Ellen Marsden, Catherine A. Richter, Donald E. Tillitt, Shawn P. Sitar, Stephen Riley, Charles C. Krueger
Monitoring Tamarix changes using WorldView-2 satellite imagery in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
Remote sensing methods are commonly used to monitor the invasive riparian shrub tamarisk (Tamarix spp.) and its response to the northern tamarisk beetle (D. carinulata), a specialized herbivore introduced as a biocontrol agent to control tamarisk in the Southwest USA in 2001. We use a Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) supervised classification method with WorldView-2 (2 m spatial resolution) multispectr
Authors
Nathaniel D. Bransky, Temuulen T. Sankey, Joel B. Sankey, Matthew D. Johnson, Levi R. Jamison
Response to ‘Stochastic and deterministic interpretation of pool models’
We concur with Azizi‐Rad et al. (2021) that it is vital to critically evaluate and compare different soil carbon models, and we welcome the opportunity to further describe the unique contribution of the PROMISE model (Waring et al. 2020) to this literature. The PROMISE framework does share many features with established biogeochemical models, as our original manuscript highlighted in Table 1, and
Authors
Bonnie G. Waring, Benjamin N. Sulman, Sasha C. Reed, A. Peyton Smith, Colin Averill, Courtney Creamer, Daniela F. Cusack, Steven J. Hall, Julie D. Jastrow, Andrea Jilling, Kenneth M. Kemner, Markus Kleber, Xiao-Jun Allen Liu, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Marjorie S. Schulz