Publications
Browse more than 160,000 publications authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS. Publications available are: USGS-authored journal articles, series reports, book chapters, other government publications, and more.
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Mission Area Publications
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Wastewater reuse and predicted ecological risk posed by contaminant mixtures in Potomac River watershed streams
A wastewater model was applied to the Potomac River watershed to provide (i) a means to identify streams with a high likelihood of carrying elevated effluent-derived contaminants and (ii) risk assessments to aquatic life and drinking water. The model linked effluent discharges along stream networks, accumulated wastewater, and predicted contaminant loads of municipal wastewater constituents while
Authors
Kaycee E. Faunce, Larry B. Barber, Steffanie H. Keefe, Jeramy Roland Jasmann, Jennifer L. Krstolic
Assessing impaired benthic communities using sediment toxicity and contaminant concentrations from reference sites inside the Niagara River Area of Concern
Anthropogenically degraded benthic-macroinvertebrate communities (benthos) are one of seven beneficial use impairments (BUIs) in the Niagara River Area of Concern (AOC). Over the last 50 years, upgrades to waste-water treatment, industry closures, and sediment remediations reduced contaminant levels throughout the system. Improvements in benthic communities and sediment toxicity, however, were dif
Authors
Barry P. Baldigo, Scott D. George, Andrew Lenox, Mark Filipski, Brian T. Duffy
Evaluating brook trout egg and alevin survival at different temperatures in simulated karst environments with marl sedimentation
Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) have been extirpated from many karst-geology streams in West Virginia; however, the causes are not fully understood. Specifically, the impact of calcareous precipitate (marl), which is common in hard-water environments, has not been evaluated as an im- pediment to juvenile survival. Accordingly, two lab-based studies were conducted to determine if brook trout eg
Authors
John. Davidson, Clayton D Raines, Curtis Crouse, CHristopher Goodchild, Brandon J. Keplinger
Terrestrial invertebrate diversity and occurrence in restored hardwood forest floodplains, Indiana, United States, June–August 2016
This report provides a summary of terrestrial invertebrates collected at old field, mature, and restored hardwood forest floodplain sites in northeast Indiana. Invertebrate populations were sampled at selected sites using walking butterfly transects, pitfall-enhanced Malaise invertebrate traps (PEMITs), and sweep nets. We identified a total of 19 taxonomic groups of butterflies, with 1, 11, and 18
Authors
Janice L. Albers, Mark L. Wildhaber, Matthew A. Struckhoff, Daniel J. Westrich, Nicholas S. Green, Barry C. Poulton, Michael J. Hooper
Food caching by a solitary large carnivore reveals importance of intermediate-sized prey
Pumas (Puma concolor) are solitary large carnivores that exhibit high energetic investments while hunting prey that often take multiple days to consume. Therefore, pumas should behave in a way to maximize their energetic gains, including using caching, which is a behavior used by many mammal species to preserve and store food or to conceal it from conspecifics and scavengers to limit their losses.
Authors
Maximilian L. Allen, L. Mark Elbroch, Javan Mathias Bauder, Heiko U. Wittmer
Wall diffuser velocity effects on American shad (Alosa sapidissima) inside a fishway entrance channel
Attraction water for fishways is typically introduced through a diffuser inside the entrance channel, often through the floor or wall. In the spring of 2019, this laboratory study examined how 151 adult American Shad (Alosa sapidissima) responded to different gross velocities through a wall diffuser inside a full-scale fishway entrance channel. Two velocity conditions were studied, 0.152 m/s and 0
Authors
Kevin Mulligan, Marcia Rojas, Brett Towler, Bjorn Lake, Richard Palmer
Mercury accumulation potential of aquatic plant species in West Dongting Lake, China
West Dongting Lake is a protected wetland with the potential for high levels of mercury release via wastewater and deposition from industry and agriculture during the last decade. To find out the ability of various plant species to accumulate mercury pollutants from soil and water, nine sites were studied in the downstream direction of the flow of the Yuan and Li Rivers, which are tributaries of t
Authors
Dong Peng, Mingzhu Chen, Xinyue Su, Chenchen Liu, Zhehao Zhang, Beth Middleton, Ting Lei
Investigating hydrologic alteration in the Pearl and Pascagoula River basins using rule-based model trees
Anthropogenic hydrologic alteration threatens the health of riverine ecosystems. Machine learning algorithms that employ the use of model trees to predict hydrologic alteration are underrepresented in related literature. This study assesses hydrologic alteration in the Pearl and Pascagoula River basins using modeled daily streamflow. Hydrologic alteration was determined by hypothesis testing and t
Authors
Victor L. Roland, Elena Crowley-Ornelas, Kirk D. Rodgers
DNA virome composition of two sympatric wild felids, bobcat (Lynx rufus) and puma (Puma concolor) in Sonora, Mexico
With viruses often having devastating effects on wildlife population fitness and wild mammals serving as pathogen reservoirs for potentially zoonotic diseases, determining the viral diversity present in wild mammals is both a conservation and One Health priority. Additionally, transmission from more abundant hosts could increase the extinction risk of threatened sympatric species. We leveraged an
Authors
Natalie Payne, Leigh Combrink, Simona Kraberger, Rafaela S. Fontenele, Kara Schmidlin, Ivonne Cassaigne, Megan K. La Peyre, Arvind Varsani, Koenraad Van Doorslaer
Increased salinity decreases annual gross primary productivity at a Northern California brackish tidal marsh
Tidal marshes sequester 11.4–87.0 Tg C yr−1 globally, but climate change impacts can threaten the carbon capture potential of these ecosystems. Tidal marshes occur across a wide range of salinity, with brackish marshes (0.5–18 ppt (parts per thousand)) dominating global tidal marsh extents. A diverse mix of freshwater- and saltwater-tolerant plant and microbial communities has led researchers to p
Authors
Sarah Russell, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Ellen J Goodrich-Stuart, Brian A. Bergamaschi, Frank Anderson, Patty Oikawa, Sara Knox
A meta-analysis of the stony coral tissue loss disease microbiome finds key bacteria in unaffected and lesion tissue in diseased colonies
Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) has been causing significant whole colony mortality on reefs in Florida and the Caribbean. The cause of SCTLD remains unknown, with the limited concurrence of SCTLD-associated bacteria among studies. We conducted a meta-analysis of 16S ribosomal RNA gene datasets generated by 16 field and laboratory SCTLD studies to find consistent bacteria associated with S
Authors
Stephanie M. Rosales, Lindsay K. Huebner, James S. Evans, Amy Apprill, Andew C. Baker, Anthony J. Bellantuono, Marilyn E. Brandt, Abigail S. Clark, Javier del Campo, Caroline E. Dennison, Katherine R. Eaton, Naomi E. Huntley, Christina A. Kellogg, Monica Medina, Julie L. Meyer, Erinn M. Muller, Mauricio Rodriguez-Lanetty, Jennifer L. Salerno, W. Bane Schill, Erin N. Shilling, Julia Marie Stewart, Joshua D. Voss
2022 drought in New England
Introduction During April through September 2022, much of New England experienced a short but extreme hydrologic drought that was similar to the drought of 2020. By August 2022, Providence, Rhode Island, was declared a Federal disaster area, and New London and Windham counties in Connecticut were declared natural disaster areas. Mandatory water use restrictions were put in place in communities in
Authors
Dee-Ann E. McCarthy, James M. LeNoir, Pamela J. Lombard