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: 42157
Support for management actions to protect night sky quality: Insights from visitors to state and national park units in the U.S.
Light pollution is a global phenomenon where anthropogenic light sources continue to grow unabated, affecting both social and ecological systems. This is leaving parks and protected areas as some of the last vestiges of naturally dark environments for protecting views of the night sky. Yet, even parks and protected areas have outdoor lighting. Alternative lighting practices are needed to...
Authors
J. Adam Beeco, Emily J. Wilkins, Anna B. Miller, Chase C. Lamborn, Sharolyn Anderson, Zachary Miller, Jordan W. Smith
Restoration of Gavia immer (common loon) in Minnesota—2022 annual report
The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon mobile drilling platform on April 20, 2010, caused a massive oil spill and injury to natural resources in the Gulf of Mexico. Gavia immer (common loon) were negatively affected from the spill. The Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group funded the project “Restoration of Common Loons in Minnesota” to restore common loons lost to the spill. Here, we...
Authors
William S. Beatty, Luke Fara, Steven C. Houdek, Robert Rabasco, Spencer Rettler, Elizabeth Rasmussen, Kevin P. Kenow, Brian R. Gray, Steven Yang, Kelly Amoth
Estimating fat content in barred owls (Strix varia) with predictive models developed from direct measures of proximate body composition
Body condition indices and related metrics can help assess habitat quality and other ecological processes, and ideally, these metrics are based on measures of lipids directly extracted from the species of interest. In recent decades, barred owls (Strix varia) have become a species of conservation concern as they invaded older forests of the US Pacific Northwest, and caused population...
Authors
Ryan C. Baumbusch, Katie M. Dugger, David Wiens
Reanalysis ignores pertinent data, includes inappropriate observations, and disregards realities of applied ecology: Response to Huso and Dalthorp (2023)
1) We recently demonstrated efficacy of automated curtailment of wind turbines in reducing fatalities of eagles at a study site in Wyoming, USA. Huso and Dalthorp criticize our work, asserting that there are several ‘major errors’ that render our previous work as providing ‘no meaningful support’ for automated curtailment. As we show here, our data do indeed provide support for the...
Authors
Christopher J.W. McClure, Brian W. Rolek, Leah Dunn, Jennifer D. McCabe, Luke Martinson, Todd Eli Katzner
Reanalysis indicates little evidence of reduction in eagle mortality rate by automated curtailment of wind turbines
Unintended consequences of renewable energy development include collision-caused deaths of birds and bats. Energy companies may risk prosecution if protected species are among the casualties. Shutting down turbines during high collision-risk conditions could reduce mortality rates, and several companies are developing systems to identify such conditions.A recent peer-reviewed article...
Authors
Manuela M. Huso, Daniel Dalthorp
Macroscale analyses suggest invasive plant impacts depend more on the composition of invading plants than on environmental context
AimNative biodiversity is threatened by the spread of non-native invasive species. Many studies demonstrate that invasions reduce local biodiversity but we lack an understanding of how impacts vary across environments at the macroscale. Using ~11,500 vegetation surveys from ecosystems across the United States, we quantified how the relationship between non-native plant cover and native...
Authors
Evelyn M. Beaury, Helen Sofaer, Regan Early, Ian Pearse, Dana M. Blumenthal, Jeffrey Corbin, Jeffrey M. Diez, Jeffrey S. Dukes, David T. Barnett, Ines Ibáñez, Lais Petri, Montserrat Vila, Bethany A. Bradley
Potential economic consequences along migratory flyways from reductions in breeding habitat of migratory waterbirds
The migration of species, often across continents, makes it difficult to quantify the cumulative effects of local- and regional-scale conservation actions. Further, variation in stakeholder interests, differing jurisdictional governance processes, priorities, and monitoring abilities across the migratory range shapes place-specific differences in management actions. These differences may...
Authors
Wayne E. Thogmartin, James H. Devries, Darius J. Semmens, James Diffendorfer, James A. Dubovksy, Jonathan J. Derbridge, Brady J. Mattsson
Assessing contaminants of emerging concern in the Great Lakes Ecosystem: A decade of method development and practical application
Assessing the ecological risk of contaminants in the field typically involves consideration of a complex mixture of compounds which may or may not be detected via instrumental analyses. Further, there are insufficient data to predict the potential biological effects of many detected compounds, leading to their being characterized as contaminants of emerging concern (CECs). Over the past...
Authors
Gerald Ankley, Steven Corsi, Christine M. Custer, Drew R. Ekman, Stephanie L. Hummel, Kimani L. Kimbrough, Heiko L. Schoenfuss, Daniel L. Villeneuve
CGS: Coupled growth and survival model with cohort fairness
Fish modeling in complex environments is critical for understanding drivers of population dynamics in aquatic systems. This paper proposes a Bayesian network method for modeling fish survival and growth over multiple connected rivers. Traditional fish survival models capture the effect of multiple environmental drivers (e.g., stream temperature, stream flow) by adding different variables...
Authors
Erhu He, Yue Wan, Benjamin Letcher, Jennifer Burlingame Hoyle Fair, Yiquin Xie, Xiaowei Jia
The founding charter of the Omic Biodiversity Observation Network (Omic BON)
Omic BON is a thematic Biodiversity Observation Network under the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON), focused on coordinating the observation of biomolecules in organisms and the environment. Our founding partners include representatives from national, regional, and global observing systems; standards organizations; and data and sample management...
Authors
Raissa Meyer, Neil Davies, Kathleen J. Pitz, Christopher Meyer, Robyn Samuel, Jane Anderson, Ward Appeltans, Katharine Barker, Francisco P. Chavez, J. Emmett Duffy, Kelly D. Goodwin, Maui Hudson, Margaret E. Hunter, Johannes Karstensen, Christine M. Laney, Margaret Leinen, Paula Mabee, James A. Macklin, Frank E. Muller-Karger, Nicolas Pade, Jay Pearlman, Lori A. Phillips, Pieter Provoost, Ioulia Santi, Dmitry Schigel, Lynn M. Schriml, Alice Soccodato, Saara Suominen, Katherine M. Thibault, Visotheary Ung, Jodie van de Kamp, Elycia Wallis, Ramona Walls, Pier Luigi Buttigieg
Confirmation of significant sea turtle nesting activity on a remote island chain in the Gulf of Mexico
Globally, six of the seven sea turtle species are threatened or endangered and as such, monitoring reproductive activity for these species is necessary for effective population recovery. Remote beaches provide a challenge to conducting these surveys, which often results in data gaps that can hamper management planning. Throughout the summer of 2022, aerial surveys were conducted over the...
Authors
Margaret M. Lamont, Dianne Ingram, Todd Baker, Matt Weigel, Brian M. Shamblin
Genetic analysis of federally endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrow subpopulations in the Greater Everglades, USA
The federally endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrow (Ammospiza maritima mirabilis) is endemic to the Greater Everglades ecosystem in southern Florida, inhabiting fragmented marl prairies in six individual subpopulations. The subspecies is threatened by loss of breeding habitat from fire and water management. Genetic information is severely limited for the subspecies but could help inform...
Authors
Caitlin Beaver, Thomas Virzi, Margaret E. Hunter