Coral reef protection may help avert risks to people, property, and economic activity caused by projected reef degradation
Curt D. Storlazzi, Borja Reguero, Kimberly Yates, Kristen Alkins, James B. Shope, Camila Gaido-Lasserre, Theresa Fregoso, Michael W. Beck
2026, Earth's Future (14)
Degradation of coral reefs over the past several decades has caused regional-scale erosion of the shallow seafloor that serves as a protective barrier against coastal hazards along southeast Florida, USA. How future change in coral reefs may affect coastal flooding, however, has been less attended than other factors contributing to...
Conducting feasibility assessments of potential conservation reintroductions: A case study with the imperiled foothill yellow-legged frog, Rana boylii
Daniel Antonio Macias, Patrick M. Kleeman, Michelle L. Hladik, Kelly Smalling, Paul G. Johnson, Daniel A. Grear, Jonathan P. Rose, Brian J. Halstead
2026, Natural Areas Journal (46) 31-43
Conservation translocations are an increasingly common and often necessary component of recovering species that have become extirpated from portions of their range. Understanding and ameliorating potential threats that reduce the likelihood of successful population establishment at recipient sites is a key component of successful translocation planning. We examined multiple potential...
Hydrologic dynamics of ephemerally flooded playas in a dryland environment
Charles R. Kimsal, Enrique R. Vivoni, Osvaldo E. Sala, H. Curtis Monger, Owen P. McKenna
2026, Water Resources Research (62)
Ephemerally flooded playas are common in the southwestern United States and globally in drylands. Often formed in closed basins, playas are depressions which inundate infrequently from local precipitation and streamflow produced near the playa or from upland areas. Few studies have quantified the hydrologic connectivity between upland catchments and playas...
Monitoring recreation on federally managed lands and waters—Aspects of visitor use
Emily J. Wilkins, Dieta Hanson, Whitney Boone, Spencer A. Wood, Christian S.L. Crowley, Rudy Schuster
2026, Preprint
Federally managed public lands and waters receive about 1 billion recreational visits each year. Data on these visitors can aid in guiding policy decisions, managing resources effectively, and communicating the economic contributions of lands and waters. This report explores the methods used by agencies to collect data on aspects of...
Gerrard strain Rainbow Trout are not piscivorous in a shallow, polymictic reservoir
Kaitlyn M. Furey, Christopher S. Guy, Bradley W. Liermann, Patrick Saffel, David A. Schmetterling
2026, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (46) 247-258
ObjectiveGeorgetown Lake (Montana, USA) is renowned for its multispecies salmonid fishery. Although many anglers target kokanee Oncorhynchus nerka in Georgetown Lake, the body length of kokanee has typically been considered unsatisfactory. To reduce the density of kokanee and increase the average size, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks began stocking the piscivorous Gerrard...
An integrated mudstone facies classification scheme and revised interpretation of the sedimentologic processes driving carbon burial in the Cenomanian–Turonian Greenhorn Formation, Colorado, U.S.A.
Jason A. Flaum, Katherine L. French, Justin E. Birdwell, Kira K. Timm
2026, Journal of Sedimentary Research (96) 1-23
Standardizing facies descriptions has proven key to integrating interpretations of depositional processes and environments from sedimentologic observations with geochemistry data for mudstone lithologies. Because of their fine-grained nature, high degree of compaction, and heterogeneous composition, standardizing methods for mudstone descriptions has proven difficult, but it is critical...
Quantifying post-fire live tree presence and spatial variation using Sentinel-2 time series
Saba J. Saberi, Phillip J. van Mantgem, Micah C. Wright, Christopher Y.S. Wong, Andrew M. Latimer, Derek J.N. Young
2026, Forest Ecology and Management (605)
Accurate mapping of post-fire surviving trees is important for tracking forest recovery and prioritizing land management decisions. Satellite-based remote sensing is an effective method to assess post-fire forest conditions. Traditionally, differenced satellite-derived burn severity indices are computed by differencing one year pre- and post-fire spectral reflectance values. Differenced...
Groundwater tracing used to delineate recharge areas and map karst groundwater pathways for subterranean streams at Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve
Benjamin V. Miller
2026, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5084
Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve in southwestern Oregon is a 4,554-acre area managed by the National Park Service that is home to several cave systems, including Oregon Caves, which is the longest cave in Oregon, with 3.03 miles of mapped passages. Because of the interconnected nature of karst hydrologic...
A review and synthesis of post-wildfire shifts in hydrologic processes and streamflow generation mechanisms
Brian A. Ebel, John C. Hammond, Michelle A. Walvoord, Trevor Fuess Partridge, David M. Rey, Sheila F. Murphy
2026, Environmental Research: Water (1)
Critical water supply watersheds in the western United States (WUS) are impacted by wildfires, with potential negative effects on water quality and quantity. Scientific understanding is currently insufficient to deliver estimates of wildfire consequences for water quantity that are regionally accurate. Regional variability in the directionality and...
Computation of regional groundwater budgets for the Virginia Coastal Plain aquifer system
Jason P. Pope, Alison D. Gordon, Ryan S. Frederiks
2026, Preprint
Computation of detailed groundwater flow budgets for subdivisions of Virginia’s Coastal Plain aquifer system has enabled quantification and more thorough understanding of groundwater flow within this important water resource. A zone budget analysis conducted on previously published groundwater models of the Virginia Coastal Plain and Virginia Eastern Shore shows that...
Low-frequency earthquakes track the motion of a captured slab fragment
David R. Shelly, Amanda M. Thomas, Kathryn Z. Materna, Robert J. Skoumal
2026, Science (391) 294-299
Accurate tectonic models are essential for assessing seismic hazard and fault interactions. However, the plate configuration at the complex Mendocino triple junction, where the San Andreas Fault and the Cascadia subduction zone meet, remains uncertain. We analyzed fault slip associated with a recently identified zone of tectonic tremor and low-frequency...
Ground-motion simulations for the 2024 Mw 4.8 Tewksbury, New Jersey, earthquake
Oliver S. Boyd, Ebru Bozdağ, Haiyang Liam Kehoe, Morgan P. Moschetti
2026, Seismological Research Letters (97) 755-766
Ground-motion simulations of notable earthquakes in the central and eastern United States are limited and typically assume one-dimensional (1D) Earth structure. In this study, we use a three-dimensional (3D) seismic velocity model to better constrain the depth and focal mechanism of the April 5th, 2024, moment magnitude 4.8 Tewksbury earthquake...
Assessment of undiscovered continuous and conventional oil and gas resources in the Woodford and Barnett Shales of the Permian Basin Province, Texas and New Mexico, 2025
Andrea D. Cicero, Christopher J. Schenk, Jenny H. Lagesse, Benjamin G. Johnson, Tracey J. Mercier, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Sarah E. Gelman, Jane S. Hearon, Phuong A. Le
2026, Fact Sheet 2026-3059
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean continuous and conventional resources of 1.6 billion barrels of oil and 28.3 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Woodford and Barnett Shales of the Permian Basin Province....
More water, more of the time: Spatial changes in flooding over 83 years in the upper Mississippi River floodplain and relationships with streamgage-derived proxies
Molly Van Appledorn, Nathan R. De Jager, Jason J. Rohweder, Marcella Windmuller-Campione, Daniel Griffin
2026, Water Resources Research (62)
The hydrologic regime of the upper Mississippi River (UMR) has become wetter, with greater discharges, longer-lasting high-flow conditions, and seasonal shifts in these patterns over the past several decades. How these changes are expressed spatially as floodplain inundation area, frequency, depth, duration, and timing is not well understood. It is...
A new inventory and conservation assessment of United States islands
Roger Sayre, Madeline T. Martin, Nadia Naji, Kelly B. Sides, Jill Janene Cress, Kevin Butler, Keith Van Graafeiland, Deniz Karagulle, Charlie Frye, Sean Breyer, Dawn Wright, John Klavitter, Dena Spatz, David Will, Gregg Howald, Alex Wegmann, Charlotte K. Stanley, Nick Holmes
2026, Annals of the American Association of Geographers
To support conservation-focused research and management we developed a new 30-m resolution polygon data layer of the nonlacustrine and nonriverine islands of the United States, with associated attributes describing key physical and conservation geography characteristics. Islands were grouped into a three-tiered hierarchy of island regions (twelve), island provinces (twenty-eight), and...
Biophysical controls on sediment erodibility in shallow estuarine embayments
Jessica R. Lacy, Samantha C. McGill, Janet Thompson, Rachel Allen, Francis Parchaso, David Hart, Lukas T. WinklerPrins, Joseph K. Fackrell, Andrew W. Stevens
2026, JGR Biogeosciences (131)
The erodibility of cohesive sediment is known to vary both spatially and temporally but the factors governing its variation are not well understood. We conducted a field investigation of the influence of hydrodynamic forcing, sediment properties, and benthic infauna on erodibility in the muddy shallows of San Pablo and Grizzly...
The contribution of a surge event to infilling in a barrier-enclosed estuary: Insights from field observations
Sanne M. Vaassen, Karin R. Bryan, Andrew Swales, Joel Carr, Conrad A. Pilditch
2026, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (51)
Many estuaries worldwide face increasing sediment loading caused by catchment land use change and intensification, creating subsequent adverse effects on estuarine ecosystems. Extreme weather events can disproportionately alter sediment pathways and loading. Although storm-driven sediment exchange has been widely examined at open coasts and inlets, key transport mechanisms within constricted,...
Unveiling a legacy of fish introductions to mountain lakes using historical records and eDNA surveys in a National Park
Samuel J. Brenkman, Jeffrey J. Duda, Rebecca M. McCaffery, Katie E. Kierczynski, Marshal S. Hoy, Trevor J. Kumec, William Baccus, Caren Suzanne Goldberg, Carl O. Ostberg, Steven C. Fradkin
2026, Frontiers in Conservation Science (6)
Across the western United States, introductions of non-native fish into historically fishless mountain lakes have impacted native biota. Understanding the impacts of fish introductions is essential for conservation in Olympic National Park, a Biosphere Reserve. We reconstructed fish plantings using records dating back to 1930, followed by...
The magmatic-hydrothermal system of the Three Sisters volcanic cluster, Oregon, imaged from field gravity measurements
Helene Le Mevel, Nathan Lee Andersen, Annika E. Dechert, Josef Dufek
2026, JGR Solid Earth (131)
From 2019 to 2024, gravity surveys were conducted at the Three Sisters volcanic cluster (TSVC), measuring 246 gravity sites using a spring relative gravimeter. We calculated the residual Bouguer anomaly and identified three main zones with negative anomalies, ranging from −4 to −8 mGal, located southwest and west of South...
Bird predation obscures detection of acoustic telemetry tags in fish
Richard Kraus, James Roberts, Mark Richard Dufour, Branden E. Kohler
2026, Animal Biotelemetry (14)
Increasing application of acoustic telemetry for determining survival, migration and habitat use of fishes highlights the need to improve interpretation of tracks that end abruptly: when is fishing mortality, predation, or some other cause to be inferred? Significant technological advances have led to the development of tags that “sense” predation...
Plasticity in the reproductive biology of Yellowstone cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus virginalis bouvieri in Yellowstone Lake following lake trout Salvelinus namaycush invasion
Michelle A. Briggs, Molly A. Webb, Christopher S. Guy, Todd M. Koel
2026, Journal of Fish Biology
Yellowstone cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus virginalis bouvieri in Yellowstone Lake are the focus of intensive conservation efforts due to the threat of predation by invasive lake trout Salvelinus namaycush. Suppression gillnetting has reduced the abundance of predatory lake trout, and the Yellowstone cutthroat trout population is recovering. Long-term monitoring indicates the size structure of...
Annual grass invasion is transforming the sagebrush biome’s songbird communities
Brendan K. Hobart, Wynne Emily Moss, Max C Cook, R. Chelsea Nagy, Valerie J McKenzie
2026, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
Novel stressors like climate change and biological invasions alter ecological communities, resulting in changes to ecosystem services and biodiversity (that is, ecological transformation). Most ecological transformation research focuses on plants, but animals are likely affected by and plausibly mediate the extent, impact, and pace of transformations. In western North America,...
Identifying headwater streams across the conterminous United States
Charles R. Lane, Ellen D’Amico, Jay R. Christensen, Heather E. Golden, Frederick Y. Cheng, John C. Hammond, Admin Husic, Kristin L. Jaeger, C. Nathan Jones, Christa A. Kelleher, Li Li, D. Tyler Mahoney, Hilary K. McMillan, Adam N. Price, Roy Sando, Catalina Segura, Erin C. Seybold, Adam S. Ward, Margaret Zimmer
2026, Ecosystems (29)
Headwater streams play critical roles in hydrologic and biogeochemical processes and functions, yet their spatial distribution and land cover context remain poorly understood at continental scales, and no dedicated geospatial dataset exists. Building from a high-resolution conterminous United States (CONUS) hydrography network dataset, we quantified the spatial...
The Appalbees menu: A multiyear, multilocus metagenetic assessment of pollen foraging by Appalachian Bombus affinis workers
Robert S. Cornman, Mark J. Hepner, Clint Otto
2026, PeerJ (14)
BackgroundDetailed studies of foraging behavior are needed for scientific management of the endangered rusty-patched bumblebee (Bombus affinis) in the disjunct and ecologically differentiated habitats it presently occupies. Current knowledge gaps hinder recovery planning but are challenging to redress through direct observation of rare interactions in the field.MethodsWe used...
Development and field testing of a UAS-based-software-defined radar for measuring freshwater bathymetry
Sepehr Eskandari, Asem Melebari, Paul J. Kinzel, Robert Russell Lotspeich, Jack R. Eggleston, Mahta Moghaddam
2026, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
We provide an overview of an uncrewed aircraft system (UAS)-based software-defined radar (SDRadar) system for high-resolution geophysical observations. The radar transceiver is implemented on a Radio Frequency System-on-Chip (RFSoC) platform, along with an ultra-wideband Vivaldi antenna that has a starting operating frequency of 150 MHz, enabling the...
