Climate change impacts and adaptation in U.S. Rocky Mountain high-elevation ecosystems
Meagan Ford Oldfather, Alyson Ennis, Brian W. Miller, Kyra Clark-Wolf, Imtiaz Rangwala, Hailey Robe, Caitlin Littlefield
2025, Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research (57)
From a resource management perspective, climate change is considered to be one of the main threats to high-elevation ecosystems. However, these valuable ecosystems present unique challenges to climate change adaptation (actions in response to environmental change and its effects in a way that seeks to reduce harm) due to their...
Prion gene sequencing in Florida panthers (Puma concolor coryi) suggests no differential susceptibility to transmissible spongiform encephalopathy
Elizabeth Sharkey, David P. Onorato, Melody E. Roelke-Parker, Alexander Ochoa, Melanie Culver, Robert R. Fitak
2025, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (61) 262-266
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, or prion disease, poses a serious threat to wildlife; however, the susceptibility of apex predators is still being assessed. We investigated variation in the prion protein gene in Florida panthers (Puma concolor coryi) and found that admixture from Central American pumas probably introduced a novel, albeit benign,...
Abundance of microplastics in a typical urban wetland in China: Association with occurrence and carbon storage
Haowen Zhang, Mengjie Pu, Ming Zheng, Bentuo Xu, Jason Tyler Magnuson, Qiqing Chen, Xiangrong Xu, Xiangyong Zheng, Ming Zhao, Wenhui Qiu
2025, Journal of Hazardous Materials (488)
Microplastics (MPs) are gaining attention for their widespread presence and toxicity in ecosystems. However, their role as a carbon source in urban wetland carbon sinks is still unclear. In this study, the microplastic-carbon (MP-C) was firstly quantified based on the abundance and occurrence characteristics, including MP morphology, size and type...
Refined mapping of subsurface water ice on Mars to support future missions
Gareth A Morgan, Nathaniel E Putzig, David M H Baker, Asmin E. Pathare, Colin M. Dundas, Megan Russell, Matthew R Perry, Matthew Chojnacki, Hanna G Sizemore, Ali M Bramson, Eric I Petersen, Stefano Nerozzi, Rachel H Hoover, Zachary M Bain
2025, The Planetary Science Journal (6)
Mars has an extensive yet poorly understood cryosphere. Nevertheless, both direct and indirect evidence indicates extensive buried ice across the midlatitudes, including locations where it is presently unstable. While much progress has been made in exploring the processes responsible for ice deposition and preservation during recent climatic fluctuations, a global...
Myiasis infection by the toad fly (Lucilia bufonivora; Calliphoidae) in amphibians in Montana, USA
Leah M. Fischer, Blake R. Hossack
2025, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (61) 206-2011
Toad flies in the genus Lucilia (previously referred to as Bufolucilia spp.) parasitize and cause myiasis in several amphibian species in North America. From 2019 to 2022, we documented Lucilia bufonivora infections in post-metamorphic western toads (Anaxyrus boreas) during amphibian surveys in four wetlands in Glacier National Park, Montana, US. We found nine infected adult toads in...
Quantifying the effect of petrogenic carbon on SOC turnover for two Rocky Mountain soils: When are petrogenic carbon corrections required?
Elizabeth Kellisha Williams, Corey Lawrence
2025, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (130)
Petrogenic organic carbon (OCpetro), derived from sedimentary rocks, is an often overlooked and poorly quantified source of soil organic carbon (SOC), which may influence measured or modeled SOC composition, age, and stability. In this study, we exploited differences in thermochemical stability between OCpetro and biogenic SOC (OCbio) using stepped elemental analysis...
Using machine learning in Minnesota’s StreamStats to predict fluvial sediment
Joel T. Groten, J. William Lund, Erin N. Coenen, Andrea Medenblik, Harper N. Wavra, Mike Kennedy, Gregory D. Johnson
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3005
A thorough understanding of fluvial sediment transport is essential for addressing key environmental issues such as aquatic habitat degradation, flooding, excess nutrients, and challenges with river restoration. Fluvial sediment samples are valuable for addressing these concerns, but their collection is often impractical across all rivers and timeframes of interest. In...
Proceedings of the 2024 Asia-Pacific Wildlife Health Workshop—Collaborating against shared threats
2025, Open-File Report 2024-1081
Emerging diseases of wildlife origin are increasingly transboundary (they spread rapidly across geographic regions and across continents). In recent years, examples include the rapid spread of African swine fever across Europe and Asia with negative effects on food security, and the near global spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza which...
Shoreline seasonality of California’s beaches
Jonathan A. Warrick, Daniel D. Buscombe, Kilian Vos, Hannah Kenyon, Andrew C. Ritchie, Mitchell D. Harley, Catherine N. Janda, Jess L'Heureux, Sean Vitousek
2025, JGR Earth Surface (130)
We report on remote sensing techniques developed to characterize seasonal shoreline cycles from satellite-derived shoreline measurements. These techniques are applied to 22-yr of shoreline measurements for over 777 km of beach along California's 1,700-km coast, for which the general understanding is that shorelines exhibit winter-narrow and summer-recovery seasonality. We find that...
Detection of the Diadema antillarum scuticociliatosis Philaster clade on sympatric metazoa, plankton, and abiotic surfaces and assessment for its potential reemergence
Brayan Vilanova-Cuevas, Katherine Philipp, Ashley Altera, Amy Apprill, Cynthia C. Becker, Donald Behringer, Marilyn E. Brandt, Mya Breitbart, Kayla A. Budd, Christopher M. DeRito, Elizabeth Duermit-Moreau, James S. Evans, Maria Hopson-Fernandes, Julian Fleischer, Samuel Gittens, Michael Henson, Alwin Hylkema, Christina A. Kellogg, Andrew Maritan, Julie L. Meyer, Zoe A. Pratte, Isabella T. Ritchie, Moriah L. B. Sevier, Matthew Souza, Frank J. Stewart, Sietske Van Der Wal, Sarah VonHoehne, Ian Hewson
2025, Marine Ecology Progress Series (753) 19-35
A ciliate belonging to the Diadema antillarum scuticociliatosis (DaSc)-associated Philaster clade (DaScPc) caused catastrophic long-spined urchin mass mortality in spring and summer of 2022. The ciliate can be grown in culture in both the presence and absence of D. antillarum tissues, suggesting that it may persist outside its host by...
Surface-wave relocation and characterization of the October 2023 tsunamigenic seismic unrest near Sofugan volcano, Izu Islands, Japan
Chanel Ashlie Deane, J.D. Pesicek, Stephanie Prejean, Paul S. Earle, David R. Shelly, William L. Yeck
2025, Geophysical Research Letters (52)
A moderate-magnitude earthquake swarm occurred in the remote Izu Islands region of Japan between October 1 and 8, 2023. The swarm included 151 shallow earthquakes cataloged by the U.S. Geological Survey, which notably included a roughly 2.5-hr episode of 15 successive magnitude (M) < 5.5 earthquakes. Origin times were coincident...
Evaluation of a rapid assessment function to aid monitoring and management of common ravens (Corvus corax) in Washington state
Brianne E. Brussee, Shawn T. O’Neil, Michael T. Atamian, Colin G. Leingang, Peter S. Coates
2025, Preprint
Expanding human enterprise leading to resource subsidies for generalist species has resulted in widespread increases in common raven (Corvus corax) populations across the Western U.S. Ravens are an efficient predator and increased population abundance has led to adverse effects to multiple sensitive prey species. In regions where problematic interactions between...
Reproductive contribution of lake sturgeon transferred upstream of dams on a Great Lakes tributary
Patrick S. Forsythe, Nicholas M. Sard, Stefan Tucker, Lexi Atler, Jeannette Kanefsky, Jennifer Johnson, Daniel A. Isermann, Robert F. Elliott, Michael Donofrio, Kim T. Scribner
2025, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (82) 1-16
Dam construction contributes to declines in the distribution and abundance of many fishes. Increasing connectivity through adult transfer can be demographically and genetically beneficial, but assessing the effects resulting from transfer can be difficult if resident fish exist upstream. Genotypes of adult and larval lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) were used...
Mapping bedrock outcrops in the Sierra Nevada Mountains (California, USA) using machine learning
Apoorva Ramesh Shastry, Corina Cerovski-Darriau, Brian Coltin, Jonathan D. Stock
2025, Remote Sensing (17)
Accurate, high-resolution maps of bedrock outcrops can be valuable for applications such as models of land–atmosphere interactions, mineral assessments, ecosystem mapping, and hazard mapping. The increasing availability of high-resolution imagery can be coupled with machine learning techniques to improve regional bedrock outcrop maps. In the United States, the existing 30...
Forecasting sea otter recolonization: Insights from isotopic analysis of modern and zooarchaeological populations
Emma A. Elliott Smith, Madonna L. Moss, Hannah P. Wellman, Verena A. Gill, Daniel Monson, Seth D. Newsome
2025, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences (292)
Retrospective datasets offer essential context for conservation by revealing species’ ecological roles before industrial-era human impacts. We analysed isotopic compositions of pre-industrial and modern sea otters (Enhydra lutris) to reconstruct pre-extirpation ecology and offer insights for management. Our study focuses on southeast Alaska (SEAK), where sea otters are recolonizing, and...
The effectiveness of wildfire at meeting restoration goals across a fire severity gradient in the Sierra Nevada
Adrian Das, Lisa Rosenthal, Kristen L. Shive
2025, Forest Ecology and Management (580) 122486
As a consequence of both warming temperatures and over a century of fire suppression, wildfires in the historically frequent-fire forests of the western US have increased both in size and intensity, resulting in large patches of high severity fire that are well outside the historic range of variation. Postfire fuels...
What 25+ years of "Did You Feel It" intensities tell us about shaking in California
Jenna Marie Chaffeur, Jessie K. Saunders, Sarah E. Minson, Annemarie S. Baltay Sundstrom, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Susan E. Hough, Vince Quitoriano, Morgan T. Page, James Luke Blair
2025, Seismological Research Letters (96) 2625-2637
“When will the Big One happen?” is a question that people often have for earthquake scientists. But while waiting for the “Big One” to occur, people will usually experience frightening or damaging shaking from multiple relatively smaller‐magnitude earthquakes. Given this context, it raises the question: “Where does most of the...
Groundwater hydrology, groundwater and surface-water interactions, water quality, and groundwater-flow simulations for the Wet Mountain Valley alluvial aquifer, Custer and Fremont Counties, Colorado, 2017–19
Connor P. Newman, Cory A. Russell, Zachary D. Kisfalusi, Suzanne S. Paschke
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5105
In 2017, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District, began a study to provide a comprehensive analysis of the Wet Mountain Valley alluvial aquifer, Custer and Fremont Counties, Colorado. The study included collection of data pertaining to groundwater hydrology, groundwater and surface-water interactions, and...
A comprehensive assessment of membrane bioreactor contaminant removal efficacy through analytical chemistry, fish exposures, and microbiome characterization
Charles H. Christen, Sarah M. Elliott, Richard L. Kiesling, Alissa VanDenBoom, Satomi Kohno, Carrie E. Givens, Heiko L. Schoenfuss
2025, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (44) 1272-1288
Treated municipal wastewater effluent is an important pathway for Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC) to enter aquatic ecosystems. As the aging wastewater infrastructure in many industrialized countries requires upgrades or replacement, assessing new treatment technologies in the context of CEC effects may provide additional support for science-based resource management. Here,...
The importance of method selection when estimating diet composition with quantitative fatty acid signature analysis
Jeffrey F. Bromaghin, Todd C. Atwood, Karyn D. Rode
2025, PLoS ONE (20)
Quantitative fatty acid signature analysis (QFASA) is a common method of estimating the composition of prey species in the diets of consumers from polar and temperate ecosystems in which lipids are an important source of energy. A key characteristic of QFASA is that the large number of fatty acids that...
Integrating sea level rise scenarios into Everglades restoration planning
Laura D’Acunto, Stephanie Romanach, Stephanie Castellano, Mysha Clarke
2025, Report
One of the largest and most expensive restoration efforts in the world is occurring in the Everglades, a sub-tropical freshwater wetland system located in southern Florida. This unique ecosystem supports several endangered species, provides flood control for Florida’s large urban population, and provides water for both agriculture and drinking supply...
Micropaleontological evidence of a submarine fan in the lower Coaledo Formation, southwestern Oregon, USA: Reply
Kristen McDougall
2025, Journal of Foraminiferal Research (55) 87-94
No abstract available....
Prairie Falcon (Falco mexicanus) abundance in a National Conservation Area in Idaho has increased since the 1970s–1990s
Steven Alsup, James R. Belthoff, Karen Steenhof, Michael N. Kochert, Todd E. Katzner
2025, Journal of Raptor Research (59) 1-13
The Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area (NCA), in southwestern Idaho, USA supports a large population of breeding Prairie Falcons (Falco mexicanus). Abundance of Prairie Falcons in the NCA was previously monitored in 1976–1978 and 1990–1994. That research indicated maximum counts for each period in 1976...
Hotter temperatures alter riparian plant outcomes under regulated river conditions
Emily C. Palmquist, Kiona Ogle, Bradley J. Butterfield, Thomas G. Whitham, Gerard J. Allan, Patrick B. Shafroth
2025, Ecological Monographs (95)
Climate change and river regulation alter environmental controls on riparian plant occurrence and cover worldwide. Simultaneous changes to river flow and air temperature could result in unanticipated plant responses to novel environmental conditions. Increasing temperature could alter riparian plant response to hydrology and other factors, while river regulation may exacerbate...
Infection by the marine cestode Hepatoxylon trichiuri in returning Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) spawners in Patagonia: Implications for a novel fishery
Guillermo Figueroa-Munoz, Patricio Torres, J. Marcos Rodriguez, Christina Amy Murphy
2025, Fisheries Management and Ecology (32) 218-232
Parasitological information may be useful for managing economically important fisheries by providing insights into population dynamics and health effects. The Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), an invasive species with high socio-ecological importance in South America, supports recreational and incipient artisanal fisheries. In Southern Chile, the recent approval of coastal fisheries for...
