Search Results

Habitat-suitability indices (HSI) have been employed in restoration to identify optimal sites for planting native species. Often, HSI are based on abiotic variables and do not include biotic interactions, even though similar abiotic conditions can favor both native and nonnative species. Biotic interactions such as competition may be especially important...

Satellite imagery is commonly used to map surface water extents over time, but many approaches yield discontinuous records resulting from cloud obstruction or image archive gaps. We applied the Dynamic Surface Water Extent (DSWE) model to downscaled (250-m) daily Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data in Google...

This paper develops a barometer that indexes water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and summarizes quality over spatial regions and temporal periods. The barometer has a basis in risk assessment and hydrology, and is a function of three different metrics of water...

Increasing demand for river water now conflicts with an increasing desire to maintain riparian ecosystems. Efficiently managing river flows for riparian vegetation requires an understanding of the time scale of flow effects, but this information is limited by the absence of long-term studies of vegetation change...

Many wildlife species are threatened in Asia, including the five species of terrestrial bears (Asiatic black, Ursus thibetanus; brown, U. arctos; sloth, Melursus ursinus; sun, Helarctos malayanus; giant panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca): many populations of these bears are thought to be declining or imperiled by small population size. Here our aim is to document how population assessments have been...

Understanding effects of climate change on nitrogen fate and transport in the environment is critical to nutrient management. We used climate projections within a previously calibrated spatially referenced regression (SPARROW) model to predict effects of expected climate change over 1995 through 2025 on total nitrogen fluxes to Chesapeake Bay and...

A geoenvironmental assessment methodology was developed to estimate waste quantities and disturbances that could be associated with the extraction of undiscovered uranium resources and identify areas on the landscape where uranium and other constituents of potential concern (COPCs) that may co-occur with uranium deposits in this region are likely...

Observations of woody plant mortality in coastal ecosystems are globally widespread, but the overarching processes and underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. This knowledge deficiency, combined with rapidly changing water levels, storm surges, atmospheric CO2, and vapor pressure deficit, creates large predictive uncertainty regarding how coastal ecosystems will respond to global...

Nest failure for coastal marsh bird species is primarily caused by predation and nest flooding. As sea level rise makes nest flooding more likely, the threat of nest predation will constrain the potential adaptive responses of marsh nesting species. Thus, understanding the predictors of nest predation is important for the...

Although the Atlantic continental margin of the eastern United States is an archetypal passive margin, episodes of rejuvenation following continental breakup are increasingly well documented. To better constrain this history of rejuvenation along the southern portion of this continental margin, we present zircon...

Executive SummaryThe U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) Center of Excellence (ECCOE) focuses on improving the accuracy, precision, calibration, and product quality of remote-sensing data, leveraging years of multiscale optical system geometric and radiometric calibration and characterization experience. The ECCOE Landsat Cal/Val...

The rate and timing of hydrologically forced landslides is a complex function of precipitation patterns, material properties, topography, and groundwater hydrology. In the simplest form, however, slopes fail when subsurface pore pressure grows large enough to exceed the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion. The capacity for pore pressure rise...

Unprecedented conservation efforts for sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems across the western United States have been catalyzed by risks from escalated wildfire activity that reduces habitat for sagebrush-obligate species such as Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus). However, post-fire restoration is challenged by spatial variation in ecosystem processes influencing resilience...

Designing a population monitoring program for Asian bears presents challenges associated with their low densities and detectability, generally large home ranges, and logistical or resource constraints. The use of an occupancy-based method to monitor bear populations can be appropriate under certain conditions given the mechanistic relationship between occupancy and abundance....

As a first step toward understanding the feasibility of using arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in reconstruction practice, we addressed four objectives: (1) compare root-associated AMF communities of plants between high-quality remnant prairies and reconstructed prairies, (2) compare root-associated AMF communities between plant species that declined in reconstructions and species that...

Despite the recognized role of wild waterfowl in the potential dispersal and transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus, little is known about how infection affects these birds. This lack of information limits our ability to estimate viral spread in the event of an HPAI outbreak, thereby limiting our...

Extensive anthropogenic alteration of steppe ecosystems throughout Eurasia leaves central Asia with some of the world’s last remaining large expanses of grassland habitat. Steppe eagles (Aquila nipalensis) are globally endangered breed primarily in these steppe ecosystems. We evaluated migratory movements of first year steppe eagles hatched in northern Kazakhstan, to...

Nearly all of the wetlands in the coastal zone of Lake Erie have been degraded or destroyed since the 1860s, and most of those that remain are separated from their watersheds by earthen dikes. Hydrologic isolation of these wetlands disrupts ecosystem benefits typical to Great Lakes coastal wetlands, particularly the...

The ongoing 22 year drought in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) has been extremely severe, even in the context of the longest available tree-ring reconstruction of annual flow at Lees Ferry, Arizona, dating back to 762 CE. While many southwestern drought assessments have been limited to the past 1200...

Interannual variation, especially weather, is an often-cited reason for restoration “failures”; yet its importance is difficult to experimentally isolate across broad spatiotemporal extents, due to correlations between weather and site characteristics. We examined post-fire treatments within sagebrush-steppe ecosystems to ask: (1) Is weather following seeding efforts a primary reason why...

The landscapes beneath Montana’s big sky are as breathtaking as the State’s nickname would suggest. Visitors to the 41st State's "Big Sky Country" can take in the stunning icy hues of aquamarine at Glacier National Park; explore the northern swaths of Yellowstone National Park; or hike, bike, or boat through...

Coral reefs and their ecosystems are threatened by both global stressors, including increasing sea-surface temperatures and ocean acidification (OA), and local stressors such as land-based sources of pollution that can magnify the effects of OA. Corals can physiologically control the chemistry of their internal calcifying fluids (CF) and can thereby regulate their...

Ratings are used for a variety of reasons in water-resources investigations. The simplest rating relates discharge to the stage of the river. From a pure hydrodynamics perspective, all rivers and streams have some form of hysteresis in the relation between stage and discharge because of unsteady flow as a flood...

Inland fisheries feed greater than 150 million people globally, yet their status is rarely assessed due to their socio-ecological complexity and pervasive lack of data. Here, we leverage an unprecedented landings time series from the Amazon, Earth's largest river basin, together with theoretical food web models to examine (i) taxonomic...

Challenges facing societies around the globe as they plan for and adapt to climate change are so large that usable, research-driven recommendations to inform management actions are urgently needed. We sought to understand factors that influence the variation of academic contribution and use of collaborative research on climate change. We...