Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

All Publications

Access all publications and filter by type, location, and search for keywords to find specific science and data information conducted by our scientists. 

Filter Total Items: 171126

Sharing land via keystone structure: Retaining naturally regenerated trees may efficiently benefit birds in plantations

Meeting food/wood demands with increasing human population and per-capita consumption is a pressing conservation issue, and is often framed as a choice between land sparing and land sharing. Although most empirical studies comparing the efficacy of land sparing and sharing supported land sparing, land sharing may be more efficient if its performance is tested by rigorous experimental design and ha
Authors
Yuichi Yamaura, Akira Unno, Andy Royle

Hydrologic and landscape controls on dissolved organic matter composition across western North American Arctic lakes

Northern high-latitude lakes are hotspots for cycling dissolved organic carbon (DOC) inputs from allochthonous sources to the atmosphere. However, the spatial distribution of lake dissolved organic matter (DOM) is largely unknown across Arctic-boreal regions with respect to the surrounding landscape. We expand on regional studies of northern high-latitude DOM composition by integrating DOC concent
Authors
Martin R. Kurek, Fenix Garcia-Tigreros, Kimberly Wickland, Karen E. Frey, Mark Dornblaser, Robert G. Striegl, Sydney F. Niles, Amy M. McKenna, Pieter J.K Aukes, Ethan D. Kyzivat, Chao Wang, Tamlin M. Pavelsky, Laurence C. Smith, Sherry L. Schiff, David Butman, Robert G.M. Spencer

A genetic warning system for a hierarchically structured wildlife monitoring framework

Genetic variation is a well-known indicator of population fitness yet is not typically included in monitoring programs for sensitive species. Additionally, most programs monitor populations at one scale, which can lead to potential mismatches with ecological processes critical to species' conservation. Recently developed methods generating hierarchically nested population units (i.e., clusters of
Authors
Shawna J Zimmerman, Cameron L. Aldridge, Michael O'Donnell, David R. Edmunds, Peter S. Coates, Brian G. Prochazka, Jennifer A. Fike, Todd B. Cross, Bradley C. Fedy, Sara J. Oyler-McCance

Using seismic noise correlation to determine the shallow velocity structure of the Seattle basin, Washington

Cross-correlation waveforms of seismic noise in the Seattle basin, Washington, were analyzed to determine the group velocities of surface waves and constrain the shear-wave velocity (VS) for depths less than about 2 kilometers (km). Twenty broadband seismometers were deployed for about 3 weeks in three dense arrays separated by about 5 km, with minimum intra-array station spacing of about 0.5 km.
Authors
Arthur Frankel, Paul Bodin

Terrestrial lidar monitoring of the effects of Glen Canyon Dam operations on the geomorphic condition of archaeological sites in Grand Canyon National Park, 2010–2020

The U.S. Geological Survey’s Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center, in coordination with the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program, has monitored the geomorphic condition of select archaeological sites along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon using high-resolution terrestrial light detection and ranging (lidar) topographic surveys. Many of these sites are vulnerable to degradation by n
Authors
Joshua Caster, Joel B. Sankey, Helen Fairley, Alan Kasprak

Comparison of two estrogen chemically activated luciferase expression cell bioassays to liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry for quantifying estrone in water samples

Chemically activated luciferase expression (CALUX) cell bioassays are popular tools for assessing endocrine activity of chemicals such as certain environmental contaminants. Although activity equivalents can be obtained from CALUX analysis, directly comparing these equivalents to those obtained from analytical chemistry methods can be problematic because of the complexity of endocrine active pathw
Authors
Jennifer C. Brennan, Abigail Henke, Robert Gale, Diane K. Nicks, Donald Tillitt

Habitat connectivity and host relatedness influence virus spread across an urbanising landscape in a fragmentation-sensitive carnivore

Spatially heterogeneous landscape factors such as urbanisation can have substantial effects on the severity and spread of wildlife diseases. However, research linking patterns of pathogen transmission to landscape features remains rare. Using a combination of phylogeographic and machine learning approaches, we tested the influence of landscape and host factors on feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV
Authors
Christopher P. Kozakiewicz, Christopher P. Burridge, Justin S. Lee, Simona J Kraberger, Nicholas M Fountain-Jones, Robert N. Fisher, Lisa M. Lyren, Megan K. Jennings, Seth P D Riley, Laurel E K Serieys, Meggan E. Craft, W Chris Funk, Kevin R. Crooks, Sue VandeWoude, Scott Carver

Estimating phosphorus retention capacity of flow-through wetlands

A Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach is introduced to pool data properly from multiple flow-through wetlands to estimate wetland-specific long-term phosphorus retention capacity. By pooling data from multiple wetlands, we overcome the difficulties in estimating the effectiveness of using constructed and natural wetlands for nutrient reduction. The Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach reduc
Authors
Song S. Qian, Kristi K. Arend, Stephen J Jacquemin, S. Mazeika Patricio Sullivan, Kurt P. Kowalski

Global ocean wave fields show consistent regional trends between 1980 and 2014 in a multi-product ensemble

Historical trends in the direction and magnitude of ocean surface wave height, period, or direction are debated due to diverse data, time-periods, or methodologies. Using a consistent community-driven ensemble of global wave products, we quantify and establish regions with robust trends in global multivariate wave fields between 1980 and 2014. We find that about 30–40% of the global ocean experien
Authors
Li H. Erikson, J. Morim, M. Hemer, Ian Young, X. Wang, L. Mentaschi, N. Mori, A. Semedo, Justin Stopa, V Grigorieva, S. Gulev, O. Aarnes, J-R Bidlot, O. Breivik, P. Bricheno, P. Camus, T. Shimura, M. Menendez, M. Markina, V.D. Sharmar, C. Trenham, J.F. Wolf, C. Appendini, S. Caires, N. Groll, A. Webb

Geologic assessment of undiscovered gas resources in Cretaceous–Tertiary coal beds of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico Coastal Plain

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) completed an assessment in 2007 of the undiscovered, technically recoverable, continuous gas potential of Cretaceous–Tertiary coal beds of the onshore areas and State waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico Coastal Plain. The assessment was based on geologic elements including hydrocarbon source rocks, availability of suitable reservoir rocks, and hydrocarbon accumu
Authors
Peter D. Warwick

North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) mobile acoustic transect surveys standard operating procedure 1—Locating and establishing mobile transect routes

This document is the first of three standard operating procedures (SOPs) providing instructions and considerations for conducting mobile acoustic surveys along road transects to collect bat acoustic data following the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) protocol and sample design. This SOP focuses specifically on selecting NABat grid cells and establishing mobile transect survey routes u
Authors
Jaclyn Martin, Dane Smith, Han Li, MacKenzie Hall, Emily Ferrall, Jason Rae, Bethany Straw, Brian Reichert

North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) Mobile Acoustic Transect Surveys Standard Operating Procedure 2—Field Season and Survey Preparation

This document is the second of three standard operating procedures providing instructions and considerations for conducting mobile acoustic surveys along road transects to collect bat acoustic data following the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) protocol and sample design. This standard operating procedure focuses specifically on considerations for establishing the field survey season
Authors
Jaclyn Martin, Jason Rae, MacKenzie Hall, Emily Ferrall, Han Li, Bethany Straw, Brian Reichert