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
Evolutionary ecology of fire
Fire has been an ecosystem process since plants colonized land over 400 million years ago. Many diverse traits provide a fitness benefit following fires, and these adaptive traits vary with the fire regime. Some of these traits enhance fire survival, while others promote recruitment in the postfire environment. Demonstrating that these traits are fire adaptations is challenging, since many arose e
Authors
Jon Keeley, Juli G. Pausas
The development of genetic sex identification markers and evidence of a male heterogametic sex determination system in Red Shiner
The Red Shiner Cyprinella lutrensis is of increasing management interest as an invasive species that negatively impacts many native fishes throughout North America. Trojan sex chromosome (TSC)-carrying individuals could theoretically control invasive fish populations by skewing the sex ratio to 100% male. The efficacy of TSC-based control programs requires an understanding of a population's sex de
Authors
Chad N. Teal, D. Katharine Coykendall, Matthew R. Campbell, Thomas A. Delomas, Daniel L. Eardley, John A. Erwin, Daniel J. Schill, Javan Mathias Bauder, Scott A. Bonar, Melanie Culver
Modeled distribution shifts of North American birds over four decades based on suitable climate alone do not predict observed shifts
As climate change alters the global environment, it is critical to understand the relationship between shifting climate suitability and species distributions. Key questions include whether observed changes in population abundance are aligned with the velocity and direction of shifts predicted by climate suitability models and if the responses are consistent among species with similar ecological tr
Authors
Qiongyu Huang, Brooke L. Bateman, Nicole Michel, Anna M. Pidgeon, Voelker C. Radeloff, Patrician Heglund, Andrew J. Allstadt, Jesse Wong, John R. Sauer
Multi-hazard risk analysis for the U.S. Department of the Interior: An integration of expert elicitation, planning priorities, and geospatial analysis
An integral part of disaster risk management is identifying and prioritizing hazards and their potential impacts in a meaningful way to support risk-reduction planning. There has been considerable use and subsequent criticism of threat prioritization efforts that simply compare likelihoods and consequences of plausible threats. This article summarizes a new mixed-methods and scalable approach for
Authors
Nathan J. Wood, Alice Pennaz, Jason Marineau, Jeanne M. Jones, Jamie Jones, Peter Ng, Kevin Henry
Characterization of the Sevier/Toroweap Fault Zone in Kane County, Utah, using controlled-source audio-frequency magnetotelluric (CSAMT) surveys
The Sevier/Toroweap Fault Zone is a major north-south-striking fault located in northern Arizona and southwestern Utah. In partnership with the National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted two geophysical controlled-source audio-frequency magnetotelluric (CSAMT) surveys that transected the Sevier/Toroweap Fault Zone at Clay Flat, Utah, a potential pull-apart basin, west of a site of
Authors
Casey J.R. Jones, Michael J. Robinson, Jamie P. Macy
Mangroves provide blue carbon ecological value at a low freshwater cost
“Blue carbon” wetland vegetation has a limited freshwater requirement. One type, mangroves, utilizes less freshwater during transpiration than adjacent terrestrial ecoregions, equating to only 43% (average) to 57% (potential) of evapotranspiration (ET). Here, we demonstrate that comparative consumptive water use by mangrove vegetation is as much as 2905 kL H2O ha−1 year−1 less than adjacent ecoreg
Authors
Ken Krauss, Catherine E. Lovelock, Luzhen Chen, Uta Berger, Marilyn C. Ball, Ruth Reef, Ronny Peters, Hannah Bowen, Alejandra G. Vovides, Eric Ward, Marie-Christin Wimmler, Joel A. Carr, Pete Bunting, Jamie A. Duberstein
When do climate services achieve societal impact? Evaluations of actionable climate adaptation science
To cope with complex environmental impacts in a changing climate, researchers are increasingly being asked to produce science that can directly support policy and decision making. To achieve such societal impact, scientists are using climate services to engage directly with stakeholders to better understand their needs and inform knowledge production. However, the wide variety of climate-services
Authors
Aparna Bamzai, Renee A. McPherson
Limited rigor in studies of raptor mortality and mitigation at wind power facilities
Wind power is an expanding source of renewable energy. However, there are ecological challenges related to wind energy generation, including collisions of wildlife with turbines. Lack of rigor, and variation in study design, together limit efforts to understand the broad-scale effects of wind power infrastructure on wildlife populations. It is not clear, however, whether these types of limitations
Authors
Tara Conkling, Christopher J. W. McClure, Sandra Cuadros, S. R. Loss, Todd E. Katzner
A global catalog of calibrated earthquake locations
We produced a globally distributed catalog of earthquakes and nuclear explosions with calibrated hypocenters, referred to as the Global Catalog of Calibrated Earthquake Locations (GCCEL). This dataset currently contains 18,782 events in 289 clusters with >3.2 million arrival times observed at 19,258 stations. The term “calibrated” refers to the property that the hypocenters are minimally biased by
Authors
Eric A. Bergman, Harley M. Benz, William L. Yeck, Ezgi Karasözen, E. Robert Engdahl, Abdolreza Ghods, Gavin P. Hayes, Paul S. Earle
Nutrient limitation of phytoplankton in three tributaries of Chesapeake Bay: Detecting responses following nutrient reductions
Many coastal ecosystems suffer from eutrophication, algal blooms, and dead zones due to excessive anthropogenic inputs of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). This has led to regional restoration efforts that focus on managing watershed loads of N and P. In Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States, dual nutrient reductions of N and P have been pursued since the 1980s. However, it remai
Authors
Qian Zhang, Thomas R. Fisher, Claire Buchanan, Anne B. Gustafson, Renee Karrh, Rebecca R. Murphy, Jeremy M. Testa, Richard Tian, Peter J. Tango
Planetary caves: A Solar System view of processes and products
We provide the first solar system wide compendium of speleogenic processes and products. An examination of 15 solar system bodies revealed that six cave-forming processes occur beyond Earth including volcanic (cryo and magmatic), fracturing (tectonic and impact melt), dissolution, sublimation, suffusion, and landslides. Although no caves (i.e., confirmed entrances with associated linear passages)
Authors
J. Judson Wynne, John E. Mylroie, Timothy N. Titus, Michael J. Malaska, Debra L. Buczkowski, Peter B. Buhler, Paul K. Byrne, Glen E. Cushing, Ashley Gerard Davies, Amos Frumkin, Candice Hansen-Koharcheck, Victoria Hiatt, Jason D. Hofgartner, Trudi Hoogenboom, Ulyana Horodyskyj, Kynan H. G. Hughson, Laura A. Kerber, Margaret E. Landis, Erin J. Leonard, Elodie Lesage, Alice Lucchetti, Matteo Massironi, Karl L. Mitchell, Luca Penasa, Cynthia B. Phillips, Riccardo Pozzobon, Jani Radebaugh, Francesco Sauro, Robert V. Wagner, Thomas R. Watters
Landsat 9 cross calibration under-fly of Landsat 8: Planning, and execution
During the early post-launch phase of the Landsat 9 mission, the Landsat 8 and 9 mission teams conducted a successful under-fly of Landsat 8 by Landsat 9, allowing for the near-simultaneous data collection of common Earth targets by the on-board sensors for cross-calibration. This effort, coordinated by the Landsat Calibration and Validation team, required contributions from various entities acros
Authors
Edward Kaita, Brian Markham, Md Obaidul Haque, Donald Dichmann, Aaron Gerace, Lawrence Leigh, Susan Good, Michael Schmidt, Christopher J. Crawford