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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Polar bear energetic and behavioral strategies on land with implications for surviving the ice-free period
Declining Arctic sea ice is increasing polar bear land use. Polar bears on land are thought to minimize activity to conserve energy. Here, we measure the daily energy expenditure (DEE), diet, behavior, movement, and body composition changes of 20 different polar bears on land over 19–23 days from August to September (2019–2022) in Manitoba, Canada. Polar bears on land exhibited a 5.2-fold range in
Authors
Anthony M. Pagano, Karyn D. Rode, Nicholas J. Lunn, David McGeachy, Stephen N. Atkinson, Sean D. Farley, Joy A. Erlenbach, Charles T. Robbins
Travertine records climate-induced transformations of the Yellowstone hydrothermal system from the late Pleistocene to the present
Chemical changes in hot springs, as recorded by thermal waters and their deposits, provide a window into the evolution of the postglacial hydrothermal system of the Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field. Today, most hydrothermal travertine forms to the north and south of the ca. 631 ka Yellowstone caldera where groundwater flow through subsurface sedimentary rocks leads to calcite saturation at hot s
Authors
Lauren N. Harrison, Shaul Hurwitz, James B. Paces, Cathy Whitlock, Sara Peek, Joseph Licciardi
Environmental variation structures reproduction and recruitment in long-lived mega-herbivores: Galapagos giant tortoises
Migratory, long-lived animals are an important focus for life-history theory because they manifest extreme trade-offs in life-history traits: delayed maturity, low fecundity, variable recruitment rates, long generation times, and vital rates that respond to variation across environments. Galapagos tortoises are an iconic example: they are long-lived, migrate seasonally, face multiple anthropogenic
Authors
Stephen Blake, Fredy Cabrera, Sebastian Cruz, Diego Ellis-Soto, Charles Yackulic, Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau, Martin Wikelski, Franz Kuemmeth, James P. Gibbs, Sharon L. Deem
Thermal traits of anurans database for the southeastern United States (TRAD): A database of thermal trait values for 40 anuran species
Thermal traits, or how an animal responds to changing temperatures, impacts species persistence and thus biodiversity. Trait databases, as repositories of consolidated, measured organismal attributes, allow researchers to link study species with specific trait values, enabling comparisons within and among species. Trait databases also help lay the groundwork to build mechanistic linkages between o
Authors
Traci P. DuBose, Victorjose Catalan, Chloe E. Moore, Vincent R. Farallo, Abigail Benson, Jessica Dade, William A. Hopkins, Meryl C. Mims
Water-level and recoverable water in storage changes, High Plains Aquifer, predevelopment to 2019 and 2017 to 2019
The High Plains aquifer underlies 111.8 million acres (about 175,000 square miles) in parts of eight States: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. Water-level declines began in parts of the High Plains aquifer soon after the beginning of substantial groundwater irrigation (about 1950). This report presents water-level changes and change in recoverable
Authors
Virginia L. McGuire, Kellan R. Strauch
Establishing fluvial silicon regimes and their stability across the Northern Hemisphere
Fluvial silicon (Si) plays a critical role in controlling primary production, water quality, and carbon sequestration through supporting freshwater and marine diatom communities. Geological, biogeochemical, and hydrological processes, as well as climate and land use, dictate the amount of Si exported by streams. Understanding Si regimes—the seasonal patterns of Si concentrations—can help identify
Authors
Keira Johnson, Kathi Jo Jankowski, Joanna C. Carey, Nicholas Lyon, William H. McDowell, Arial J. Shogren, Adam S. Wymore, Lienne R. Sethna, Wilfred M. Wollheim, Amanda Poste, Pirkko Kortelainen, Ruth C. Heindel, Hjalmar Laudon, Antti Raike, Jeremy B. Jones, Diane M. McKnight, Paul Julian, Sidney A. Bush, Pamela L. Sullivan
Incorporating intensity distance attenuation into PLUM ground-motion-based earthquake early warning in the United States: The APPLES configuration
We develop Attenuated ProPagation of Local Earthquake Shaking (APPLES), a new configuration for the United States West Coast version of the Propagation of Local Undamped Motion (PLUM) earthquake early warning (EEW) algorithm that incorporates attenuation into its ground-motion prediction procedures. Under APPLES, instead of using a fixed radius to forward-predict observed peak ground shaking to th
Authors
Jessie K. Saunders, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Julian Bunn, Annemarie S. Baltay, Sarah E. Minson, Colin T O'Rourke
Morphotypical and geochemical variations of planktic foraminiferal species in Siberian and Central Arctic Ocean core tops
In this work, we utilize a transect of core top, mid- to late Holocene, sediments from the Eastern Siberian Sea to the central Arctic Ocean, spanning gradients in upper-ocean water column properties, to examine regional planktic foraminiferal species abundances and geochemistry. We present species- and morphotype-specific foraminiferal assemblages at these sites and stable isotope analyses of neog
Authors
Maya Prabhakar, Kaustubh Thirumalai, Thomas M. Cronin, Laura Gemery, Elizabeth Thomas, Patrick Rafter
Vegetation responses to large dam removal on the Elwha River, Washington, USA
Large dam removal can trigger changes to physical and biological processes that influence vegetation dynamics in former reservoirs, along river corridors downstream of former dams, and at a river’s terminus in deltas and estuaries. We present the first comprehensive review of vegetation response to major fluvial disturbance caused by the world’s largest dam removal. After being in place for nearly
Authors
Patrick B. Shafroth, Laura G. Perry, James M. Helfield, Joshua Chenoweth, Rebecca L. Brown
Population genetics of museum specimens indicate decreasing genetic resiliency: The case of two bumble bees of conservation concern
Genetic resiliency is the likelihood that populations retain sufficient genetic diversity to respond to environmental change. It is rarely examined through time in conservation genetic studies due to challenges of acquiring and sequencing historical specimens. Focusing on populations of two sibling bumble bee species of conservation concern with different recent patterns of decline, we used museum
Authors
Ashley Rhode, Michael Branstetter, Karen E. Mock, Joyce Knoblett, David Pilliod, Jeffrey Everett, Paul Galpern, James P. Strange
A brief note on substantial sub-daily arsenic variability in pumping drinking-water wells in New Hampshire
Large variations in redox-related water parameters, like pH and dissolved oxygen (DO), have been documented in New Hampshire (United States) drinking-water wells over the course of a few hours under pumping conditions. These findings suggest that comparable sub-daily variability in dissolved concentrations of redox-reactive and toxic arsenic (As) also may occur, representing a potentially critical
Authors
Paul M. Bradley, Emily C. Hicks, Joseph P. Levitt, David C. Lloyd, Mhairi M. McDonald, Kristin M. Romanok, Kelly Smalling, Joseph D. Ayotte
Ecology of an insular snake assemblage in coastal Maine
Wildlife populations at the peripheries of their distributions or on isolated islands often display divergent and poorly understood morphological or life-history characteristics compared to core populations. We used a capture–mark–recapture dataset collected over a 19-year period to characterize a northern, insular snake assemblage in coastal Maine. We captured 611 individual snakes of 4 species (
Authors
John D. Willson, Ethan J. Royal, Jacquelyn C. Guzy, Meredith C. Swartwout, Chelsea S. Kross