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Publications

Browse publications authored by our scientists.  Publications available are: USGS-authored journal articles, series reports, book chapters, other government publications, and more. **Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.

Filter Total Items: 4348

Effects of landscape cover and yard features on feral and free-roaming cat (Felis catus) distribution, abundance and activity patterns in a suburban area

Feral and free-roaming domestic cats (Felis catus) are invasive predators throughout the world. In some areas, cats occur in higher densities than native mammalian predators and can have severe effects upon prey populations. We set 48 wildlife game cameras in residential yards in Arkansas, USA, to evaluate which landscape and yard features influenced cat abundance occurring in yards. In addition,
Authors
Emily Johansson, Brett Alexander DeGregorio

Survival of Common Loon chicks appears unaffected by Bald Eagle recovery in northern Minnesota

Recovering species are not returning to the same environments or communities from which they disappeared. Conservation researchers and practitioners are thus faced with additional challenges in ensuring species resilience in these rapidly changing ecosystems. Assessing the resilience of species in these novel systems can still be guided by species’ ecology, including knowledge of their population
Authors
Jennyffer Cruz, Steve K. Windels, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Shawn M. Crimmins, Benjamin Zuckerberg

Facing our freshwater crisis via fluid and agile communication: A grand challenge

Earth has been labeled the blue planet because of its abundance of water that covers most of its surface, but the majority is salt water in our oceans. Oceans account for ~352 million km2 or 69% of the planet's surface, land for 150 million km2 or 29%, and fresh water for 9 million km2 or 2% (Shiklomanov, 2000). Most of the fresh water is locked away in glaciers and ice sheets on Greenland and Ant
Authors
Leandro E. Miranda

Spawning locations, movements, and potential for stock mixing of walleye in Green Bay, Lake Michigan

Effective fishery management in large systems relies on understanding how individual stocks contribute to a fishery over spatial and temporal scales. The current conceptual model for management of Walleye Sander vitreus in Green Bay designates Walleye in the northern and southern parts of the bay as distinct stocks, with little mixing between the northern and southern fisheries, and assumes that W
Authors
Lisa K. Izzo, Daniel Dembkowski, Todd Hayden, Tom Binder, Christopher Vandergoot, Steven Hogler, Michael Donofrio, Troy Zorn, Charles Krueger, Daniel A. Isermann

Diverse migratory portfolios drive inter-annual switching behavior of elk across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

A growing body of evidence shows that some ungulates alternate between migratory and nonmigratory behaviors over time. Yet it remains unclear whether such short-term behavioral changes can help explain reported declines in ungulate migration worldwide, as opposed to long-term demographic changes. Furthermore, advances in tracking technology reveal that a simple distinction between migration and no
Authors
Gabriel R. Zuckerman, Kristin J. Barker, Laura C. Gigliotti, Eric K. Cole, Justin A. Gude, Mark A. Hurley, Matthew Kauffman, Daryl Lutz, Daniel R. MacNulty, Eric J. Maichak, Doug McWhirter, Tony W. Mong, Kelly Proffitt, Brandon M. Scurlock, Daniel R. Stahler, Ben Wise, Arthur D. Middleton

Linked foraging and bioenergetics modeling may inform fish parasite infection dynamics

The parasitic copepod Salmincola californiensis infects Pacific salmon and trout (Oncorhynchus spp.) and often reaches high prevalence and intensity in reservoirs compared to stream systems. Recent research indicates that temperature plays a fundamental role in copepod development and fish susceptibility. Here, we expand a linked foraging and bioenergetics model to simulate infection risk. Based o
Authors
Christina Amy Murphy, Amanda Pollock, Sherri L Johnson, Ivan Arismendi

Rivers of the Lower Mississippi Basin

Discussed in this chapter are seven significant tributaries of the Lower Mississippi River and its major distributary. As a group, these eight rivers and their basins encompass substantial variation in physical form, hydrology, biota, ecology, and human impacts. The Current River, Ouachita River, and Saline River, flow to the Mississippi out of the U.S. Interior Highlands. The Cache River basin, c
Authors
C. Ochs, J.J. Baustian, A. Harrison, P. Hartfield, C.S. Johnston, Catherine A. Justis, D. Larsen, A. Mickelson, B. Piazza, Jonathan J. Spurgeon

Spawning locations of pallid sturgeon in the Missouri River corroborate the mechanism for recruitment failure

Conservation propagation of pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) upstream of Fort Peck Reservoir, Montana, USA has successfully recruited a new generation of spawning-capable pallid sturgeon where there would otherwise be fewer than 30 remaining wild reproductively mature pallid sturgeon. Successful recovery of pallid sturgeon will now rely on the behavior of pallid sturgeon (e.g., successful sp
Authors
Tanner L. Cox, Christopher S. Guy, Luke M. Holmquist, Molly A. H . Webb

Watershed selection to support freshwater mussel restoration: An open-loop decision guide

No abstract available.
Authors
Ayla J. Skorupa, David Perkins, Allison H. Roy, Jennifer E. Ryan

Optimal management decisions are robust to unknown dynamics in an amphibian metapopulation plagued by disease

Identifying conservation actions to recover threatened species can be challenging due to many ecological uncertainties. For example, major threats to a species' conservation are commonly known or suspected, but the specific impacts on population or metapopulation dynamics can be uncertain. This is frequently the case with emerging infectious diseases, including chytridiomycosis, a global driver of
Authors
Brian D. Gerber, Brittany A. Mosher, Larissa L. Bailey, Erin Muths, Harry J. Crockett, Sarah J. Converse

A highly-contiguous and annotated genome assembly of the Lesser Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus).

The Lesser Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus; LEPC) is an iconic North American prairie grouse, renowned for ornate and spectacular breeding season displays. Unfortunately, the species has disappeared across much of its historical range, with corresponding precipitous declines in contemporary population abundance, largely due to climatic and anthropogenic factors. These declines led to a
Authors
Andrew N . Black, Kristin J. Bondo, Andrew Mularo, Alvaro Hernandez, Yachi Yu, Carleigh M. Stein, Andy Gregory, Kent A. Fricke, Jeff Prendergast, Dan Sullins, David A. Haukos, Michael Whitson, Blake Grisham, Zach Lowe, J. Andrew DeWoody

Movement and genomic methods reveal mechanisms promoting connectivity in a declining shorebird: The lesser yellowlegs

Integrating tracking technology and molecular approaches provides a comprehensive picture of contemporary and evolutionary mechanisms promoting connectivity. We used mitochondrial DNA and double digest restriction-site associated DNA (ddRAD) sequencing combined with satellite telemetry to investigate the connectivity of geographically disparate breeding populations of a declining boreal shorebird,
Authors
Katherine Christie, Robert E. Wilson, James A. Johnson, Christian Friis, Christopher Harwood, Laura Anne McDuffie, Erica Nol, Sarah A. Sonsthagen
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