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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Ten-year ecological responses to fuel treatments within semiarid Wyoming big sagebrush ecosystems
Sagebrush ecosystems of western North America are threatened by invasive annual grasses and wildfires that can remove fire-intolerant shrubs for decades. Fuel reduction treatments are used ostensibly to aid in fire suppression, conserve wildlife habitat, and restore historical fire regimes, but long-term ecological impacts of these treatments are not clear. In 2006, we initiated fuel reduction tre
Authors
David A. Pyke, Scott Shaff, Jeanne C. Chambers, Eugene W. Schupp, Beth A. Newingham, Margaret L Gray, Lisa M. Ellsworth
Fibropapillomatosis dynamics in green sea turtles Chelonia mydas over 15 years of monitoring in Akumal Bay, Quintana Roo, Mexico
ABSTRACT: Fibropapillomatosis (FP) is a tumor disease that affects all sea turtle species but is mainly seen in green turtles Chelonia mydas. The pathology of FP has been described extensively, but its dynamics in populations over time have been less studied. We analyzed the dynamics of FP in a population of green turtles in Akumal Bay on the central coast of the Mexican Caribbean. A total of 475
Authors
Fernando A. Muñoz Tenería, Vanessa Labrada-Martagón, Roberto Herrera-Pavón, Thierry M. Work, Erik González Ballesteros, Ana Negrete-Philippe, Gisela Maldonado-Saldaña
Prioritizing pharmaceutical contaminants in Great Lakes tributaries using risk-based screening techniques
In a study of 44 diverse sampling sites across 16 Great Lakes tributaries, 110 pharmaceuticals were detected of 257 monitored. The present study evaluated the ecological relevance of detected chemicals and identified heavily impacted areas to help inform resource managers and guide future investigations. Ten pharmaceuticals (caffeine, nicotine, albuterol, sulfamethoxazole, venlafaxine, acetaminoph
Authors
Matthew A. Pronschinske, Steven R. Corsi, Laura A. DeCicco, Edward Furlong, Gerald T. Ankley, Brett R. Blackwell, Daniel L. Villeneuve, Peter L. Lenaker, Michelle A. Nott
Divergent successional trajectories of soil seed bank and post-fire vegetation in a semiarid oak forest: Implications for post-fire ecological restoration
Wildfires are a major disturbance in forest ecosystems around the world and may lead to changes in vegetation succession trajectories. This study examined the impact of time since wildfires on the successional gradients of the degraded Zagros semi-arid oak forest in Iran. Here, we investigated the role of soil seed bank in postfire understory vegetation successional trajectories after wildfires an
Authors
Sina Attar Roshan, Mehdi Heydari, Alexander Wait, S.M. Mijan Uddin, Manuel Esteban Lucas-Borja, Jon Keeley
Root-mean-square error (RMSE) or mean absolute error (MAE): When to use them or not
The root-mean-squared error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) are widely used metrics for evaluating models. Yet, there remains enduring confusion over their use, such that a standard practice is to present both, leaving it to the reader to decide which is more relevant. In a recent reprise to the 200-year debate over their use, Willmott and Matsuura (2005) and Chai and Draxler (2014) give argu
Authors
Timothy O. Hodson
Thermophysical and compositional properties of paleobedforms on Mars
Bedforms on Earth and Mars are often preserved in the rock record in the form of sedimentary rock with distinct cross-bedding. On rare occasions, the full-surface geometry of a bedform can be preserved through burial and lithification. These features, known as paleobedforms, are found in a variety of geographic locations on Mars. Evidence in the morphology of paleobedforms, such as the retention o
Authors
Aaron R. Weintraub, Christopher S. Edwards, Matthew Chojnacki, Lauren A. Edgar, Lori K. Fenton, Sylvain Piqueux, Amber Gullikson
North Dakota and Landsat
The State of North Dakota once did not figure prominently in the Nation’s economy. The sparsely populated State supported food production, and hunters and anglers were drawn to its lakes, rivers, and wide-open spaces, but its economy was overshadowed by that of other States. However, the State and its prairie expanses recently rocketed from an economic afterthought to a national energy leader with
Indiana and Landsat
Natural resources have always been a strength for Indiana. Once largely covered by forest, the State now includes a mix of forest, farmland, wetlands, and small lakes. In fact, farms and forested areas make up more than 80 percent of the land. The Ohio River forms the southern border, and the south shore of Lake Michigan contrasts with urban development in the northwestern corner. Indiana Dunes Na
Estratigrafía preliminar del flanco Este del volcán de Santa Ana
We present the eruption sequence for the east flank of Santa Ana volcano, which we divide into the sections above and below the Tierra Blanca Joven (TBJ) formation. The sequence below the TBJ suggests a series of mafic magmatic eruptions that began before 7,800 cal BP and continued until after 5,800 cal BP. These eruptions emplaced tephra-fall and pyroclastic-density-current deposits. The sequence
Authors
Dennis Lemus, Christopher Harpel, Angela V. Garcia, Demetrio Escobar, Alexander Hernandez, Estefany Alvarenga
Nuevos datos: Avalancha de escombros de Acajutla, volcán Santa Ana
The Acajutla debris-avalanche deposit is dated to about 40,000 cal BP. The dating is based on two 14C dates on pieces of wood from the debris-avalanche deposit recovered from a core at the Santa Águeda School Center. The debris-avalanche deposit overlies a 1.2-m-thick paleosol and four ash layers. One of these ash layers is geochemically correlated to the Los Chocoyos ash from Atitlán Caldera, wh
Authors
Angela V. Garcia, Christopher Harpel, Walter Hernandez, Demetrio Escobar, Luis E. Mixco, Charles Lewis, Linda Scott Cummings
Expert perspectives on global biodiversity loss and its drivers and impacts on people
Despite substantial progress in understanding global biodiversity loss, major taxonomic and geographic knowledge gaps remain. Decision makers often rely on expert judgement to fill knowledge gaps, but are rarely able to engage with sufficiently large and diverse groups of specialists. To improve understanding of the perspectives of thousands of biodiversity experts worldwide, we conducted a survey
Authors
Forest Isbell, Patricia Balvanera, Akira S. Mori, Jin-Sheng He, James M. Bullock, Ganga Ram Regmi, Eric W. Seabloom, Simon Ferrier, Osvaldo E. Sala, Nathaly R. Guerrero-Ramírez, Julia Tavella, Daniel J. Larkin, Bernhard Schmid, Charlotte L. Outhwaite, Pairot Pramua, Elizabeth T. Borer, Michel Loreau, Taiwo Crossby Omotoriogun, David O. Obura, Maggie Anderson, Cristina Portales-Reyes, Kevin Kirkman, Pablo M Vergara, Adam Thomas Clark, Kimberly J Komatsu, Owen L. Petchey, Sarah R. Weiskopf, Laura J. Williams, Scott L. Collins, Nico Eisenhauer, Christopher H Trisos, Delphine Renard, Alexandra J. Wright, Poonam Tripathi, Jane Cowles, Jarrett E. K. Byrnes, Peter B. Reich, Andy Purvis, Zati Sharip, Mary I. O'Connor, Clare E. Kazanski, Nick M. Haddad, Eulogio H. Soto, Laura E. Dee, Sandra Díaz, Chad R. Zirbel, Meghan L. Avolio, Shaopeng Wang, Zhiyuan Ma, Jingjing Liang, Hanan C. Farah, Justin Andrew Johnson, Brian W. Miller, Yann Hautier, Melinda D. Smith, Johannes M. H. Knops, Bonnie Myers, Zuzana Harmáčková, Jorge Cortés, Mike Harfoot, Andrew Gonzalez, Tim Newbold, Jacqueline Oehri, Marina Mazón, Cynnamon Dobbs, Meredith S. Palmer
Testing whether adrenal steroids mediate phenotypic and physiologic effects of elevated salinity on larval tiger salamanders
Salinity (sodium chloride, NaCl) from anthropogenic sources is a persistent contaminant that negatively affects freshwater taxa. Amphibians can be susceptible to salinity, but some species are innately or adaptively tolerant. Physiological mechanisms mediating tolerance to salinity are still unclear, but changes in osmoregulatory hormones such as corticosterone (CORT) and aldosterone (ALDO) are pr
Authors
Brian J. Tornabene, Creagh W Breuner, Erica J Crespi, Blake R. Hossack