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Species status assessments (SSAs) are required for endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and focus on the resiliency, redundancy, and representation of endangered species. SSAs must include climate information, because climate is a factor that will impact species in the future. To aid in the inclusion of climate information, a decision support system (DSS) entitled Climate Analy

Freshwater biodiversity, from fish to frogs and microbes to macrophytes, provides a vast array of services to people. Mounting concerns focus on the accelerating pace of biodiversity loss and declining ecological function within freshwater ecosystems that continue to threaten these natural benefits. Here, we catalog nine fundamental ecosystem services that the biotic components of indigenous fresh

Permafrost underlies approximately one quarter of Northern Hemisphere terrestrial surfaces and contains 25–50% of the global soil carbon (C) pool. Permafrost soils and the C stocks within are vulnerable to ongoing and future projected climate warming. The biogeography of microbial communities inhabiting permafrost has not been examined beyond a small number of sites focused on local-scale variatio

Translocation, often a management solution reserved for at-risk species, is a highly time-sensitive intervention in the face of a rapidly changing climate. The definition of abiotic and biotic habitat requirements is essential to the selection of appropriate release sites in novel environments. However, field-based approaches to gathering this information are often too time intensive, especially i

The total concentration of dissolved constituents in water is routinely quantified by measurements of salinity or total dissolved solids (TDS). However, salinity and TDS are operationally defined by their analytical methods and are not equivalent for most waters. Furthermore, multiple methods are available to determine salinity and TDS, and these methods have inherent differences. TDS is defined a

Rapid and targeted management actions are a prerequisite to efficiently mitigate disease outbreaks. Targeted actions, however, require accurate spatial information on disease occurrence and spread. Frequently, targeted management actions are guided by non-statistical approaches that define the affected area by a pre-determined distance surrounding a small number of disease detections. As an altern

Emydoidea blandingii (Holbrook, 1838; Blanding’s turtles) are a species of medium-sized, long-lived, semiaquatic, freshwater turtles with a wide distribution across the northern and eastern United States and southern Canada. They have an annual activity cycle consisting of late autumn and winter overwintering and spring emergence, spring movement and foraging, spring and summer nesting, and summer

In birds, parents must provide their eggs with a safe thermal environment suitable for embryonic development. Species with uniparental incubation must balance time spent incubating eggs with time spent away from the nest to satisfy self-maintenance needs. Patterns of nest attendance, therefore, influence embryonic development and the time it takes for eggs to hatch. We studied nest attendance (tim

Objective: The American Eel Anguilla rostrata historically was one of the most common fish species in Atlantic coast watersheds, but extensive dam construction and other factors caused a widespread population decline. One of the watersheds where American Eels have declined considerably is the Mohawk River in eastern and central New York. Recent attempts to characterize the distribution and abundan

River networks play a critical role in the global carbon cycle. Although global/continental scale riverine carbon cycle studies demonstrate the significance of rivers and streams for linking land and coastal regions, the lack of spatially distributed riverine carbon load data represents a gap for quantifying riverine carbon net gain or net loss in different regions, understanding mechanisms and fa

BackgroundLittle is known about the transformer stage of the parasitic lampreys, a brief but critical period that encompasses juvenile out-migration from rivers to lakes or oceans to begin parasitic feeding. Information about this life stage could have significant conservation implications for both imperiled and invasive lampreys. We investigated tag retention, survival, wound healing, and swim pe

The U.S. Geological Survey Precipitation Chemistry Quality Assurance project (PCQA) operated four distinct programs to provide external quality-assurance monitoring for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program’s (NADP) National Trends Network (NTN) and Mercury Deposition Network (MDN) during 2019–20. The NTN programs included (1) a field audit program to evaluate sample contamination and stabil