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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.

Filter Total Items: 171237

Divergent climate impacts on C3 versus C4 grasses imply widespread 21st century shifts in grassland functional composition

AimGrasslands cover a third of Earth's landmass and provide critical ecosystem services. Anticipating how perennial C3 (cool-season) and C4 (warm-season) grasses respond to climate change will be key to predicting future composition and functioning of grasslands. Here, we evaluate environmental drivers of C3 and C4 perennial distributions and assess how C3 and C4 grass distributions shift in respo
Authors
Caroline A. Havrilla, John B. Bradford, Charles Yackulic, Seth M. Munson

New larger benthic foraminifera from the subsurface Lower to Middle Eocene Oldsmar Formation of southeastern Florida (USA)

We describe two larger benthic foraminiferal taxa collected from wells drilled in the subsurface Eocene rocks of southeastern Florida that are new to peninsular Florida and the Caribbean region. Saudia floridana n.sp. is characteristic of a foraminiferal assemblage, along with Helicostegina gyralis, wide forms of the Cushmania americana group, and Gunteria floridana, in an upper part of the Oldsma
Authors
Edward Robinson, Kevin J. Cunningham

Determining seasonal recharge, storage changes, and specific yield using repeat microgravity and water-level measurements in the Mesilla Basin alluvial aquifer, New Mexico, 2016–2018

Increasing water demand and multi-year drought conditions within the Mesilla/Conejos-Médanos Basin near the New Mexico-Texas- Chihuahua border have resulted in diminished surface-water supplies and increased groundwater withdrawals. To better understand recharge to the shallow aquifer, the spatial and temporal groundwater storage changes, and the variability of specific yield (Sy) in the aquifer,
Authors
Andrew J. Robertson, Jeffrey Kennedy, Libby M. Kahler, Meghan T. Bell, Erek H. Fuchs, Alex Rinehart, Irene Fernald

Fracture-mesh faulting in the swarm-like 2020 Maacama sequence revealed by high-precision earthquake detection, location, and focal mechanisms

In August of 2020, an earthquake sequence initiated within the Maacama fault zone in northern California, raising questions about its relationship with the larger-scale fault. To investigate the faulting geometry and its implications for physical processes driving seismicity, we applied an integrated, multi-faceted seismic analysis including waveform-correlation-based event detection, relative rel
Authors
David R. Shelly, Robert John Skoumal, Jeanne L. Hardebeck

Borealization of nearshore fishes on an interior Arctic shelf over multiple decades

Borealization is a type of community reorganization where Arctic specialists are replaced by species with more boreal distributions in response to climatic warming. The process of borealization is often exemplified by the northward range expansions and subsequent proliferation of boreal species on the Pacific and Atlantic inflow Arctic shelves (i.e., Bering/Chukchi and Barents seas, respectively).
Authors
Vanessa R. von Biela, Sarah M. Laske, Ashley E. Stanek, Randy J Brown, Kenneth H. Dunton

Comparing translocated beavers used as passive restoration tools to resident beavers in degraded desert rivers

Wildlife translocation facilitates conservation efforts, including recovering imperiled species, reducing human–wildlife conflict, and restoring degraded ecosystems. Beaver (American, Castor canadensis; Eurasian, C. fiber) translocation may mitigate human–wildlife conflict and facilitate ecosystem restoration. However, few projects measure outcomes of translocations by monitoring beaver postreleas
Authors
E. Doden, Phaedra E. Budy, M. Conner, J. K. Young

Priorities for translating goodwill between movement ecologists and conservation practitioners into effective collaboration

Addressing ongoing biodiversity loss requires collaboration between conservation scientists and practitioners. However, such collaboration has proved challenging. Despite the potential importance of tracking animal movements for conservation, reviews of the tracking literature have identified a gap between the academic discipline of movement ecology and its application to biodiversity conservation
Authors
Rascha J. M. Nuijten, Todd E. Katzner, Andrew M. Allen, Allert I. Bijleveld, Tjalle Boorsma, Luca Börger, Francesca Cagnacci, Tom Hart, Michelle Henley, Richard M. Herren, Eva Kok, Bronwyn Maree, Bruno Nebe, David Shohami, Susanne Marieke Vogel, Paul Walker, Ignas M. A. Heitkönig, E. J. Milner-Gulland

Environmental implications of Ptolemaic Period rodents and shrews from the Sacred Falcon Necropolis at Quesna, Egypt (Mammalia: Muridae and Soricidae)

BackgroundAssemblages of mummified and preserved animals in necropoleis of Ptolemaic Period Egypt (ca. 332–30 BC) document some aspects of the ceremonial and religious practices of the ancient Egyptians, but study of these animal remains can also provide insight into the local environments in which the animals and humans lived.ResultsExcavations of the Sacred Falcon Necropolis at Quesna in the Nil
Authors
Neal Woodman, Salima Ikram, Joanne Rowland

Pesticide prioritization by potential biological effects in tributaries of the Laurentian Great Lakes

Watersheds of the Great Lakes Basin (USA/Canada) are highly modified and impacted by human activities including pesticide use. Despite labeling restrictions intended to minimize risks to nontarget organisms, concerns remain that environmental exposures to pesticides may be occurring at levels negatively impacting nontarget organisms. We used a combination of organismal-level toxicity estimates (in
Authors
Samantha K. Oliver, Steven R. Corsi, Austin K. Baldwin, Michelle A. Nott, Gerald T. Ankley, Brett R. Blackwell, Daniel L. Villeneuve, Michelle Hladik, Dana W. Kolpin, Luke C. Loken, Laura A. DeCicco, Michael T. Meyer, Keith Loftin

The Pāhala swarm of earthquakes in Hawai‘i

No abstract available.
Authors
Ashton Flinders

Distributions of Cisco (Coregonus artedi) in the upper Great Lakes in the mid-twentieth century, when populations were in decline

The restoration of the once abundant Cisco (Coregonus artedi) is a management interest across the Laurentian Great Lakes. To inform the restoration, we (1) described historical distributions of Cisco and (2) explored whether non-indigenous Rainbow Smelt (Osmerus mordax) and Alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) played a role in the decline of Cisco populations across the upper Great Lakes (i.e., Lakes Su
Authors
Yu-Chun Kao, Renee Elizabeth Renauer, David Bunnell, Owen Gorman, Randy L. Eshenroder

Near-term forecasts of stream temperature using deep learning and data assimilation in support of management decisions

Deep learning (DL) models are increasingly used to make accurate hindcasts of management-relevant variables, but they are less commonly used in forecasting applications. Data assimilation (DA) can be used for forecasts to leverage real-time observations, where the difference between model predictions and observations today is used to adjust the model to make better predictions tomorrow. In this us
Authors
Jacob Aaron Zwart, Samantha K. Oliver, William Watkins, Jeffrey Michael Sadler, Alison P. Appling, Hayley Corson-Dosch, Xiaowei Jia, Vipin Kumar, Jordan Read