Publications
Publications from USGS science centers throughout the Southeast Region.
Filter Total Items: 9967
Gains and gaps in knowledge surrounding freshwater mollusk ecosystem services
Ecosystems provide essential services to people including food, water, climate regulation, and aesthetic experiences. Biodiversity can enhance and stabilize ecosystem function and the resulting services natural systems provide. Freshwater mollusks are a diverse group that provide a variety of ecosystem services through their feeding habits (e.g., filter feeding, grazing), top-down and bottom-up ef
Authors
Carla L. Atkinson, Garrett W Hopper, Danielle A. Kreeger, Jonathan Lopez, Alexa N Maine, Brandon James Sansom, Astrid Schwalb, Caryn C. Vaughn
Seed dispersal and tree legacies influence spatial patterns of plant invasion dynamics
Invasive plant species alter community dynamics and ecosystem properties, potentially leading to regime shifts. Here, the invasion of a non-native tree species into a stand of native tree species is simulated using an agent-based model. The model describes an invasive tree with fast growth and high seed production that produces litter with a suppressive effect on native seedlings, based loosely on
Authors
Yuanming Lu, Junfei Xia, Lukas J. Magee, Don DeAngelis
Preliminary machine learning models of manganese and 1,4-dioxane in groundwater on Long Island, New York
Manganese and 1,4-dioxane in groundwater underlying Long Island, New York, were modeled with machine learning methods to demonstrate the use of these methods for mapping contaminants in groundwater in the Long Island aquifer system. XGBoost, a gradient boosted, ensemble tree method, was applied to data from 910 wells for manganese and 553 wells for 1,4-dioxane. Explanatory variables included soil
Authors
Leslie A. DeSimone
Metabarcoding analysis of meiobenthic biodiversity along the Gulf of Mexico continental shelf
This study explores how diverse the meiobenthic (meiofauna and other benthic micro-eukaryotes) community is throughout the United States Gulf of Mexico (GOM) continental shelf. In late 2010 and 2011, 51 sediment samples were collected along GOM from Texas through Florida at a range of depths (40m–496m). An additional six deep-sea slope sediment cores were collected in December 2010 near the Deepwa
Authors
Pamela M. Brannock, Amanda Demopoulos, Stephen C. Landers, Damien S. Waits, Kenneth M. Halanych
Rapid prototyping for quantifying belief weights of competing hypotheses about emergent diseases
Emerging diseases can have devastating consequences for wildlife and require a rapid response. A critical first step towards developing appropriate management is identifying the etiology of the disease, which can be difficult to determine, particularly early in emergence. Gathering and synthesizing existing information about potential disease causes, by leveraging expert knowledge or relevant exis
Authors
Ellen Padgett Robertson, Daniel P. Walsh, Julien Martin, Thierry M. Work, Christina A. Kellogg, James S. Evans, Aine C. Hawthorn, Greta Aeby, Valerie J. Paul, Brian Walker, Yasu Kiryu, Cheryl M. Woodley, Julie L. Meyer, Stephanie M. Rosales, Michael S. Studivan, Jennifer Moore, Marilyn E. Brandt, Andrew Bruckner
Above- and belowground biomass carbon stock and net primary productivity maps for tidal herbaceous marshes of the United States
Accurate assessments of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration in natural ecosystems are necessary to develop climate mitigation strategies. Regional and national-level assessments of carbon sequestration require high-resolution data to be available for large areas, increasing the need for remote sensing products that quantify carbon stocks and fluxes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Cli
Authors
Victoria Woltz, Camille Stagg, Kristin B. Byrd, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Andre S. Rovai, Zhiliang Zhu
Assessing potential effects of climate change on highway-runoff flows and loads in southern New England by using planning-level space-for-time analyses
Transportation agencies need information about the potential effects of climate change on the volume, quality, and treatment of stormwater to mitigate potential effects of runoff on receiving waters. To address these concerns, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Federal Highway Administration used the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project tool and the Stochastic Empirical Loading and Dilution Model
Authors
Lillian C. Jeznach, Gregory E. Granato, Daniel Sharar-Salgado, Susan C. Jones, Daniel Imig
Climate change mitigation potential of Louisiana's coastal area: Current estimates and future projections
Coastal habitats can play an important role in climate change mitigation. As Louisiana implements its climate action plan and the restoration and risk-reduction projects outlined in its 2017 Louisiana Coastal Master Plan, it is critical to consider potential greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes in coastal habitats. This study estimated the potential climate mitigation role of existing, converted, and resto
Authors
Melissa Millman Baustian, Bingqing Liu, Leland C. Moss, Alyssa Dausman, James W. Pahl
An assessment of the relation between metal contaminated sediment and freshwater mussel populations in the Big River, Missouri
The Big River in southeast Missouri drains the largest historical lead mining area in the United States. Ongoing releases of metal contaminated sediments into this river are well documented and are suspected of suppressing freshwater mussel populations. We characterized the spatial extent of metal contaminated sediments and evaluated its relationship with mussel populations in the Big River. Musse
Authors
Andrew D Roberts, John M. Besser, Josh Hundley, Dave Mosby, Amanda E. Rosenberger, Kristen L. Bouska, Bryan Simmons, Stephen E. McMurray, Scott Faiman, Leslie Lueckenhoff
Increasing hypoxia on global coral reefs under ocean warming
Ocean deoxygenation is predicted to threaten marine ecosystems globally. However, current and future oxygen concentrations and the occurrence of hypoxic events on coral reefs remain underexplored. Here, using autonomous sensor data to explore oxygen variability and hypoxia exposure at 32 representative reef sites, we reveal that hypoxia is already pervasive on many reefs. Eighty-four percent of re
Authors
Ariel K. Pezner, Travis A. Courtney, Hannah Barkley, Wen-Chen Chou, Hui-Chuan Chu, Samanth M. Clements, Tyler Cyronak, Michael D. DeGrandpre, Samuel A.H. Kekuewa, David I Kline, Yi-Bei Liang, Todd R. Martz, Satoshi Mitarai, Heather N. Page, Max S. Rintoul, Jennifer E. Smith, Keryea Soong, Yuichiro Takeshita, Martin Tresguerres, Yi Wei, Kimberly K. Yates, Andreas J Andersson
Geospatial standard operating procedures of the Chesapeake Bay Program
Introduction The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) has operated a geographic information system (GIS) program since the early 1990s to address the established and growing need for and use of geospatial data, maps, and analysis within the CBP Partnership. This report is intended to detail the standard operating procedures of the CBP GIS program and address the quality assurance, quality control, and oth
Authors
John C. Wolf, Labeeb Ahmed, Peter Claggett, Andrew Fitch, Frederick Irani, Sarah McDonald, David Strong, Renee Thompson, Zhaoying Wei
Ecological harm and economic damages of chemical contamination to linked aquatic-terrestrial food webs: A study-design tool for practitioners
Contamination of aquatic ecosystems can have cascading effects on terrestrial consumers by altering the availability and quality of aquatic insect prey. Comprehensive assessment of these indirect food-web effects of contaminants on natural resources and their associated services necessitates using both ecological and economic tools. In the present study we present an aquatic-terrestrial assessment
Authors
Johanna M. Kraus, Kristin Skrabis, Serena Ciparis, John Isanhart, Aleshia Kenney, Jo Ellen Hinck