Quantifying depuration of methylmercury from fish consumption by travelers
Ryan F. Lepak, Jean H. Mve Beh, Clotaire Moukegni-Sika, Jean N.B. Binguema, Sarah E. Janssen, Jacob M. Ogorek, Michael Tate, Peter B. McIntyre
2025, Environment and Health
During a two-week field sampling expedition in Gabon, two American scientists consumed fish daily from the Ogooué River watershed. We sampled their scalp and facial hair periodically to evaluate hair as a biomarker to track shifts in methylmercury (MeHg) exposure from diet. Each individual differed in the onset and extent...
Gas bubble trauma progression and mortality in sculpin, threespine stickleback, and Northern pikeminnow
Kenneth F. Tiffan, Brad D. Liedtke
2025, Northwest Science (98) 174-189
We examined the progression of gas bubble trauma (GBT) and associated mortality in sculpin (Cottus spp.), threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), and Northern pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus oregonensis) exposed to three levels of total dissolved gas (TDG; 120, 125, and 130% saturation) in laboratory experiments. Sculpin were most sensitive to elevated TDG followed by...
Predicting secretive species distribution using Bayesian networks with and without expert elicitation: A case study incorporating double-blind peer review
Dustin E. Brewer, Elisabeth B. Webb, Anne E. Mini, S. Keith McKnight
2025, Ecological Solutions and Evidence (6)
1. Species that are secretive, imperilled and consequently data deficient often re-quire conservation action despite limited available information. In such scenarios, Bayesian networks (BNs) offer a versatile and intuitive approach for utilizing various information sources, including literature reviews, community science data sets and expert knowledge. Although it...
A high-resolution late Paleocene–early Eocene organic-walled dinoflagellate cyst zonation of the United States Atlantic Coastal Plain
Mei Nelissen, Appy Sluijs, Debra A. Willard, Henk Brinkhuis
2025, Journal of Micropalaeontology (44) 431-467
Over the past decades, many expanded sedimentary records from the US Atlantic Coastal Plain (ACP) have been studied in detail to assess causes and consequences of the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; ∼ 56 Ma). In ACP sections, the PETM, which is globally marked by a distinct negative carbon isotope excursion (CIE) lasting <span...
Changes in phosphorus concentration and flux from 2011 to 2023 in major U.S. tributaries to the Laurentian Great Lakes
Dustin William Kincaid, Matthew W. Diebel, Erin E. Bertke, Donald B. Bonville, G. F. Koltun, Dale M. Robertson, Luke C. Loken
2025, Journal of Great Lakes Research (51)
Reducing phosphorus (P) flux to the Great Lakes is critical for improving water quality and controlling eutrophication. We used 13 water years (2011–2023) of U.S. Geological Survey data from 24 major U.S. tributaries (representing 47% of the U.S. Great Lakes watershed area) to evaluate temporal changes in orthophosphate (PO4-P) and...
Analysis of trends in terrestrial vegetation at Mediterranean Coast Network Parks: Channel Islands National Park
Leigh Ann Starcevich, Christopher Murray, Lena F.S. Lee, Cameron B. Williams, Kathryn McEachern
2025, Science Report NPS/SR-2025/358
The five islands comprising Channel Islands National Park (CHIS) experience natural gradients in temperature and moisture driven by ocean currents. Additionally, the islands were used as ranchlands and military land before becoming a national park, resulting in widespread erosion and vegetation change. As a result, CHIS spans gradients in climate...
Evaluating Laramide orogenesis via flexural basin response in the San Juan basin, New Mexico and Colorado
Kurt Rudolph, Ryan J Leary, Tyson Michael Smith, Kristine L. Zellman
2025, Conference Paper, New Mexico Geological Society 75th annual fall field conference guidebook
A challenge in interpreting the location, timing, and magnitude of ancient orogenic events is that ongoing uplift and erosion in the hinterlands often destroys much of the primary record of these events. However, basin-thickness patterns in the sedimentary record can provide complimentary evidence of uplift via flexural effects. Here, we...
Amphibian diversity of the western Colorado canyonlands including potential threats from nonnative bullfrogs and disease
Denita M Weeks, David Pilliod, Madeline (Nikki) Grant-Hoffman, Anjelica F Quintana Spencer, Daniel Neubaum, Paul Hampton, Michaela Ray Grossklaus, Matthew B Laramie, Erin L. Muths
2025, Western North American Naturalist (85) 515-535
Throughout the canyons of the Colorado and Uncompahgre Plateaus, water is a limited resource for wildlife, with patchy distribution and seasonal availability. Tributary creeks within these canyons drain into mainstem rivers, providing habitat and breeding sites for native amphibians. Yet, little is known about the diversity and distribution of amphibians...
Landsat-derived rainfed and irrigated-area product for conterminous United States for the year 2020 (LRIP30 CONUS 2020) using supervised and unsupervised machine learning on the cloud
Pardhasaradhi Teluguntla, Prasad Thenkabail, Adam Oliphant, Itiya Aneece, Trent Biggs, Murali Krishna Gumma, Daniel Foley, Richard L McCormick, Neelam Rohitha, Emerson Long, Jake Lawton
2025, Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing (91) 703-714
Accurate maps of irrigated and rainfed croplands are crucial for assessing global food and water security. Irrigated croplands yield two to four times more grain and biomass than rainfed croplands. To meet rising food demand, the proportion of cropland that is irrigated must be increased globally. Because agriculture uses 80%...
Effects of flow on pesticides in water and zooplankton in the northern Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
James Orlando, Laura Twardochleb, David Bosworth, Michelle L. Hladik, Corey Sanders, Matt De Parsia, Brittany E. Davis
2025, San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science (23)
Zooplankton are a key food source for juvenile fishes in estuaries worldwide, including California’s Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta (hereafter Delta); both zooplankton quality and quantity are critical to ecosystem health. Zooplankton may be affected by pesticides in water and the food web, and the Delta is known to contain complex pesticide...
Drone-based radiometric surveys provide high-resolution mine waste characterization
Chloe Danielle Gustafson, Anjana K. Shah, Matthew Alexander Burgess, Josip Adams, Virginia McLemore, Evan J. Owen
2025, The Leading Edge (44) 889-900
Airborne radiometric surveys use passive geophysical techniques to characterize geochemical variations at or near earth’s surface. These methods have been used for a variety of mapping applications, including mineral resource evaluation. However, detailed characterization of smaller geologic targets, including mine waste features, requires flying at lower altitudes and with tighter...
The Mammoth magnetic anomaly, Pinal County, Arizona
Callum Andrew Walter, Daniel S. Scheirer, Carl Joseph Beno, Jackson Stone Borchardt, Dylan Mark Connell
2025, The Leading Edge (44) 879-888
A high-resolution Earth Mapping Resources Initiative airborne geophysical survey was flown in the southwest North American porphyry copper province to improve bedrock geologic maps and to identify areas that have unrecognized critical mineral resource potential. During the review of the aeromagnetic data, a distinctly monopolar-shaped, negative magnetic anomaly was observed...
Measurement of in situ-produced cosmogenic nuclides in fine-grained quartz from shale
Xianmei Huang, Darryl E. Granger, William Elijah Odom, Brody Conner, Lan Luo
2025, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms (569)
In situ-produced 10Be in quartz is widely used to constrain exposure ages and denudation rates, traditionally measured in sand-sized grains. Here we report a new method for isolating fine-grained quartz from shale and demonstrate its reliability for grain sizes down to single microns. Sequential dissolution tests and analyses of grain size...
Freshwater turtle assemblages and densities in agricultural ditches and aquaculture ponds of eastern Arkansas
Andrhea D. Massey, John D. Willson, Brett Alexander DeGregorio
2025, Chelonian Conservation and Biology (24) 247-259
The Mississippi Alluvial Plain (MAP) of Arkansas is a landscape where many wetlands have been altered for use as aquaculture ponds or agricultural ditches. Commercial harvest of freshwater turtles within the MAP is not restricted or limited, with reported harvest numbers for 2019 alone exceeding 4000 for...
Ultralong, supershear rupture of the 2025 Mw 7.7 Mandalay earthquake reveals unaccounted risk
Dara Elyse Goldberg, William L. Yeck, Catherine Elise Hanagan, James William Atterholt, Haiyang Liam Kehoe, Nadine G. Reitman, William D. Barnhart, David R. Shelly, Alexandra Elise Hatem, David Wald, Paul S. Earle
2025, Science (390) 458-462
The 28 March 2025 moment magnitude (Mw) 7.7 earthquake in Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar), ruptured 475 kilometers of the Sagaing Fault, which was more than twice the length predicted by magnitude scaling relationships. Kinematic slip models and observation of a Rayleigh Mach wave that passed through parts of Thailand confirmed that...
A spatiotemporal interrogation of hydrologic drought model performance for machine learning model interpretability
Ali Dadkhah, Scott Douglas Hamshaw, Ryan van der Heijden, Donna M. Rizzo
2025, Water Resources Research (61)
The predictive accuracy of regional hydrologic models often varies across both time and space. Interpreting relationships between watershed characteristics, hydrologic regimes, and model performance can reveal potential areas for model improvement. In this study, we use machine learning to assess model performance of a regional hydrologic model to forecast the...
Comparative life history of mud turtles (genus: Kinosternon) from the North American deserts
Rodrigo Macipríos, Jeffrey E. Lovich
2025, Western North American Naturalist (85) 396-410
The warm deserts of North America are characterized by diverse environments that include the transition zone between tropical and temperate regions on the continent. This vast region includes the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, which have different precipitation regimes and are composed of different floras and faunas, separated by the Cochise...
Insight 4. Climate change and biodiversity loss amplify each other
Luiz A. Domeignoz-Horta, Guilherme G. Mazzochini, Akira S. Mori, Estelle Razanatsoa, Sarah R. Weiskopf, Adrian Heilemann
2025, Book chapter, 10 New insights in climate science 2025/2026
Key messages: • Climate change is impacting biodiversity from local to global scales, and growing evidence suggests that further loss of biodiversity can contribute to climate change, creating a destabilizing feedback. • Loss of plant diversity due to climate and land-use change can weaken ecosystem functioning, leading to a decrease...
Earthquake stress-drop values delineate spatial variations in maximum shear stress in the Japanese forearc lithosphere
Gian Maria Bocchini, Armin Dielforder, Kilian B. Kemna, Rebecca M. Harrington, Elizabeth S. Cochran
2025, Communications Earth and Environment (6)
Earthquake stress drop (Δσ) may increase with depth and stress in the brittle lithosphere. However, the range of uncertainty in Δσ and the lack of constraints on absolute stress make it difficult to establish whether they are correlated. Here, we investigate Δσ dependence on depth and maximum...
Climatological effects on survival, recruitment, and possible extirpation of a Sierra Nevada anuran
Brian Halstead, Patrick M. Kleeman, Jonathan P. Rose, Robert L. Grasso, Gary M. Fellers
2025, Climate Change Ecology (10)
The drivers of population dynamics are a primary interest of ecologists, and predicting the consequences of climate variability on wildlife populations benefits from an understanding of how weather causes variation in the vital rates of populations. Given recent and projected extremes in annual precipitation in the Sierra Nevada of California,...
Movements and survival of hatchery reared juvenile cisco (Coregonus artedi) in Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron
Todd Hayden, Christopher Holbrook, Thomas R. Binder, Andrew Edgar Honsey, Roger Gordon, Kevin McDonnell, David G. Fielder, Aaron T. Fisk
2025, Animal Biotelemetry (13)
BackgroundCisco (Coregonus artedi) were historically abundant throughout Lake Huron, including Saginaw Bay, but only a few remnant populations remain in northern Lake Huron today. Reestablishment of cisco is an important component of management plans to restore sustainable fisheries in Lake Huron. Cisco restoration efforts have focused on the...
Non-native bird populations respond differently to their environment and exhibit shifts in ecological niche limits across continents
Kristin P. Davis, Helen Sofaer, Henrik G. Smith, Henning Heldbjerg, Anna Gamero, Ainārs Auniņš, Lluís Brotons, Tomasz Chodkiewicz, Daniel Palm Eskildsen, Benoît Fontaine, John Atle Kålås, Primož Kmecl, Petras Kurlavičius, Aleksi Lehikoinen, Åke Lindström, Ingar Jostein Øien, Jiří Reif, Nicolas Strebel, Tibor Szép, Chris A.M. van Turnhout, Thomas Vikstrøm, Liba Pejchar
2025, Diversity and Distributions (31)
AimThe degree to which species' niches remain stable over space and time–the niche conservatism hypothesis–is critical for predicting species' responses to environmental change. Tests of this hypothesis typically focus on changes in niche centroids and boundaries. An outstanding question is whether species' environmental associations differ within the...
Application of fin tissue for nonlethal stable isotope analysis of small-bodied fishes
Wade M. Wilson, Jane S. Rogosch, Scott F. Collins, Bart W. Durham, Kevin B. Mayes, Sarah M. Robertson
2025, Environmental Biology of Fishes (108) 2181-2198
Stable isotopes are commonly used to characterize food web structure and resource use by aquatic organisms. White muscle is generally preferred for stable isotope analysis of fishes. However, obtaining white muscle tissue typically requires lethal take or invasive sampling techniques, which are undesirable for small-bodied species or those of conservation...
Recovery of Delaware Bay horseshoe crabs following harvest reductions
John A. Sweka, Kristen A. Anstead, David R. Smith, Linda Barry, Jordan Zimmerman, Steve Doctor, Craig Weedon, James Gartland, Yan Jiao, Francesco Ferretti, Eric M. Hallerman
2025, Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management and Ecosystem Science (17)
ObjectiveHorseshoe crabs Limulus polyphemus play a vital role in the Delaware Bay ecosystem. The migratory stopover of several shorebird species occurs during the horseshoe crab spawning season, and the eggs of horseshoe crabs provide an essential food source to fuel their northward migration to breeding areas. High commercial fishery use of horseshoe...
Seasonal increases in global dryland gross primary production are modulated by root soil moisture and temperature
Lihua Lan, Seth M. Munson, Kailiang Yu, Zhongxiang Fang, Xiuzhi Chen, Weiguang Zhao, Siao Sun, Zhenbo Wang, Fei He, Yuan Liang
2025, Global and Planetary Change (255)
Dryland ecosystems, which are highly sensitive to environmental variability across space and through time, play a critical role in the global carbon cycle. To understand the carbon sink role of drylands, this study used different sources of global dryland gross primary productivity (GPP) and evaluated the spatiotemporal...
