Least Bell's Vireos and Southwestern Willow Flycatchers at the San Luis Rey flood risk management project area in San Diego County, California: Breeding activities and habitat use—2021 Annual report
Alexandra Houston, Lisa D. Allen, Ryan E. Pottinger, Barbara E. Kus
2022, Open-File Report 2022-1012
Executive SummarySurveys and monitoring for the endangered Least Bell’s Vireo (Vireo bellii pusillus; vireo) were done at the San Luis Rey Flood Risk Management Project Area (Project Area) in the city of Oceanside, San Diego County, California, between April 4 and August 4, 2021. We completed four protocol surveys during...
The global environmental agenda urgently needs a semantic web of knowledge
Stefano Balbi, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Ainhoa Magrach, Maria Jose Sanz, Naikoa Aguilar-Amuchastegui, Carlo Guipponi, Ferdinando Villa
2022, Environmental Evidence (11)
Progress in key social-ecological challenges of the global environmental agenda (e.g., climate change, biodiversity conservation, Sustainable Development Goals) is hampered by a lack of integration and synthesis of existing scientific evidence. Facing a fast-increasing volume of data, information remains compartmentalized to pre-defined scales and fields, rarely building its way up...
Pollutant co-attenuation via in-stream interactions between mine drainage and municipal wastewater
Charles J. Spellman, Peter M. Smyntek, Charles A. Cravotta III, Travis L. Tasker, William H. J. Strosnider
2022, Water Research (214)
Municipal wastewater (MWW) and mine drainage (MD) are common co-occurring sources of freshwater pollution in mining regions. The physicochemical interactions that occur after mixing MWW and MD in a waterway may improve downstream water quality of an impaired reach by reducing downstream concentrations of nutrients and metals (i.e., “co-attenuation”). A...
Subsurface hydrocarbon degradation strategies in low- and high-sulfate coal seam communities identified with activity-based metagenomics
Hannah S. Schweitzer, Heidi J. Smith, Elliott Barnhart, Luke J. McKay, Robin Gerlach, Alfred B. Cunningham, Rex R. Malmstrom, Danielle Goudeau, Matthew W. Fields
2022, npj Biofilms and Microbiomes (8)
Environmentally relevant metagenomes and BONCAT-FACS derived translationally active metagenomes from Powder River Basin coal seams were investigated to elucidate potential genes and functional groups involved in hydrocarbon degradation to methane in coal seams with high- and low-sulfate levels. An advanced subsurface environmental sampler allowed the establishment of coal-associated microbial communities...
Effects of weather variation on waterfowl migration: Lessons from a continental-scale generalizable avian movement and energetics model
Kevin Aagaard, Eric V. Lonsdorf, Wayne E. Thogmartin
2022, Ecology and Evolution (12)
We developed a continental energetics-based model of daily mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) movement during the non-breeding period (September to May) to predict year-specific migration and overwinter occurrence. The model approximates movements and stopovers as functions of metabolism and weather, in terms of temperature and frozen precipitation (i.e.,...
Contaminant fluxes across ecosystems mediated by aquatic insects
Mirco Bundschuh, Sebastian Pietz, Alexis P. Roodt, Johanna M. Kraus
2022, Current Opinion in Insect Science (50)
Metals and organic contaminants in aquatic systems affect the coupling of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems through two pathways: contaminant-induced effects on insect emergence and emergence-induced contaminant transfer. Consequently, the impact of aquatic contaminants on terrestrial ecosystems can be driven by modifications in...
Forbs included in conservation seed mixes exhibit variable blooming detection rates and cost-effectiveness: Implications for pollinator habitat design
Stacy C. Simanonok, Clint Otto, Rich Iovanna
2022, Restoration Ecology (30)
Although forb-rich plantings for pollinator habitat are becoming more common, natural resource managers lack insight on the cost-effectiveness of forbs seeded in private land conservation programs. Additional information on the possible benefits of including more forb species in a mix may help guide the design of...
Atlantic circulation change still uncertain
K. Halimeda Kilbourne, Alan D. Wanamaker, Paola Moffa-Sanchez, David J. Reynolds, Daniel E. Amrhein, Paul G. Butler, Marlos Goes, Malte Jansen, Christopher M. Little, Madelyn Jean Mette, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Pablo Ortega, Bette L. Otto-Bliesner, Thomas Rossby, James Scourse, Nina M. Whitney
2022, Nature Geoscience (15) 165-167
Deep oceanic overturning circulation in the Atlantic (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)) is projected to decrease in the future in response to anthropogenic warming. Caesar et al.1 argue that an AMOC slowdown started in the nineteenth century and intensified during the mid-twentieth century. Although the argument and selected evidence proposed...
Wildfire probability models calibrated using past human and lightning ignition patterns can inform mitigation of post-fire hydrologic hazards
Miguel L. Villarreal, Laura M. Norman, Erika Yao, Caroline Rose Conrad
2022, Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk (13) 568-590
Most wildfires are started by humans, however, geographic variation of potential ignition sources is not often explicitly accounted for in wildfire simulation modelling or risk assessments. In this study, we investigated how patterns of human and lightning ignitions can influence modelled fire simulations and demonstrate how these...
Conflicts among protected native birds and valuable sport fishes: Potential pelican predation effects
Phaedra E. Budy, Gary P. Thiede, Kevin Chapman, Frank P. Howe
2022, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (79) 1361-1376
Reservoirs are examples of novel ecosystems that have developed into popular sport fisheries; these systems are also becoming seasonal refuges for migratory birds, including the piscivorous American white pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos). We (1) investigated the proportion of cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii utah) and other species consumed by pelicans, (2) compared whether pelicans...
How similar was the 1983 Mw 6.9 Borah Peak earthquake rupture to its surface-faulting predecessors along the northern Lost River fault zone (Idaho, USA)?
Christopher DuRoss, Richard W. Briggs, Ryan D. Gold, Alexandra Elise Hatem, Austin John Elliott, Jaime Delano, Ivan Medina-Cascales, Harrison J. Gray, Shannon A. Mahan, Sylvia Nicovich, Zachery Lifton, Emily J. Kleber, Greg N. McDonald, Adam Hiscock, Mike Bunds, Nadine G. Reitman
2022, Geological Society of America Bulletin (134) 2767-2789
We excavated trenches at two paleoseismic sites bounding a trans-basin bedrock ridge (the Willow Creek Hills) along the northern Lost River fault zone to explore the uniqueness of the 1983 Mw 6.9 Borah Peak earthquake compared to its prehistoric predecessors. At the Sheep Creek site on the southernmost Warm Springs section, two...
Mapping benthic algae and cyanobacteria in river channels from aerial photographs and satellite images: A proof-of-concept investigation on the Buffalo National River, AR, USA
Carl J. Legleiter, Shawn W Hodges
2022, Remote Sensing (14)
Although rivers are of immense practical, aesthetic, and recreational value, these aquatic habitats are particularly sensitive to environmental changes. Increasingly, changes in streamflow and water quality are resulting in blooms of bottom-attached (benthic) algae, also known as periphyton, which have become widespread in many water bodies of US national parks....
Managing multiple species with conflicting needs in the Greater Everglades
Stephanie Romanach, Saira Haider, Caitlin E. Hackett, Mark McKelvy, Leonard G. Pearlstine
2022, Ecological Indicators (136)
Given limited funding, natural resources decision making is riddled with tradeoffs, including which species or landscapes to prioritize for management action. Florida’s Everglades wetland is home to numerous indicator species, some of which are endangered. But with a multitude of species...
MASTREE+: Time-series of plant reproductive effort from six continents
Andrew Hacket-Pain, Jessie Foest, Ian S. Pearse, Jalene M. LaMontagne, Walter D. Koenig, Giorgio Vacchiano, Michal Bogdziewicz, Thomas Caignard, Paulina Celebias, Joep Van Dormolen, Marcos Fernandez-Martinez, Jose V. Moris, Ciprian Palaghianu, Mario B. Pesendorfer, A. Satake, Eliane Schermer, A. Tanentzap, Peter A. Thomas, Davide Vecchio, Andreas P. Wion, T. Wohlgemuth, Tingting Xue, Katherine Abernethy, Marie-Claire Aravena Acuna, Marcelo Daniel Barrera, Jessica H. Barton, Stan Boutin, Emma R. Bush, Sergio Donoso Calderon, Felipe Carevic, Carolina Volkmer de Castilho, Juan Manuel Cellini, Colin A. Chapman, Hazel Chapman, Francesco Chianucci, Patricia da Costa, Luc Croise, Andrea Cutini, Ben Dantzer, R. Justin DeRose, Jean-Thoussaint Dikangadissi, Edmond Dimoto, Fernanda Lopes da Fonseca, Leonardo Gallo, Georg Gratzer, David F. Greene, Martin A. Hadad, Alejandro Huertas Herrera, Kathryn J. Jeffery, Jill F. Johnstone, Urs Kalbitzer, Wladyslaw Kantorowicz, Christie A. Klimas, Jonathan G. A. Lageard, Jeffrey Lane, Katharina Lapin, Mateusz Ledwon, Abigail C. Leeper, Maria Vanessa Lencinas, Ana Claudia Lira-Guedes, Michael Lordon, Paula Marchelli, Shealyn Marino, Harald Schmidt Van Marle, A. McAdam, Ludovic R. W. Momont, Manuel Nicolas, Lucia Helena de Oliveira Wadt, Parisa Panahi, Guillermo Martinez Pastur, T. Patterson, Pablo Luis Peri, Lukasz Piechnik, Mehdi Pourhashemi, Claudia Espinoza Quezada, Fidel A. Roig, Karen Pena Rojas, Yamina Micaela Rosas, Silvio Schueler, Barbara Seget, Rosina Soler, Michael A. Steele, Monica Toro-Manriquez, Caroline E. G. Tutin, Tharcisse Ukizintambara, Lee White, Biplang Yadok, John L. Willis, Anita Zolles, Magdalena Zywiec, Davide Ascoli
2022, Global Change Biology (28) 3066-3082
Significant gaps remain in understanding the response of plant reproduction to environmental change. This is partly because measuring reproduction in long-lived plants requires direct observation over many years and such datasets have rarely been made publicly available. Here we introduce MASTREE+, a data set that collates reproductive time-series data from...
Genomically diverse carbapenem resistant Enterobacteriaceae from wild birds provide insight into global patterns of spatiotemporal dissemination
Christina Ahlstrom, Hanna Woksepp, Linus Sandegren, Mashkoor Mohsin, Badrul Hasan, Denys Muzyka, Jorge Hernandez, Filip Aguirre, Atalay Tok, Jan Soderman, Bjorn Olsen, Andrew M. Ramey, Jonas Bonnedahl
2022, Science of the Total Environment (824)
Carbapenem resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) are a threat to public health globally, yet the role of the environment in the epidemiology of CRE remains elusive. Given that wild birds can acquire CRE, likely from foraging in anthropogenically impacted areas, and may aid in the maintenance and dissemination...
Quantitative meta-analysis reveals no association between mercury contamination and body condition in birds
Alice Carravieri, Orsolya Vincze, Paco Bustamante, Josh T. Ackerman, Evan M. Adams, Frederic Angelier, Olivier Chastel, Yves Cherel, Olivier Gilg, Elena Golubova, Alexander Kitaysky, Katelyn Luff, Chad L. Seewagen, Hallvard Strom, Alexis P. Will, Glenn Yannic, Mathieu Giraudeau, Jerome Fort
2022, Biological Reviews (97) 1253-1271
Mercury contamination is a major threat to the global environment, and is still increasing in some regions despite international regulations. The methylated form of mercury is hazardous to biota, yet its sublethal effects are difficult to detect in wildlife. Body condition can vary in response to...
Conterminous United States land-cover change (1985-2016): New insights from annual time series
Roger F. Auch, Danika Fay Wellington, Janis L. Taylor, Stephen V. Stehman, Heather J. Tollerud, Jesslyn F. Brown, Thomas Loveland, Bruce Pengra, Josephine Horton, Zhe Zhu, Alemayehu Midekisa, Kristi Sayler, George Z. Xian, Christopher Barnes, Ryan R. Reker
2022, Land (11)
Sample-based estimates augmented by complete coverage land-cover maps were used to estimate area and describe patterns of annual land-cover change across the conterminous United States (CONUS) between 1985 and 2016. Most of the CONUS land cover remained stable in terms of net class change over this time,...
Rocky Mountain Region Science Exchange 2020—EarthMAP and the Colorado River Basin
Anne C. Tillery, Patrick J. Anderson, William J. Andrews, Katharine Dahm, Seth S. Haines, Robert Horton, David O’Leary, Ryan D. Taylor, Kathryn A. Thomas, Alicia A. Torregrosa
2022, Circular 1483
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Rocky Mountain Region (RMR) hosted USGS scientists, managers, program coordinators, and leadership team members for a virtual Science Exchange during September 15–17, 2020. The Science Exchange had 216 registered participants and included 48 talks over the 3-day period. Invited speakers presented information about the novel...
Effects of seasonal hypoxia on macroinvertebrate communities in a small reservoir
David O. Lucchesi, Steven R. Chipps, David A. Schumann
2022, Lakes & Reservoirs (37)
Localized hypoxia can reduce available habitat, restrict movement and limit the abundance of aquatic invertebrates. Cultural eutrophication coupled with the effects of climate change is likely to increase the frequency and extent of hypoxia in aquatic ecosystems, yet little is known about how oxygen gradients in small reservoirs influence spatial...
Hydrologic modification and channel evolution degrades connectivity on the Atchafalaya River floodplain
Daniel Kroes, Charles R Demas, Yvonne A. Allen, Richard Day, Steve W Roberts, Jeff Varisco
2022, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (47) 1790-1807
The Atchafalaya River Basin is the largest remaining forested wetland in the contiguous United States. Since 1960, dredging and channel erosion in the Basin have resulted in changes to the hydrologic connectivity that have not been quantified. Analyses were conducted to determine the hydraulic and geomorphic factors that have changed...
Premature mortality observations among Alaska’s Pacific salmon during record heat and drought in 2019
Vanessa R. von Biela, Christopher J. Sergeant, Michael P. Carey, Zachary Liller, Charles M. Russell, Stephanie Quinn-Davidson, Peter S. Rand, P. A. H. Westley, Christian E. Zimmerman
2022, Fisheries (47) 157-168
Widespread mortality of Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp. returning to spawn in Alaska coincided with record-breaking air temperatures and prolonged drought in summer 2019. Extreme environmental conditions are expected to happen more frequently with rapid climate change and challenge the notion that Alaska could indefinitely provide abundant, cool freshwater habitat for Pacific salmon....
Potential effects of climate change on snail kites (Rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus) in Florida
Marta P. Lyons, Olivia E. LeDee, Ryan Boyles
2022, Open-File Report 2021-1104-A
The snail kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus), an endangered, wetland-dependent raptor, is highly sensitive to changes in hydrology. Climate-driven changes in water level will likely affect snail kite populations—altering reproductive success and survival rates. Identifying the mechanisms mediating the direct and indirect effects of climate on snail kite populations and the...
Effects of climate change on fish and wildlife species in the United States
2022, Open-File Report 2021-1104
About this volumeThis U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report provides brief syntheses of the direct and indirect effects of climate change to priority species and ecosystems in the United States. Each chapter focuses on <span class="NormalTextRun SCXW199727287...
Molecular mechanisms of solid bitumen and vitrinite reflectance suppression explored using hydrous pyrolysis of artificial source rock
Margaret M. Sanders, Aaron M. Jubb, Paul C. Hackley, Kenneth E. Peters
2022, Organic Geochemistry (165)
The most commonly used parameter for thermal maturity calibration in basin modelling is mean random vitrinite reflectance (Ro). However, Ro suppression has been noted in samples containing a high proportion of liptinite macerals. This phenomenon has been demonstrated empirically using hydrous...
Integration of vegetation classification with land cover mapping: Lessons from regional mapping efforts in the Americas
Patrick J. Comer, Jon C Hak, Daryn Dockter, Jim Smith
2022, Vegetation Classification and Survey 29-43
Aims: Natural resource management and biodiversity conservation rely on inventories of vegetation that span multiple management or political jurisdictions. However, while remote sensing data and analytical tools have enabled production of maps at increasing spatial resolution and reliability, there are limited examples where national or continental-scaled maps are produced to...
