Cross-shore hydrodynamics and morphodynamics modeling of an erosive event in the inner surf zone
Jiaye Zhang, Benjamin Tsai, Yashar Rafati, Tian-Jian Hsu, Jack A. Puleo
2025, Coastal Engineering (196)
The phase-averaged and depth-integrated coastal morphodynamic model, XBeach-Surfbeat, was investigated for its capability of predicting the cross-shore hydrodynamics and morphodynamics in the inner surf zone by simulating the storm-induced berm erosion, sediment transport, and subsequent sand bar formation. By utilizing a comprehensive hydrodynamic and morphodynamic dataset measured in a large...
Predicted exposure of communities in southeastern United States to climate-related coastal hazards
Patrick L. Barnard, Peter W Swarzenski
2025, Nature Climate Change (15) 25-26
A rigorous analysis of 21st Century multi-hazard exposure for U.S. Southeast Atlantic coastal communities indicates that up to 70% of residents will be exposed daily to shallow and emerging groundwater by ~2100, 15 times higher than from surficial flooding alone. This threat further exacerbates other coastal stressors, such as flooding,...
Identifying priority science information needs for managing public lands
Sarah K. Carter, Travis Haby, Ella M. Samuel, Alison C. Foster, Jennifer K. Meineke, Laine E. McCall, Malia Burton, Chris Domschke, Leigh Espy, Megan A. Gilbert
2025, Environmental Management (75) 444-463
Public lands worldwide provide diverse resources, uses, and values, ranging from wilderness to extractive uses. Decision-making on public lands is complex as a result and is required by law to be informed by science. However, public land managers may not always have the science they need. We developed a methodology...
Establishment of a cell culture from Daphnia magna as an in vitro model for (eco)toxicology assays: Case study using Bisphenol A as a representative cytotoxic and endocrine disrupting chemical
Sreevidya CP, Manoj Kumar TM, Soumya Balakrishnana, Suresh Kunjiramana, Manomi Sarasan, Jason Tyler Magnuson, Jayesh Puthumana
2025, Aquatic Toxicology (278) 107173
Bisphenol A (BPA) is a widely used industrial compound found in polycarbonate plastics, epoxy resin, and various polymer materials, leading to its ubiquitous presence in the environment. The toxicity of BPA to aquatic organisms has been well documented following in vivo exposure scenarios, with known cytotoxic and endocrine-disrupting effects. As such, BPA...
Combining past and contemporary species occurrences with ordinal species distribution modeling to investigate responses to climate change
Erik A. Beever, Marie L. Westover, Adam B. Smith, Francis D. Gerraty, Peter D. Billman, Felisa A. Smith
2025, Ecography (2025)
Many organisms leave evidence of their former occurrence, such as scat, abandoned burrows, middens, ancient eDNA or fossils, which indicate areas from which a species has since disappeared. However, combining this evidence with contemporary occurrences within a single modeling framework remains challenging. Traditional binary species-distribution modeling reduces occurrence to two...
Oblique contraction along the fastest ocean-continent transform plate boundary focuses rock uplift west of the Fairweather fault, southeast Alaska
Robert C. Witter, Harvey M. Kelsey, Richard O. Lease, Adrian Bender, Katherine M. Scharer, Peter J. Haeussler, Daniel S. Brothers
Natalia A. Ruppert, M. Jadamec, Jeffery T. Freymueller, editor(s)
2025, Book chapter, Tectonics and seismic structure of Alaska and northwestern Canada: EarthScope and beyond
Contraction along the Yakutat–North America plate boundary drives 4.6–9.0 mm/year Holocene rock uplift rates along Earth's fastest slipping (≥49 mm/year) ocean–continent transform fault, the Fairweather Fault. Between Icy Point and Lituya Bay, the near-vertical Fairweather fault focuses rock uplift and rapid right-lateral slip by accommodating both vertical and fault-parallel strain during oblique-slip...
Constraining the earthquake recording threshold of intraslab earthquakes with turbidites in southcentral Alaska’s lakes and fjords
Drake Moore Singleton, Daniel S. Brothers, Peter J. Haeussler, Robert C. Witter, Jenna C. Hill
Natalia A. Ruppert, M. Jadamec, Jeffrey T. Freymueller, editor(s)
2025, Book chapter, Tectonics and seismic structure of Alaska and northwestern Canada: EarthScope and beyond
Strong ground motion from intraslab earthquakes, which do not produce primary paleoseismic evidence, may initiate gravity-driven turbidity flows in subaqueous basins. The resulting deposits (turbidites) can provide a paleoseismic proxy if the conditions that initiate these flows are known. To better constrain the initiating conditions, we use two recent intraslab...
Tectonic tremor observations across Alaska
Aaron Wech
Natalia A. Ruppert, M. Jadamec, Jeffery T. Freymueller, editor(s)
2025, Book chapter, Tectonics and seismic structure of Alaska and northwestern Canada: EarthScope and beyond
Tectonic tremor is a semicontinuous, low-frequency seismic signal associated with stable fault motion at major plate boundaries worldwide. In subduction zones, tremor often coincides with geodetic transients that indicate discrete slow slip on the subducting plate interface. Because tremor epicenters offer better spatial and temporal resolution than geodetic inversions of...
Perspectives on transportable array Alaska background noise levels
Adam T. Ringler, Kasey Aderhold, Robert E. Anthony, Robert W. Busby, Andy Frassetto, Toshiro Tanimoto, David C. Wilson
Natalia A. Ruppert, M. Jadamec, Jeffery T. Freymueller, editor(s)
2025, Book chapter, Tectonics and seismic structure of Alaska and northwestern Canada: EarthScope and beyond
Background seismic noise fundamentally sets a lower bound on our ability to record signals arising from earthquakes. The background noise spectrum at a station is a combination of cultural noise, ocean-generated microseism noise, intrinsic instrument self-noise, and the sensitivity of the instrument to nonseismic noise sources. The USArray-Transportable Array Alaska...
Evaluation of the gap intercept method to measure rangeland connectivity
Sarah E. McCord, Joseph R. Brehm, Lea A. Condon, Leah Dreesmann, Lisa M. Ellsworth, Matthew J. Germino, Jeffrey E. Herrick, Brian K. Howard, Emily Kachergis, Jason W. Karl, Anna C. Knight, Savannah Meadors, Aleta Nafus, Beth A. Newingham, Peter J. Olsoy, Nicole Pietrasiak, David S. Pilliod, Anthony Schaefer, Nicholas P. Webb, Brandi E. Wheeler, C. Jason Williams, Kristina E. Young
2025, Rangeland Ecology & Management (98) 297-315
Characterizing the connectivity of materials, organisms, and energy on rangelands is critical to understanding and managing ecosystem response to disturbances. For over twenty years, scientists and rangeland managers have used the gap intercept method to monitor connectivity. However, using gap intercept measurements to infer ecosystem processes or inform management actions...
U.S. Geological Survey research and assessments supporting carbon dioxide removal
Peter D. Warwick, Madalyn S. Blondes, Judith Z. Drexler, Kevin D. Kroeger, Zhiliang Zhu
2025, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 17th Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies Conference (GHGT-17)
Both carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) are methods to limit future global temperature rise and ocean acidification. CCS sequesters (stores) carbon dioxide (CO2) captured from industrial sources thereby preventing the CO2 from reaching the atmosphere. The captured CO2 is injected into underground geologic reservoirs or...
The ghost plume phenomenon and its impact on zenith-facing remote sensing measurements of volcanic SO2 emission rates
D.S. Kushner, T.M. Lopez, Christoph Kern, Santiago Arellano, Nemesio M. Perez, J Barrancos
2025, Journal of Volcanology and Goethermal Research (457)
A large source of error in SO2 emission rates derived from mobile Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS) of volcanic gas plumes is the uncertainty in atmospheric light paths between the sun and the instrument, particularly under non-ideal atmospheric conditions, such as the presence of low clouds. DOAS instruments measure the SO2 column...
Population increases of the threatened American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus) linked to large-scale collaborations in a working lands ecoregion
Caleb Powell Roberts, Alison K. Ludwig, Dillon T. Fogarty, Erica Francis Stuber, Daniel R. Uden, Thomas L. Walker Jr., Dirac Twidwell
2025, Biological Conservation (301)
Woody plant encroachment and row-crop agricultural land conversion are existential threats to species that rely on grassland ecosystems. The American Burying Beetle (Nicrophorus americanus) is a threatened species whose largest remnant populations are predominantly located in grassland ecoregions comprised of privately-owned ranching lands. Here, we seek to determine functional scaling...
A hierarchical model for eDNA fate and transport dynamics accommodating low concentration samples
Ben Augustine, Patrick Ross Hutchins, Devin Nicole Jones-Slobodian, Jacob R. Williams, Eric Leinonen, Adam Sepulveda
2025, Environmental and Ecological Statistics (32) 21-56
Environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling is an increasingly important tool for answering ecological questions and informing aquatic species management; however, several factors currently limit the reliability of ecological inference from eDNA sampling. Two particular challenges are (1) determining species source location(s) and (2) accurately and precisely measuring low concentration eDNA samples...
Ecological and social drivers of Mexican wolf home range size across spatiotemporal scales
Evelyn Lichwa-Schneringer, James W. Cain III, Ho Yi Wan, Genevieve Fuller, Cyrenea Millberry, Micaela Szykman Gunther
2025, Journal of Mammology (106) 105-117
Elucidating factors influencing home range size is fundamental to the ecology and management of wildlife species, particularly those of conservation concern, because they can provide insight into how species utilize and interact with their environment. Variation in home range size can be related to intraspecific competition and social organization, energetic...
Declining ecological resilience and invasion resistance under climate change in the sagebrush region, United States
Daniel Rodolphe Schlaepfer, Jeanne C. Chambers, Alexandra K. Urza, Brice B. Hanberry, Jessi L. Brown, David I. Board, Steven B. Campbell, Karen J. Clause, Michele R. Crist, John B. Bradford
2025, Ecological Applications (35)
In water-limited dryland ecosystems of the Western United States, climate change is intensifying the impacts of heat, drought, and wildfire. Disturbances often lead to increased abundance of invasive species, in part, because dryland restoration and rehabilitation are inhibited by limited moisture and infrequent plant recruitment events. Information on ecological resilience...
High variability of migration strategies in a re-established Cygnus buccinator (Trumpeter Swan) population
David W. Wolfson, Randall T. Knapik, Anna Buckardt Thomas, Tyler M. Harms, Laura Kearns, Brian W. Kiss, Timothy F. Poole, Drew Nathan Fowler, Taylor A. Finger, Sumner W. Matteson, John J. Moriarty, Tiffany Mayo, Margaret Smith, Christine M. Herwig, David E. Andersen, John R. Fieberg
2025, Ornithology (142)
The Interior Population (IP) of Cygnus buccinator (Trumpeter Swan), formerly extirpated by market hunting, was re-established in eastern North America by releasing individuals from both migratory and non-migratory populations. Their current annual movement patterns are largely unknown. We deployed 113 GPS-GSM transmitters on IP C. buccinator in 6 U.S. states and 1 Canadian province...
Projections of multiple climate-related coastal hazards for the US Southeast Atlantic
Patrick L. Barnard, Kevin M. Befus, Jeffrey J. Danielson, Anita C Engelstad, Li H. Erikson, Amy C. Foxgrover, Maya Kumari Hayden, Daniel J. Hoover, Tim Leijnse, Chris Massey, Robert T. McCall, Norberto Nadal-Caraballo, Kees Nederhoff, Andrea C. O'Neill, Kai Alexander Parker, Manoochehr Shirzaei, Leonard O. Ohenhen, Peter W Swarzenski, Jennifer Anne Thomas, Maarten van Ormondt, Sean Vitousek, Killian Vos, Nathan J. Wood, Jeanne M. Jones, Jamie Jones
2025, Nature Climate Change (15) 101-109
Faced with accelerating sea level rise and changing ocean storm conditions, coastal communities require comprehensive assessments of climate-driven hazard impacts to inform adaptation measures. Previous studies have focused on flooding but rarely on other climate-related coastal hazards, such as subsidence, beach erosion and groundwater. Here, we project societal exposure to...
A transferable approach for quantifying benthic fish sizes and densities in annotated underwater images
Peter C. Esselman, Shadi Moradi, Joseph K. Geisz, Christopher Roussi
2025, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (16) 145-159
1. Benthic fishes are a common target of scientific monitoring but are difficult to quantify because of their close association to bottom habitats that are hard to access. Advances in image-acquisition technologies, machine vision, and deep learning have made capturing and quantifying fishes with cameras increasingly feasible. We present a...
Resource selection of the southern fox squirrel (Sciurus niger niger) in the coastal plain of Virginia
Marissa H. Guill, Jesse L. De La Cruz, K. Marc Puckett, W. Mark Ford
2025, Virginia Journal of Science (75)
The southern fox squirrel (Sciurus niger niger) is a subspecies of fox squirrel that ranges from southeastern Virginia to northern Florida. Throughout its Southeastern range, southern fox squirrel habitat of natural mixed pine-hardwood forests has been fragmented by agriculture and short-rotation pine plantations. In Virginia, remaining habitat has been transformed...
Evaluation of a carbon dioxide fish barrier through numerical modelling
Marcela Politano, Aaron R. Cupp, David Smith, Avery Schemmel, P. Ryan Jackson, Jeff Zuercher
2025, Meccanica (60) 1545-1560
The Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS) is a potential route for the migration of aquatic invasive species from the Mississippi River Basin into the Great Lakes. Electric dispersal barriers were installed in the Chicago Sanitary Ship Canal, within CAWS, to prevent invasive fish from reaching the Great Lakes. Despite the...
A ‘how-to’ guide for estimating animal diel activity using hierarchical models
Fabiola Iannarilli, Brian Daniel Gerber, John Erb, John R. Fieberg
2025, Journal of Animal Ecology (94) 182-194
Animal diel activity patterns can aid understanding of (a) how species behaviourally adapt to anthropogenic and natural disturbances, (b) mechanisms of species co-existence through temporal partitioning, and (c) community or ecosystem effects of diel activity shifts.Activity patterns often vary spatially, a feature ignored by the kernel density estimators (KDEs)...
Advancing at-risk species recovery planning in an era of rapid ecological change with a transparent, flexible, and expert-engaged approach
Lucas Fortini, Christina Leopold, Fred Amidon, Devin Leopold, Scott Fretz, James D. Jacobi, Loyal Mehrhoff, Jonathan Price, Fern Duval, Matthew Kier, Hank Oppenheimer, Lauren Weisenburger, Robert Sutter
2025, Conservation Biology (39)
In the face of unprecedented ecological changes, the conservation community needs strategies to recover species at risk of extinction. On the Island of Maui, we collaborated with species experts and managers to assist with climate-resilient recovery planning for 36 at-risk native plant species by identifying priority areas for the management...
Species diversity links land consolidation to rodent disease
Claire Stewart Teitelbaum
2025, Nature Ecology & Evolution (9) 17-18
Four decades of data on rodent species composition and hantavirus prevalence across a changing urban–agricultural landscape demonstrate that long-term data are key for understanding links between biodiversity loss and disease dynamics...
On algorithmically determined versus traditional macroseismic intensity assignments
Susan E. Hough
2025, Seismological Research Letters (96) 1875-1885
The utility of macroseismic data, defined as the effects of earthquakes on humans and the built environment, has been increasingly recognized following the advent of online systems that now produce unprecedented volumes of macroseismic intensity information. Contributed reports from the U.S. Geological Survey “Did You Feel It?” (DYFI) system (<a...
